South Africa's police minister, Fikile Mbalula, has stirred controversy by calling for the involvement of the country's military in fighting crime. Although there might be short term gains from deploying the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) in crime-ridden urban areas of the country, there are several reasons why it should be discouraged.

An obvious reason is that, tactically, militaries are not trained to do community protection and fighting crime in urban communities. They aren't taught and trained how to apply police and law enforcement rules when it comes to the use of minimum force, or how to follow the proper procedures during an arrest.

...