The role of police and civil society in combating cross-border stock theft

• Main Author: Rafolatsane, Api
• Format: Others
• Language: en
• Published: 2013
• Subjects: Cattle stealing; Lesotho; Community policing; Crime prevention
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10539/13110

Thesis (M.M. (Security))--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, Graduate School of Public and Development Management, 2013. === 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