The simple truth is that the police do not prevent crime, and some researchers even refer to this responsibility (of the police) as an "impossible mandate". The most obvious reason for this paradigm is the confusion between the short term activities of the police (proactive policing) which contribute to crime prevention, and crime prevention itself which refers to medium and longer term activities outside the control of the police.

This book, therefore, is an attempt to put crime combating, crime prevention and policing in perspective, and to place it within the broader South African national strategic environment. In doing so it endeavours to explain why the 1829 dictum of Sir Robert Peel, that the basic mission of the police is to prevent crime, can no longer be valid.