Crime stats indicate increased law enforcement deployment is working

The City of Cape Town welcomes significant decreases in the murder rate, and increased drug and gun crime detections, in many precincts where additional resources have been deployed through the Law Enforcement Advancement Plan (LEAP), in partnership with the Western Cape Government.

LEAP has delivered 1100 officers to date in communities impacted by high crime rates. Significant murder rate decreases were recorded in Kraaifontein at 40.5%, Nyanga 24.1%, Khayelitsha at 21.1%, and Harare at 14.5%, which are all in the Top 30 stations nationally for this category.

We are greatly encouraged by these results and are determined to build on this progress towards making Cape Town safer by investing in more safety resources.

This includes increasing boots on the ground; expanding our capacity to train more officers; smart safety technology investments; and resources to build on our safety partnerships in communities.

It is important that as a City we step in to protect residents from failing national services, such as the severe lack of policing resources. We will also keep placing SAPS under-resourcing on the national agenda, given the 511 net decline in SAPS personnel regionally between 2018 – 2021. Crime remains too high, especially in communities with inadequate police to population ratios.

The City’s increased safety resourcing has already seen Law Enforcement more than triple its arrest rate in the past five years, going from just under 1 000 arrests in 2016, to almost 3 000 in 2020/21, with 50% of these being drug-related arrests.

Statement issued by Geordin Hill-Lewis, Executive Mayor of the City of Cape Town, 20 February 2022