The role of police and civil society in combating cross-border stock theft
Date
2013-08-29
Authors
Rafolatsane, Api
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Abstract
Stock theft is a national crisis in, across and throughout Lesotho. This fact
has led the Lesotho Mounted Police Service to place stock theft
management under the serious crimes unit. In the mid-1990s stock theft
reached epidemic proportions in the southern district adjoining the
Eastern Cape Province of the Republic of South Africa. This problem still
persists and has lately turned very violent and deadly in the Qachas’nek
District. However, the Quthing district has seen a relative decrease in the
rate of stock theft in the mid-2000s.
The purpose of this study was to investigate the factors and strategies used
in both Quthing and Qachas’nek districts to curb cross border stock theft.
These factors and strategies are then compared to establish why crossborder
stock theft is decreasing in Quthing while it escalates in
Qachas’nek.
The main finding of the research is that the Quthing community adopted
the strategy of community policing and were trained on crime prevention
while the opposite is true in the Qachas’nek district. A community policing
strategy has not been adopted in Qachas’nek. It has also been established
that training in community policing and crime prevention has to be offered
to police officers and the members of crime prevention committee
members. Lastly, the study revealed that laws governing stock theft have to
be amended and the crime prevention committees should be better
empowered
Description
Thesis (M.M. (Security))--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, Graduate School of Public and Development Management, 2013.
Keywords
Cattle stealing, Lesotho, Community policing, Crime prevention