By law, a Community Police Forum must have specific aims. Section 18 of the SAPS Act No. 68 of I995 tells us what these aims are. A Forum can also add more aims if its members agree to it. All the aims must be in the constitution of the Forum so that everybody can see them. For example, in Section 3 of the Sample Constitution for CPF we suggest that a Forum has to:
- help the police service and the local community to work together
- make the police and the community partners against crime
- identify and solve problems to do with crime, disorder, fears and poor service by the police
- improve communication and relations between the police and the community
- find ways to make the police service transparent and accountable
- encourage the media to be fair when they tell people about police actions
- promote respect for human rights
- work together with other institutions in the local community
- track the police service, including complaints, charges, visits to cells and patrolling
- help different cultural groups to understand each other
- act in a mature and polite way when working with the police