LEAP officers arrest over 1,400 between April and July
13 July 2022
Between 4 April 2022 and 3 July 2022, Law Enforcement Advancement Plan (LEAP) officers have been tackling crime head-on in the 14 police precincts where they are deployed.
These officers are deployed where they can make the biggest difference in turning around negative crime statistics, including in our top 10 murder areas in the Western Cape. This includes Delft, Gugulethu, Harare, Khayelitsha (Site B policing precinct), Kraaifontein, Mfuleni, Mitchells Plain, Nyanga, Philippi East, and Samora Machel. Other high crime areas in which they are deployed are Atlantis, Bishop Lavis and Hanover Park, and recently Lavender Hill, Steenberg and Grassy Park.
These placements are strategic and backed by evidence and data. For a number of years, Nyanga’s been known as the murder capital of South Africa. In fact, between the 2010/11 financial year, up to 2018/19, Nyanga topped the list where the most murders occurred in the country. Backed by this data and evidence, the first LEAP deployment in 2020, became a priority for this area.
LEAP has made significant inroads in the area and for the first time in a number of years, Nyanga had a reduction in its murder rate for four consecutive quarters during the entire 2021/22 financial year. Gugulethu who was a regular on the list of top 30 murder stations across the country is no longer there. These, along with other successes are directly linked to the strategic deployment of LEAP officers.