On 26 February 2007, the Gauteng Department of Community Safety convened a "Crime Sector Summit for NGOs and Civil Society". Civil  society organisation were urged to ‘take charge' of crime and assist this beleaguered provincial department to tackle the crime wave that has hit the province.

The Gauteng Department of Community Safety met with approximately 25 civil society organisations to discuss the possibility of forming partnerships in the fight against crime.

On the 30th of August 2006, the Gauteng Provincial government adopted the Gauteng Provincial Safety Strategy,  which provides a comprehensive framework for dedicated action against serious and violent crime in the province. One of the four pillars upon which the strategy is founded, is community participation in the fight against crimes.
 
Speaking at the summit, Gareth Newham of the Department of Community Safety stated that on a daily basis, 18 000 criminal cases are opened in the Gauteng province. These figures reinforce the feelings of insecurity and vulnerability experienced by 60% of Gauteng's population.  The key argument put forward at this conference is that crime is no longer a problem to be tackled and rectified by government alone, but rather, that it is a community issue. Dumisani Ngema from the Department of Community Safety states, "We must unite communities to see crime as a common problem." 

At the end of March 2007, the Department of Community Safety is set to launch the 'Take Charge Campaign' which they hope will also be the launch of a social movement. Leading up to the launch, the department will hold summits with civil society organisations, labour and the corporate sector to rally the different sectors around the all consuming issue of crime and to urge these different sectors to take ownership of the Take Charge Campaign and the social movement that accompanies it.

The Department of Community Safety identifies itself as the catalyst for the social movement and not as the actual driving force behind the movement – that will be left in the hands of civil society and other public sectors." We do not want this to be a government campaign but rather a grassroots campaign," Ngema continues to say that the department hopes to have a limited role to play with the movement, outside of the initiating stage, and hopes to see the social movement run by people on the ground. 

Amanda Dissel, Programme Manager of the Criminal Justice Programme for the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation (CSVR), raised concerns around the development of a social movement  in light of the South African government's historic tendencies to repress social movements.

Other civil society groups represented at the summit also raised a few eyebrows when the word 'facilitate' was branded about quite vigorously by the department.  An important question raised was to what extent civil society could actually ‘take ownership' of the campaign and the movement itself. The bothersome issue that resonated for all civil society representatives was whether the sector would end up acting as a rubber stamp for work initiated by the provincial department.

Although the NGO representatives at this conference acknowledged the magnitude of the crime problem and the need to work with a variety of partners to overcome the problem, the overall sentiment was one of caution.

– Badumile Duma, Civil Society Information Coordinator, SANGONeT.