Context

South Africa has a significant problem when it comes to gun$-$related violence.

An important part of the problem relates to the smuggling of confiscated guns from police custody to organised criminal elements. These guns are then used to further criminal activity of various kinds. As a related matter, government is exposed to civil liabilityLinks to an external site. for any crimes perpetrated by weapons that were meant to be police custody.

The consequence of these failures are:

increased levels of gun violence;

increased incentives for private ownership of guns for personal protection;

increased theft of guns used for personal protection; and

increased corruption of public officials responsible for the supervision of weapons in police custody.

Assignment

To address this problem, Government has initiated a policy process to develop and implement a strategy that can ensure that guns in police custody remain in custody and$/$or are officially destroyed.

The objective is to manage down the availability of guns in the hands of the public and criminals.

You form part of a task team established to develop and implement policy framework that is able to achieve the objective.

Your specific task is to develop the first draft of such a framework.

In developing this framework, you will need to accept that this is a complex policy problem that is not susceptible to simple quick$-$fix solutions. The policy framework may, for instance, encounter resistance from various stakeholders, non$-$compliance from various role$-$players, the absence of control systems and vulnerabilities that may not be immediately evident.

Your framework should therefore address the following:

the central elements of a policy framework to manage the illegal distribution of guns in policy custody;

the relevant features of the policy cycle that need to be engaged with; and

approaches to policy adoption and evaluation that can allow for policy adaptation over time $($to address the unknowns$).$

Please note, in formulating your assignment you are not expected to be an expert in gun control. Your are, however, expected to demonstrate an understanding of the core elements of policy development and implementation that improve, rather than worsen, the chances of policy success. To this end, familiarity with the module material is essential. This material should be prioritised before consideration is given to external sources. It is also important to note that this is a summative assignment and is meant to test your understanding and ability to apply the material provided in all the module units. The assignment question is sufficiently open$-$ended to permit you to bring in a broad spectrum of the module material.