Remarks by Minister of Police, E.N. Mthethwa, MP at the Consumer Goods Council of South Africa Conference on
"The Impact of Crime on the Economy"
Sandton Sun and Towers Hotel, Gauteng
20 October 2010
Consumer Goods Council of SA Co-Chairmen, Mr Sullivan O'Carroll and Mr Grant Pattison;
Consumer Goods Council of SA CEO, Mr Mncane Mthunzi;
All Members of the Board of the Consumer Goods Council of SA present;
Various CEOs and MDs of major corporations and retail stores present;
All SAPS Lieutenants General present;
Distinguished Guests;
Members of the media;
Ladies and gentlemen;
We want to begin by expressing our appreciation at an invitation to address the 11th Annual Conference of the Consumer Goods Council of South Africa (CGCSA) this morning. The conference theme: "Building Success Together in Changing Time" correctly ties in with government's approach of "Together We Can Do More."
As a matter of fact, for us to be in the presence of such distinguished business minds, is on its own a success on our part. We are confident that as you conclude this conference, you shall have deliberated, debated and formulated various proposals which shall assist all of us in the war on crime.
Working towards winning the war on crime
We appropriately termed this a war against crime because; in the first instance it is the heartless and selfish criminals who declared the war against business, retailers and most importantly against the law-abiding citizens of our country.
We have been requested by the conference organisers to talk about "The Impact of Crime on our Economy" and how business and government can work together to fight crime. Perhaps before we begin to share some of our approaches, we need to caution upfront that our approach as a ministry is not to come to such gatherings as experts who know better than you. Our approach is premised along a philosophy of sharing thoughts, working and achieving together. As such we are "Building Success Together in Changing Time."
A month ago we came before the nation to share the national crime statistics. Immediately after the announcement, we continued criss-crossing the country, engaging various sectors; from researchers, academics, business, communities and today we are excited to engage the retail industry.
Negative crime perceptions - the biggest threat to retail
It is our firm view that crime, if not tackled with viciousness and smartness has the potential to derail our economic prosperity. To state the obvious: crime has a negative impact on the economy. But the biggest challenge is not just to be seen to be doing something - but to actually do something.
Perhaps it is important that we start by just spelling out the fundamental mandate of government when it comes to the safety of society: that all people in South Africa are and feel safe in their homes and work places and so on. For many years, our country was plagued by crime and violence. Whilst government over the years continued to put measures aimed at curbing crime, a perception persisted (correctly or incorrectly) that not enough was done.
Decreases in big businesses (including retail industry)
Two weeks ago, we mentioned that our crime statistics were in many ways corresponding with data gathered from independent sources such as the business sector. We said this indicated our broad appreciation and recognition of the important role of such partners in supporting government to reduce crime; and that we remain optimistic that such relations will grow from strength to strength.
Whilst there may have been increases in non-residential premises, we are further gratified to note that in almost all major business sectors, there has been significant decrease in robberies. This would include the banking sector, cash-in-transits, major retailers notably 25% decline, 11% decline at shopping malls, 51% within the petroleum industries (petrol stations), tourism sector as well as 18% decline for post offices. This is encouraging because these industries had been negatively affected in the past few years.
Proactive and preventative measures by the retail industry
We aware that various retailers have taken preventative measures, better cash management systems as well as utilizing CCTV technologies to safeguard their businesses.
We commend such initiatives because instead of sitting on the sides of the crime fence and throwing unfounded accusations at government, you opted for a strengthening of partnerships with us. As an industry, you brought to the table valuable experiences, expertise which may not have been readily available within the police.
In the main, the point underscores our long-held belief that, fighting crime is not just providing police with ammunitions, firearms and uniforms. It also talks to vital elements such as training, orientation of the cadre of cop we want to attract and have within our midst.
Those who say it cannot be done, must not obstruct those who are doing it
It therefore became apparent that things cannot be done the same old way. Things must be done smarter and faster. Through intensified partnerships, the tide is now turning. More and more South Africans are joining this crusade.
We want to stress a point we have been making since assuming office: we shall fight crime smartly and toughly and have no intentions of being apologetic with this stance. It has to be done and we are here to ensure it is done toughly, but lawfully.
Enhancing a community policing philosophy
Some of the current programmes that we are currently implementing include the finalization of a Community Safety Forum Strategy by the Secretariat of Police. This strategy will outline and contribute to a greater understanding of the role and responsibility of the public in crime combating, building partnerships with civil society and corrections as a societal responsibility (which includes the successful reintegration of offenders in the community).
We have, as noted and informed by the recent crime statistics, intensified police operations across all facets - from the improvement of our forensics to capacitating our detectives and relooking our deployment strategy. We will ensure that successes by the police in dealing with crime and the reduction of various crime forms are effectively communicated to the nation, so that some of these unfounded negative perceptions are turned to positive realities.
Better policing in robberies - decrease in attempted murders
It is also a fact that one of the inhibiting factors against retailers is the issue relating to robberies by armed and dangerous criminals. As pointed out in our crime statistics, significant successes have been achieved against robbers in the last financial year but more still needs to be done.
If police manage to reduce robberies, it becomes logically clear that murders will drop significantly. The same applies to attempted murder, which is to a large degree also associated with robberies. As indicated in the statistics, attempted murder decreased by 6,1% in the 2009/2010 financial year.
It is also disturbing that aggravated robbery, despite being a contact crime itself, is also the second largest generator of other contact crimes because victims are sometimes killed and/or seriously injuring during such robberies.
Police visibility - a deterrent to crime and criminals
All research conducted by our Crime Information Analysis Centre (CIAC), now known as the Crime Research and Statistics component of the Crime Intelligence point to a trend that in the face or rapid economic and population growth, massive urbanization - one of the factors that can lead to crime reduction is through police visibility.
Again this would talk to how, when and where we deploy our resources. We are relooking at ensuring we spread our resources evenly and effectively. It surely does not and will not assist our efforts if we deploy BMW sedans in rural areas which experience some of the road infrastructural challenges. This after all, is a new way of doing things, innovatively and speedily.
High police visibility has resulted in the following impacts: trio crimes have been significantly lowered particularly in the traditional flashpoints of crime and at peak times of occurrence. It also increases the risk run by robbers, for example, decreasing the reaction time of the police or shifting the robbers' operations to areas and time they are not familiar with.
Defeating the crime war - through our war rooms
To thwart these criminal activities head-on, we have introduced provincial centres in some provinces known as War Rooms. In the Western Cape, where these operations were conceptualized and implemented, we have reduced crime significantly and plans are afoot to roll them out nationally.
The most obvious success of the War Rooms is that improved, higher level linkage analysis and profiling of all criminals can be done expeditiously and smarter. This has been of major assistance with regard to provincial assistance to police stations, clustering investigation teams and focusing on crime series (dockets dealing with the same suspects, targets and/or modus operandi).
We urge partners such as CGCSA to look at various ways in terms of utilizing some of your expertise in the War Rooms as we believe it will go a long way in complementing your already-existing operations such as CCTVs at petrol stations, retail shopping centres, etc.
Corrupt police officers have no place in SAPS
We need to point out that as the ministry we are extremely concerned and seriously take each lawsuit case brought against us, whether as a result of police negligence or wrongful arrests. We would rather have police on the ground, fighting crime as opposed to being in court defending themselves for their alleged abuses on innocent civilians.
That is why we repeatedly stated that we shall not tolerate police officers who abuse the law. We have now introduced greater civilian oversight of the police through the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID) and Civilian Secretariat for Police Bills and these two agencies will need to address such abuses.
In addition, I have asked the national commissioner to look into this as a matter of urgency and to identify training needs and where appropriate, disciplinary action. In addition we have recently completed an audit of police officials who are not suitable to hold office and will be making a public statement in the near future regarding this matter.
Mobilizing and directing our resources - right time, right place
The issue of how we mobilize and galvanize the material and attitudinal resources at our disposal, is receiving our highest attention. We need to know our Force even better. We need to know the kind of police officers we have in our midst. Are they committed to fighting crime or committed to promoting crime?
This speaks to the whole transformation of the Force; which can then respond to the needs of society and businesses such as retail shops when under attack or threats of criminals. Such transformation should not be viewed in isolation of other pillars of our strategies that is the strengthening of the partnerships with communities to make life difficult for criminals.
Crime intelligence as a nerve centre in combating crime
We have over the past two years emphasized the important role that crime intelligence needs to play in the fight against crime and the need to rejuvenate our crime intelligence to service all aspects of policing. The success of this approach has been seen in the cooperation that has developed between the detective service, the Hawks and our Crime Intelligence.
In order to improve the provision of crime intelligence products and services various strategies will be implemented. Some of these strategies include the development of better threat assessment and targeting systems, improving network collection by increasing ground coverage as well as focusing on a ‘target approach' of most dangerous and wanted criminals.
Arresting criminals is not enough - convict!
In arresting people who are suppose to be apprehended in our society, during the last financial year we committed ourselves to increase the number to detectives on level 1 to 7 by 19% by the end of the financial year we surpass the target and our growth now stand at 22,4%. This demonstrates the seriousness with which we take the criminal justice system review outcomes.
We also exceeded our target for such cases being referred to court by more than 10% with 43,16% of all contact crime, contact related crimes, property related crimes, and crimes depended on police actions for detection and other serious crimes being referred to court.
Strengthening the CJS to achieve more detection
We have never shied away from a reality that the criminal justice system's value chain that involves police, justice, correctional services, home affairs, etc needs to be strengthened.
We are now focusing more on ensuring the post the arrest phase, that criminals receive the harshest sentence. Police, through doing a good job in the investigations, can influence an outcome of a case. This is what we term the ground work.
We have now set ourselves ambitious results for the next 5 years targeting detection rate of between 43% and 60%. To this end, we are engaging the NPA to develop a performance indicator to assist us in meeting targets related documents.
Tactical Response Team - and arsenal to fighting tough crime
We also have the ‘new kid on the block' the Tactical Response Teams (TRTs), who in the short time of existence have complemented our fight against dangerous criminals who target retail outlets. To that effect the TRTs have been deployed throughout the country to ensure that people and businesses to respond to specific violent crime situations.
TRTs are currently being established in all clusters as well as international airports. Gone are the days when criminals will easily hijack valuable cargo at the airports as this team will always be there to fight them. Since the first team was trained and deployed in the Johannesburg and Port Elizabeth clusters, the police have achieved tremendous success in the fight against crime. The success that was achieved has made us to work at an improved pace to ensure that TRTs are established at all clusters.
A lasting policing skills legacy of the 2010 FIFA World Cup
One of the fundamental successes derived from the World Cup was changing the negative perceptions about our country in relation crime. Foreign visitors who came to our shores with negative perceptions are now singing a different tune. We should not go back.
Over the past months post the World Cup, we also spoke about the resources in our midst which are being used to fight crime, including the protection of retail stores. What we have not emphasized is the re-skilling which has been attained by our police. Here we are referring to the direct interaction between members of our Force with those from other international Forces such as the USA, United Kingdom, France, etc.
When we speak of lasting legacy, this is what we refer to because knowledge and skills cannot be replaced. The improvement of skills at various levels and retention of such is a priority in the SAPS. Part of this strategy will include utilization of visible policy personnel for the provision of intelligence. This will help in the patrol reports and ensure that this network of intelligence within the police is widened.
A challenge to the retail industry in helping fight crime
As we conclude, we would pose a challenge to this conference as follows: you have contributed through your resources, ideas and expertise in helping reduce crime in your sector.
What more can you do to ensure that crime is reduced further? What other innovations can you formulate to defeat this scourge? What other solutions can be shared with other sectors, beyond just the retail partners? We challenge you to improve coordination within the various sectors that is, retail, banking, petroleum and cash-in-transit.
How do you effectively improve information-sharing and information-gathering? What role would this industry play in this integrated approach? How can the retail industry assist in skills development and mentoring of small and informal businesses? Because to a large degree, this is one of the areas which police find difficult to police due to amongst others, lack of proper regulatory frameworks.
Police cannot impart business skills nor run business workshops to help some of these emerging businesses. That is precisely why we believe the consumer education can go a long way in not only educating such business about banking and cash management systems - but equally to ensure they improve their safety systems.
We do not expect an outright response today on these and other challenges, but remain confident in due course we shall engage and derive deliverable outcomes. We remain confident that partners such as CGCSA are crucial in helping us shape our approach to policing. After all we are confident that tomorrow will be better than today.
Such engagements must continuously help us in our policy formulations, advancements in programmes and where necessary, assist in fine-tuning some of our current approaches. It is vital to ensure that the policies we develop are not parallel to reality, but address the key challenges when it comes to safety and security.
2010 is A Year of Action: Ensuring That All People In South Africa Are, and Feel Safe. We shall also strive to ensure that the retail industry is, and feels safe.
I thank you.
Issued by the Ministry of Police, October 20 2010
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