Building research evidence that works for policing

This policy brief argues that there is a critical lack of evidence demonstrating that policing activities in South Africa actually reduce crime or improve public safety. It advocates for the adoption of evidence-based policing (EBP), which uses rigorous research and causal analysis to determine which specific police interventions work, rather than relying on common sense or tradition.

• There is a significant lack of evidence proving that policing in South Africa effectively reduces crime or enhances feelings of safety, meaning the link between police actions and outcomes like community satisfaction or fear of crime has not been competently demonstrated.
• A rapid evidence review of thousands of research papers and 140 full texts found only five papers that evaluated whether South African Police Service (SAPS) activities worked; three of these focused specifically on firearms regulation, and none addressed community perceptions of crime or satisfaction with policing.
• While the South African Police Service (SAPS) possesses a performance management system capable of collecting large amounts of data, this system is not used to rigorously determine the actual impact of policing activities.
• Evidence-based policing (EBP) focuses on causation—determining if a specific action is responsible for a specific outcome—and requires structured observations of the real world to test opinions and prove efficacy beyond reasonable doubt.
• Rigorous EBP research does not exclusively require randomised control trials (RCTs), which are rare in middle-income, high-violence environments; instead, it can utilize various methods of documented observation that establish a logical and empirical link between a difference in policing activity and a difference in outcomes.
• South Africa is well-positioned to develop EBP because it has an established policing research community, a national police service providing a single entry point for partnerships, and a strategic vision for using research.
• To identify effective interventions, South Africa should look for lessons from similar environments, specifically other middle-income democracies experiencing high rates of violent crime, rather than relying on research from high-income countries with low violence.

APA

Kriegler, A. (2021). Building research evidence that works for policing. Institute for Security Studies. https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/policybrief158.pdf

Chicago

Kriegler, Anine. Building research evidence that works for policing. Institute for Security Studies, 2021. https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/policybrief158.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Kriegler |first1=Anine |title=Building research evidence that works for policing |publisher=Institute for Security Studies |date=2021 |url=https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/policybrief158.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{kriegler2021building, author = {Kriegler, Anine}, title = {{Building research evidence that works for policing}}, institution = {Institute for Security Studies}, year = {2021}, url = {https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/policybrief158.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }