The South African government has relinquished its monopoly on maintaining law and order
By Ernst van Zyl, Head of Public Relations at AfriForum
The German sociologist Max Weber defined the state as a political institution that holds a monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force to successfully maintain law and order within a given area. This cornerstone of an orderly society is showing serious cracks in the South African context, but these are increasingly being filled by a variety of non-state actors.
Over the past 30 years, a clear power vacuum has emerged as the ANC-led government’s capacity has deteriorated in numerous ways. This includes, among other, poor service delivery, inadequate infrastructure maintenance, unreliable electricity and water supply, as well as ineffective crime prevention.
The South African Police Service (SAPS) is simply no longer able to fulfil its constitutional mandate and primary function effectively. According to an audit conducted by the Democratic Alliance (DA) this year, only 44% of the 1 025 police stations whose official telephone numbers were tested answered their phones.
In 2023, the Minister of Police confirmed that more than 6.3 million calls to the SAPS’s 10111 emergency call centres had gone unanswered during the preceding three financial years. This amounts to more than 5 700 unanswered calls every day.
Only three sectors possess the resources and organisational capacity to fill the vacuum left by the state’s decline: the private sector, organised communities and organised crime. It is therefore no surprise that all three are currently flourishing in South Africa.
The growing power and sophistication of organised crime under ANC rule has been well documented. South Africa currently ranks seventh out of 193 UN member states in the Global Organized Crime Index, compiled by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime. In 2026, President Cyril Ramaphosa stated: “Organised crime is now the most immediate threat to our democracy, our society and our economic development.” For some, the distorted order imposed by organised crime in the communities where it dominates has become the best – and sometimes the only – available alternative. This typically takes the form of extortion through so-called protection payments, which are often seen as preferable to the complete lawlessness and anarchy brought about by state failure.
No industry illustrates the private sector’s response to South Africa’s state decline better than the private security industry. Over the past three decades, this sector has grown in size, innovation, complexity and competitiveness to become one of the world’s leading private security industries. Since 1997 – when only around 115 000 registered security officers were active in the industry – the number of security officers has grown by more than 400%. By the 2024/25 financial year, more than 637 000 security officers were registered and actively employed in the industry. Over the same period, the number of registered private security companies has increased by more than 110% since the 2013/14 financial year. South Africa now has almost twice as many private security personnel as the combined personnel strength of the SAPS and the South African National Defence Force.
South Africa’s policing capacity has declined so dramatically that, during nationwide protests against illegal immigration in June this year, the police were compelled to call upon the assistance and resources of private security companies to help maintain law and order.
The final non-state sector to have made significant advances in maintaining law and order in recent years is community safety structures. Since 2012, the civil rights organisation AfriForum has established 177 neighbourhood and farm watches, whose members patrol thousands of kilometres every month – at their own expense and risk – and achieve remarkable successes on an almost a weekly basis. A recent example was when AfriForum’s Noord van die berg neighbourhood watch played a critical role in rescuing two kidnapping victims within 98 minutes and apprehending the suspects.
AfriForum has also trained more than 500 members of its proto-team members nationwide in tactical rural safety response, coordinated responses to organised violent attacks, observation techniques, radio communication, crime scene management and emergency procedures.
In addition, modern technology has become an extraordinary force multiplier in the fight against crime. AfriForum’s community safety structures now operate 48 drones, make use of hundreds of security cameras and manage one of the country’s largest independent radio communication networks. Given the obvious decline in policing capacity, particularly in rural areas, the reduction in farm murders in recent years cannot reasonably be attributed to government action. Rather, it is largely the result of improved farm security and the continued growth and strengthening of private and community-based safety structures in rural South Africa.
These facts therefore support the conclusion that the South African government no longer holds a monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force to maintain law and order. Over the past three decades, the ANC-led government has effectively downgraded itself and now constitutes merely one partner among many in a multi-stakeholder security environment combating crime.
In a country with one of the world’s largest and most competitive private security industries and one of the fastest-growing community safety movements, the government has only two options available in the fight against crime for the foreseeable future: cooperate or struggle alone.
