Centralised policing: not the answer for fighting crime in Cape Town

The City of Cape Town notes today's report on the front page of the Cape Argus regarding the number of murders allegedly committed in Cape Town (see here). It is important to note that the number of murders mentioned in the report relates to the entire Western Cape rather than the City of Cape Town as confirmed by the South African Police Services (SAPS).

The City of Cape Town is committed to building a Safe City. We are determined to do everything we can to curb violent crimes wherever they occur in the metro.

However, the City's law enforcement authorities only play a supporting role to the South African Police Services, who have the primary constitutional function in the prevention of crimes in our communities.

For our part, the City has put in place proactive measures to fight gang violence and the proliferation of drugs in our communities through our Metro Police and dedicated units such as the Gang, Drug and K9 Units who are doing an outstanding job under difficult circumstances.

In spite of our best efforts to tackle violent crimes in the metro, we simply don't have sufficient law enforcement officers to win this battle. The approximately 770 law enforcement officers the City has cannot perform the functions of the SAPS who have 21 000 members in the city.

The rate of violent crimes across all metros is largely as a result of a failure in policing by the SAPS, which mainly stems from the policing policies adopted by the National Government and a failure by the National Minister and the National Commissioner to intervene in the basic challenges being experienced by SAPS.

This underscores the importance of maintaining Metro Police units to enable municipalities to play a greater role in the prevention of crimes as well as the need for urgent intervention by National Government in:

• Boosting the number of SAPS members;
• Improving the performance and impact of the SAPS through effective performance management;
• Achieving an effective oversight;
• Achieving an integrated Criminal Justice Information System;
• Improving Forensic Science laboratories;
• Establishing better detection and increasing the number of detectives;
• Reinstating the specialised units;
• Effective strategies to fight drug and alcohol abuse and organised crime;
• Improving public order policing.

The City of Cape Town and Western Cape Government have spelled out how the latter could be achieved through our comments on the Green Paper and White Paper on policing, which have unfortunately largely gone unheeded. We are greatly concerned because the national police force and National Government seemed pre-occupied with centralised control over policing and incapacitating the various Metro Police services instead of addressing the serious challenges faced by the SAPS as highlighted by these alarming statistics over the past weekend.

The City of Cape Town continues to offer closer co-operation and partnerships between the City, the SAPS and residents to build safe communities - as the Mayor recently discussed with the National Minister.

We support the Premier's current Commission of Enquiry into policing in Khayelitsha, which we believe should be expanded to include the various other areas to establish the causes of the failure of policing and to determine why the SAPS has been unable to stem the tide of gang violence.

Statement issued by Alderman J.P. Smith, Mayoral Committee Member for Safety and Security, City of Cape Town, July 2 2013

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