Botswana Country Report-Annex-4 4Th Interim Techical Report
PROMOTING PARTNERSHIPS FOR CRIMEPREVENTION BETWEEN THE STATE AND PRIVATE SECURITY PROVIDERS IN BOTSWANA BY MPHO MOLOMO AND ZIBANI MAUNDENI Introduction Botswana stands out as the only African country to have sustained an unbroken record of liberal democracy and political stability since independence. The country has been dubbed the ‘African Miracle’ (Thumberg Hartland, 1978; Samatar, 1999). It is widely regarded as a success story arising from its exploitation and utilisation of natural resources, establishing a strong state, institutional and administrative capacity, prudent macro-economic stability and strong political leadership. These attributes, together with the careful blending of traditional and modern institutions have afforded Botswana a rare opportunity of political stability in the Africa region characterised by political and social strife. The expectation is that the economic growth will bring about development and security. However, a critical analysis of Botswana’s development trajectory indicates that the country’s prosperity has it attendant problems of poverty, unemployment, inequalities and crime. Historically crime prevention was a preserve of the state using state security agencies as the police, military, prisons and other state apparatus, such as, the courts and laws. However, since the late 1980s with the expanded definition of security from the narrow static conception to include human security, it has become apparent that state agencies alone cannot combat the rising levels of crime. The police in recognising that alone they cannot cope with the crime levels have been innovative and embarked on other models of public policing, such as, community policing as a public society partnership to combat crime. To further cater for the huge demand on policing, other actors, which are non-state actors; in particular private security firms have come in, especially in the urban market and occupy a special niche to provide a service to those who can afford to pay for it.
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