Community Policing and Governance

This paper discusses community policing as a concept, the legislative background to community policing in South Africa, as well as the role of civil society, the provincial government and local government in community policing. The paper argues that the implementation of community policing in South Africa has given rise to a set of new social and political relationships at all levels of society. Moreover, the social context in which community policing occurs has had a major impact on the nature of these relationships, particularly in regard to the role of civil society in the process of transforming societal institutions.