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INVASION
Tafelberg
ISBN 978-0-624-04874-9
4 A violent invasion 54
7 Willing admissions 99
8 Crime intelligence –
what are the police doing? 120
Endnotes 168
Bibliography 178
Further reading 183
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This book has been published in collaboration with the Crime and
Justice Programme of the Institute. The Programme is a policy re-
search unit that works to inform and influence policy and public
discourse on crime, its prevention and criminal justice. It does so
by conducting research, analysing policy, disseminating informa-
tion and providing expertise as a contribution towards a safer and
secure society. This important research by Rudolph Zinn was iden-
tified as supportive of the Programme’s vision, as described above.
The Programme believes that the results of the research should be
made available to all in South Africa who can use this knowledge to
ensure a safer society.
www.issafrica.org
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Drive through any city in South Africa and you cannot help
noticing the vast array of signs proclaiming alarm systems
and armed patrols, together with the rampart-like walls, the
electrified fences and lights, and the snarling guard dog signs
– all attesting to a nation battling to cope with a very high rate
of violent crime.
People in their homes ought to have greater control over
their lives than they do anywhere else, but in South Africa
most people do not feel safe at home. Unlike burglaries, in
which goods are stolen while no one is present, house rob-
beries – as the term is defined by the South African Police
Service (SAPS) – are deliberately planned to take place when
residents are home. This form of intrusion is in many ways
more traumatic than any other type of crime. It shatters the
sense of privacy, control and security that people should feel
in their own homes.
Official police service statistics show that in the majority
of South African house robbery cases the victims are over-
powered and threatened with violence.1 In some robberies
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South Africa’s high crime rate places the police service under
tremendous daily pressure as police officers attend to large
volumes of complaints and investigate many crime scenes.
There is further pressure from the demands of the public and
the media, who expect the police to ‘do something’ about the
high crime rate. The weight of expectations, the low levels of
support for the police, and the unprecedented crime levels
have resulted in the perpetuation of a policing style that re-
mains largely reactive, and aspires to uphold law and order at
any cost. This means that planning and response are at best ad
hoc and the approach tends to be one of crisis management.
Investigating high numbers of crimes makes excessive de-
mands on crime investigators. They first have to determine
whether a crime has in fact been committed, then they must
establish the identity of the suspects, and then prove that their
actions were illegal and criminal. Clearly the investigator
must be in a position to make use of every potential source
of information that could shed light on the case.16 To enable
follow-through on any criminal act, information relating to
the crime needs to be properly collected, recorded, collated,
analysed, interpreted, verified and processed so that it is us-
able as crime intelligence.
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