ISS

Evidence-Based Policing SA Conference 2025: how to achieve measurable change

This year’s conference focuses on pressing, high-impact topics that can directly improve policing.

The question of how to improve policing in South Africa isn’t new – but the pressure to deliver positive change is sharper than ever. How can real, measurable, systemic improvements be achieved? And what would an evidence-based approach that learns from experience look like?

The 2025 Evidence-Based Policing South Africa Conference is about making that shift. It will focus on a few urgent, high-impact topics. Each session brings together speakers with operational experience, decision-making authority or research expertise to tackle real policing problems and weigh credible options.

The conference aims to:

  • Promote evidence-informed deliberation on key policing challenges
  • Foster collaboration across agencies and sectors
  • Translate lessons from research and evidence into sustainable practice 

Six panel discussions will tackle these pressing issues:

  • Identifying next steps to measurably improve police effectiveness
  • Enhancing police oversight and accountability
  • Embedding and institutionalising evidence-based policing
  • Making multilevel cooperation work
  • Integrating criminal justice system responses to organised crime
  • Reducing firearm violence

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Please note: in-person registrations are closed.

Development partners
This conference is funded by the Bavarian State Chancellery and the Hanns Seidel Foundation. The ISS is also grateful for support from the members of the ISS Partnership Forum: the Hanns Seidel Foundation, the European Union, the Open Society Foundations and the governments of Denmark, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden.
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