Don't call in the defence force in the Western Cape – Reallocate police resources
3 July 2019
In the Western Cape, like the rest of South Africa, policemen and women are not where crime happens, are not where they are needed most. 10 of 150 police stations in the Western Cape accounted for 48% of murders committed in the province during 2017/2018. All 10 stations are in the predominantly poor and black neighbourhoods in the City of Cape Town and have less police service resources when compared to wealthier, whiter and safer suburbs.
Section 12(3) of the SAPS Act gives provincial police commissioners the power to reallocate police officers within a province to areas where they are needed. Unfortunately, across the country provincial commissioners have failed to exercise these powers.
In the Western Cape this has meant that within the province police have not been reallocated in a rational, intelligence-led and decisive way to precincts that are in dire need of greater safety and security measures. The Philippi police precinct, which covers Hanover Park, for instance has 2 times less police per 100,000 people, but 19 times more murders per 100,000 people (over 4 years) than Sea Point. This is clearly irrational and points to an ineffective allocation of police service resources.
Now, instead of addressing this irrational and ineffective allocation, the Western Cape Provincial Government instead has fixated on the deployment of a military force, which has no civilian oversight and so no clear mechanism that allows ordinary people to ensure that it acts in a just manner. This push for the deployment of a military force instead of ensuring that people living in the province are served by an effective, responsive and intelligence-led police service is a dereliction of duty.