The City is determined to win the war against gangs and drugs

Cape Town has a long and sad history of gangs and drug abuse. This history spans decades and involves a dangerous and destructive relationship with patterns of substance abuse. These gangs make the distribution of narcotics their prime business.

While the names of gangs and the types of drugs have changed, their destructive effects have not. They are still eroding some of our communities, eating away at the social fabric through addictive behaviour and violent acts.

While it is in some ways a truism to say that every generation always thinks ‘things have never been this bad,' I believe that we have a case to make that the gang-problem in Cape Town has reached crisis levels in recent times.

We are aware of the reports about babies being born addicted to tik. We try and comprehend the profound tragedy of 50 lives lost to gang violence in the past 38 weeks.

The affected communities are crying out for some sort of assistance. Ever since the South African Police Service (SAPS), a National Government competency, shut down its specialised gang unit, communities have found little to comfort them.

The decision by the SAPS to remove their anti-gang unit dispersed specialised policing skills into the rest of the force, largely denuding the only real power with the legal authority and resources to make a meaningful impact.

The fatal consequences of a crime strategy without specialised units is the reason why we, and our colleagues in the Provincial Department of Community Safety, continue to lobby the National Minister of Police, Nathi Mthethwa, to re-establish the specialised gang unit, amongst others.

But while we and the affected communities wait for the National Government to resolve their safety policy difficulties, we shall not sit idly by.

That is why, tonight, I will be leading an effort to take the fight directly to the gangs.

I will be joining an operation by our own Gang Unit in the Metro Police in Hanover Park and offering my support to communities affected by drug and alcohol abuse.

Our message to the people of Hanover Park is: The City of Cape Town will do everything we can to help you and your families.

That means direct efforts aimed at breaking up gangs and their networks of drug distribution through safety and security measures. It means using the resources we have to follow international best practice by directing our financial and human capacities towards targeted crime approaches through specialised units.

It means developing an anti-crime strategy specifically targeted at gangs and gangsterism. This entails:

• Identifying gangs and drug hot spots in terms of complaints;
• Building profiles of gangs and drug dealers;
• Coordinating the execution of integrated search warrants;
• Increasing the number of roadblocks in order to cripple gangs and drug networks;
• Dedicated enforcement action against drug dealers;
• Participation in local drug action committees;
• Committing ourselves to the principles of restorative justice.

At an operational level, this has resulted in a combined total of 283 operations between our drug and gang units this year, resulting in 387 arrests.

And we will ensure that this good work is continued into the future, which is why we will be allocating six more law enforcement officers to the drug and gangs units this financial year.

But what I will also tell the people of Hanover Park is that the fight against gangs and drugs consists of many battles in a longer war.

The battles involve our immediate resources trying to restore law, order and safety. The war involves ensuring we put the social and developmental facilities in place to try and affect a meaningful long-term change in our society.

This involves a multi-pronged programme of long-term interventions in affected areas. That means ensuring that our social outreach programmes, and the areas in which they occur, align to those places affected by gang violence.

It means repurposing City facilities in affected areas so that there are ‘beacons of safety' and havens for the community, populated by activities and services from the City and other partners, including other spheres of government.

That means ensuring we have the direct mechanisms in place to support those affected by violence or substance abuse and who need help in extracting themselves from patterns of abuse and addiction. That means aligning our health and substance abuse programmes for a suite of preventative and therapeutic measures addressing substance abuse.

It means providing direct support to those who need someone to talk to to change their lives and get off drugs and alcohol, which is why we started our ‘Don't start, be smart' campaign, where people can call the hotline, 0800 435 748, and get help at no cost.

It means cementing our partnerships with NGOs and the Provincial Government to provide more sophisticated approaches to tackling substance abuse and the patterns of behaviour that lend themselves to gangsterism through a new corporate approach and strategy concerning social development.

All of these interventions are in addition to our core mission of trying to make Cape Town a place of opportunity for all its citizens through economic growth and development, a mission that drives us in everything we do. Because the real long-term defence is making this city a place where all people can find dignity in their lives.

We are seized with the task of defeating gangs and drug dealers in Cape Town. We know what we have to do on the fronts of law enforcement, social development and community investment.

While the phenomenon of gangsterism and the drug networks that support them are not unique to Cape Town, nationally and internationally, they do constitute a particular historic nexus of tragedy here.

If this generation is to stop saying ‘things have never been this bad,' then those who can act need to do so. Let the lives lost to violence thus far, and the babies who know the pain of withdrawal symptoms from the moment they draw their first breath, be the motivators that made us all stand up and say: enough.

This article by Patricia de Lille first appeared in Cape Town This Week, the weekly online newsletter of the Mayor of Cape Town.

Click here to sign up to receive our free daily headline email newsletter