Regulating Ourselves Into Insecurity: Why the PSIRA Draft Regulations Are a Misfire

PSIRA draft regulations fail miserably. They are punitive where they should be enabling. They are theoretical where they should be practical. And they are political where they should be urgent.

Photo by ev on Unsplash

Written by: Reuben Coetzer

At a time, more prevalent than ever before, when violent crime grips South Africa with increasing ferocity, where gender-based violence festers in silence and gang warfare turns congested neighbourhoods into battlegrounds the state’s most decisive move is not to strengthen policing or empower communities, but to hamstring the very sector that has stepped in and stepped up where government has long faltered. The proposed amendments to the Private Security Industry Regulations threaten to disarm and disorient the private security industry, crippling the one force that still arrives when the sirens don’t. It is a policy move as ill-timed as it is ill-considered - precisely when South Africans need more protection, not less, leaving many to wonder what is the real motive behind these proposed regulations.

If there is a governing philosophy behind these draft regulations, it is a kind of anxious centralisation. A belief that security must be controlled from the top, even when those at the top no longer have the means, resources or trust required to wield that control. The amendments, cloaked in the language of oversight and professionalism, are in fact a lurch toward bureaucratic control over an industry that has become indispensable to public safety. But the danger lies not just in the details. It lies in the worldview they reflect.

The Security State Without Security

The Private Security Industry Regulatory Authority (PSIRA) draft regulations are as revealing as they are alarming. Consider just a few of the provisions: a ban on semi-automatic rifles for tactical teams, restrictions on ammunition capped only by the undefined standard of “reasonableness” without further elaboration on what exactly “reasonableness” entails, a prohibition on crowd-control tools such as rubber bullets and water cannons, and an obligation to equip firearms with tracking devices that do not meaningfully exist.

Individually, these proposals might be dismissed as administrative overreach. Together, they form a kind of regulatory pincer movement, one that threatens to paralyze a sector already carrying far more than its share of the security burden. This isn’t just tinkering with the rules. It’s a slow suffocation, but to what end exactly?

The private security industry is no fringe player when it comes to safety in South Africa. With over 580 000 active officers, more than the police and military combined, the sector is not simply a private alternative to SAPS, it is, in many South-African communities, the only reliable presence and sometimes the only line of defence against the rampant violence plaguing our communities. It fills the vacuum left by state retreat and dysfunction. And these new regulations threaten to widen that vacuum even further.

The Culture of Mistrust

What animates this move? There is a persistent suspicion, particularly amongst state actors and progressive policy circles, that private security is inherently unaccountable, dangerously commercial, and perhaps ideologically tainted. It is, to them, the security of privilege. But this is a caricature, not a reality. Private security is no longer the preserve of gated estates and office parks. It is the watchful presence in townships, the rapid responder to domestic violence calls, and the contracted protector of municipal infrastructure. It is what the state has ceased to be, namely present.

This ideological mistrust of decentralised safety solutions speaks to a much bigger, fundamental fear amongst those in government, the fear of losing control. There’s an unspoken panic in the national sphere of government, that power is slipping, from the centre to the edges, into the hands of provinces, municipalities, private actors and citizens. These draft regulations are an effort to reel it back in and seize control. But this impulse to centralise, without first earning the legitimacy or capacity to do so, is both dangerous and counterproductive.

Oversight Without Delivery

There’s a recurring theme in the South African governance landscape, what one might call “oversight theatre.” When government delivery fails, create more rules. When institutions collapse, double down on control. But control without competence is a hollow exercise, doomed to fail. These regulations fall neatly into that well-established pattern.

Take the proposal for firearm tracking devices for example. It reads like a solution plucked from a Silicon Valley pitch deck - technologically ambitious, practically impossible, and utterly disconnected from real-world enforcement realities. It also raises privacy concerns that no one seems interested in discussing. What kind of data would be stored? Who would access it? Under what safeguards? These questions are waved away with the vague assurance of “future implementation.”

In the meantime, legitimate firms are asked to comply with standards they cannot meet, policed by an authority that lacks the capacity to enforce them consistently. It is the worst of all worlds. The illusion of safety, with none of the substance.

Undermining Local Safety Ecosystems

Perhaps the most damaging aspect of these regulations is the way they undermine decentralised safety ecosystems. Across the country, municipalities and provincial governments have turned to private security providers not because they want to, but because they must. The Western Cape, for example, has built a layered safety strategy through LEAP officers, metro police, and contracted private security, precisely because SAPS is absent or ineffective in key areas to produce adequate results.

In a functioning federation, this would be seen as a creative, necessary response to a deepening national crisis. Instead, it is treated with suspicion by a central government that resents being made redundant and refuses to embrace any form of public-private partnerships and collaboration. But crime, as anyone in Mitchells Plain or Eldorado Park can tell you, doesn’t wait for national consensus. It needs to be confronted where it happens, at the source, by whoever is best positioned to do so. And increasingly, that is not the SAPS.

By imposing blanket rules from Pretoria, out of touch with the local realities, the regulations flatten the very local nuance that makes these decentralised systems work. They criminalise adaptation. They punish responsiveness.

Intimate Crimes, Immediate Risks

Nowhere is this more dangerous than in the realm of intimate partner violence and GBV. Private security companies are often the first responders to distress calls, arriving faster than SAPS, with fewer procedural delays, and in many cases offering victims their only real chance of protection or escape.

Limiting the tools these firms can use, or threatening their viability through vague compliance traps, doesn’t just weaken institutional efficiency but it endangers lives. Women facing abuse don’t care who shows up first. They care that someone does, their safety depends on it. And they care that someone is equipped to help regardless of who their employer is.

PSIRA has attempted to justify these draft regulations focusing on the importance of democratic processes and regulatory oversight, but it understates the real and immediate risks these draft regulations pose to public safety, particularly in areas where private security fills the void left by an overstretched, ill-equipped and often ineffective police service. The issue is not whether regulation is necessary, but whether these specific measures are proportionate, practical, and responsive to South Africa’s security crisis. Limiting tactical capacity, imposing vague compliance burdens, and introducing unworkable technologies may satisfy bureaucratic impulses, but they threaten to dismantle one of the few functioning safety mechanisms in the country. True democracy in action must balance public input with real-world consequences and that includes listening to the communities who rely on private security not as a luxury, but as a lifeline. Regulation should be merited, punish rogue security companies who actually threaten safety and the enforcement thereof. But don’t cripple the security companies who are vital in the effort to maintain law and order in our neighbourhoods.

Conclusion

This is not an argument against regulation. Every security provider should be subject to oversight where justified oversight is needed. But regulation must be fit for purpose, rooted in local context, and guided by one simple question, namely does this make people safer?

By that standard, the PSIRA draft regulations fail and fail miserably. They are punitive where they should be enabling. They are theoretical where they should be practical. And they are political where they should be urgent.

If the government truly believes in a safer South Africa, it must stop punishing those who are already doing the work. Instead of tightening the screws on the few systems that still function, it should be building partnerships, devolving power, and empowering and equipping communities to take charge of their own safety.

Because here’s the truth: in today’s South Africa, decentralisation isn’t a choice. It’s the only thing that’s working. And these regulations, if left unchallenged, might regulate us right out of the last ounce of security we have left.

Make your voice heard - you can object to the regulations here.

Reuben Coetzer is the Spokesperson for Free SA (Foundation for Rights of Equality and Expression)