Gauteng adopts new strategies to fight crime

Police commissioner says 50% of national crime happens in province, writes Hopewell Radebe

DAVE, a local businessman and entrepreneur, has become so fed up with crime that he is getting a licence for a gun and has taken up military-style selfdefence classes. He had been robbed twice in the space of a few weeks and, after that, had a gun put to his head by someone in a parking lot in a dispute over a parking space at his office.

“I’ve had enough as in my three recent incidents the police and security guards failed to help — in fact they made matters worse. So I’ve decided to take matters into my own hands.”

The police argue that crime trends have been declining over the past five to 10 years, a claim that brings little consolation to the families of victims of assault or residential robberies.

In last year’s Institute for Security Studies’ (ISS’s) December crime quarterly survey, Chandre Gould, Johan Burger and Gareth Newham argue that there is little change in overall crime trends in the country over the past two financial years.

Total national crime rose slightly by 0.7%, from 2,071,487 cases in 2010-11 to 2,085,757 in the 2011-12 financial year.

The South African Police Service (SAPS) in Gauteng says its priorities have grown to include the prevention of more types of crime since the successful implementation of the aggravated crimes strategy. It claims this has led to significant reductions in vehicle hijackings, residential and business robberies. Aggravated robberies (hijackings, residential and business robberies) increased from 2004-10.

Collectively termed the trio crimes, these three categories of robbery were given priority status by the government because of their contribution to public fear and anxiety about crime, backed by the 2007 National Victims of Crime survey that had found that more people had become victims of robbery than ever before.

While the SAPS has not abandoned the strategy that saw the province dedicate resources, including beefing up response units, a co-ordinating centre called the “war room”, improving detective teams’ capacity and also pairing them with forensic expertise just to tackle the trio crimes, more is now being done at each police station to make them more responsive to their unique crime pressures.

Provincial police commissioner Lt-Gen Mzwandile Petros says that 50% of national crime happens in Gauteng.

Last year’s drug-related crime was higher than the previous year, reaching 25,949 incidents compared to 16,457. It was also the highest compared to the 2004 figure of just 9,428.

Tailing the gross growth of crime tracked from 2004 is driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, from 6,275 cases in 2004 to 20,761 cases last year. Public violence also showed a dramatic increase over the period, from 165 cases to 311. It was up from 234 cases in 2011.

Although slightly lower than the previous year, the biggest crime problem is theft, which reached 114,410 cases.

The crime statistics for 201112 showed that areas most affected were Johannesburg Central, Hillbrow, Honeydew, Booysens and Pretoria Central, with 63,382 crimes reported, some 10.94% of all crimes in Gauteng for that financial year.

Many murders were committed in Honeydew, Naledi, Soweto, Soshanguve, Yeoville, Sophiatown, Muldersdrift, Vereeniging and Midrand.

For statistical purposes, Gauteng has been divided into 138 policing areas. Among the 25 areas with the lowest crime statistics in Gauteng were Rosebank, Fairland, Tarlton, Magaliesburg and Hekpoort.

The survey says besides the country’s sophisticated system for recording and analysing crime data, this invaluable source of information needed by those seeking to better understand and respond to crime is being crippled by lack of a better policy advocating frequent use of the data in the overall strategy of crime prevention rather than releasing the information once a year.

The murder rate remains high in SA, with the ratio of 30.9 South Africans in every 100,000 being the victims of homicide, despite a 54% decrease in the number of murders since 1994. This means that the murder rate in SA is four-and-a-half times higher than the world average of 6.9 murders per 100,000 people.

Police recorded a total of 15,609 murders (a daily average of almost 43 murders) in the 2011-12 year, representing a decline of 3.1% from the previous financial year.

Lt-Gen Petros says the police have incorporated other measures to prevent crimes in Gauteng. This includes being tough on drinking and driving, and mon-

The murder rate in SA is four and a half times higher than the world average of 6.9 murders per 100,000 people

itoring areas prone to drug and alcohol abuse by informing police stations of related crimes as well as ensuring stations are accessible to their citizens.

He faces a new challenge due to the increasing number of violent public protests which hamper Gauteng’s fight against crime and force him to divert manpower and resources to demonstrations. For example, between April 1 and May 14, at least 650 protests had taken place in SA’s economic hub, of which 40 had been violent.

This meant an average of 16 protests a day, of which one was violent and required a number of police to control crowds.

Gareth Newham, head of the Crime and Justice Programme at the ISS, says that at the time the aggravated crimes strategy was conceived during the 2007-08 financial year, Gauteng was recording an average of 21 hijackings, 20 residential robberies and 14 business robberies every day.

The policing operations to tackle trio robberies in 2006 and 2007 relied heavily on deploying additional personnel into trio crime hot spots to engage in high-visibility activities such as road blocks, stop-and-searches and increased patrols.

While these tactics could reduce trio crimes in specific locations for a limited time, it was found that there was very little disincentive, as few perpetrators were being arrested and successfully prosecuted.

Lt-Gen Petros says: “The trio crimes strategy continues to be one of the pillars of our approach to crime prevention, however, we needed to respond to other forms of crimes since these (hijackings, residential and business rob- beries) were not necessarily a priority in some police stations in the province.

“For example, some are in areas under the plague of alcohol and drug abuse that lead to higher domestic incidents of violence, which have characters of women and children abuses and murders and attempted murders largely committed by relatives, friends and spouses.”

This has led to the re-establishment of units focusing on family violence, child protection and sexual offences to help reduce crimes against women and children in areas identified to be in serious need of them.

Another priority is guarding the integrity of the SAPS by fighting internal corruption.

Corruption in the service is a plague that the SAPS management is determined to eradicate. Measures include discussions with prosecution authorities to act harshly against public members offering bribes to officers.

Lt-Gen Petros says no area should be declared a hot spot in Gauteng because that indicates that the police are defeated. He wants an immediate response to area targeted by criminals.

That is why Gauteng has been divided into manageable sections patrolled by police vehicles that should not travel beyond their designated areas.

“We will be increasing public awareness to ensure residents know their designated police vehicles, which are marked and have contact details. We advise residents get used to calling these numbers for an immediate response rather than dialling 10111 flying squad units, as well as knowing names and contacts of their sector managers and station commanders.”

Lt-Gen Petros says the community should play a role in monitoring the activities of their area police vehicles to ensure they get the service they deserve, and report to station commanders.