South Africa's mineral wealth is known around the world, as is the diversity and richness of its cultures and the attraction of its major landmarks, including cities such as Cape Town and Johannesburg, both of which featured as ‘major cities with the highest quality of life in the world’ during a recent survey. These are some of the many drivers that attract over 10 million visitors to the shores annually.

Unfortunately, some see another side to life, and death, in South Africa, in terms of its crime rate – notably including over 50 murders a day according to the most recent crime statistics. This alone presents a mammoth task for the countries public and private security practitioners to identify, analyse and evaluate such rich data, or ‘big data’ as it is now known, to enable them to make meaningful interventions to protect life and property.

In this book, Professor Govender has identified the need for effective security information management, with the emphasis on the term information, as opposed to the often-misused term intelligence. Google Dictionary differentiates the two terms as: “Information – facts provided or learned about something or someone” and “Intelligence – the collection of information of military or political value.” It goes without saying that information is considered the core ingredient of intelligence and so requires effective management and processing to be of real value.

Bringing attention to the need for a structured approach to information management, as an essential tool in the kitbag of all security professionals, Professor Govender's model is something to be applauded and highly recommended throughout both private and public sectors. If applied consistently and effectively, this must ultimately lead to an improvement in information-sharing between stakeholders and intelligence-led interventions to reduce incidents of crime and the effects of them.

The security information management model (SIMM) developed is based upon his extensive personal experience as a senior police officer in South Africa and leading academic with research across the globe. This research was most notably in South Africa and Australia, but has significant references to other models such as the USA's Compstat and UK's intelligence-led approach to policing and the National Intelligence Model (NIM), essentially information management systems that I am more familiar with as a retired London detective!

Having relocated to South Africa and moved into the private security sector, I have all too often heard people rave about a practice in such and such a country that they have tried to implement locally, only to see it fail to produce the expected results.