Volume 8, Number 4

Action Learning for Crime Prevention: Implications for Community Safety

  Authors

Nomazulu Ngozwana, Lindiwe Ngcobo and David Jele, University of Eswatini, Eswatini

  Abstract

Crime prevention is everyone’s responsibility – law enforcement officers, community members, social groups, businesses and governments who all need to be sensitized about prevention strategies for ensuring community safety. Interpretive paradigm was used within a qualitative research approach. We adopted a descriptive research design. A semi-structured interview guide was used to collect data from all the participants that were purposively chosen. Six crime prevention officers, that were selected using snowball sampling, were individually interviewed. Data were further collected from twenty-eight members of community policing forums in three focus group discussions and six members of the inner council in the fourth focus group discussion. Qualitative thematic analysis was used. The findings revealed that some community policing forum members abused their skills and knowledge to commit crime than fight it. The findings demonstrated that community policing is effective in reducing crime. However, it transpired that the forums faced several challenges such as: lack of airtime to make calls, lack of incentives to motivate members, female members experiencing difficulty at night because they were afraid while others were not released by their partners to go to work. Although the community policing forums enhanced social change towards crime in various communities, there are negative implications for women serving as members of the forums.

  Keywords

Action Learning, Crime Prevention, Community Safety, Community Policing, Adult Learning