Efforts to control illegal firearms eroded by graft
POLICE are fighting an endless battle to get illegal firearms off the streets, for soon after they confiscate guns, those guns are found on the streets again because of corrupt cops.
At the weekend police arrested 14 men for allegedly possessing firearms and ammunition at Khosa Street Y 745, Site B, Khayelitsha.
Institute for Security Studies crime hub manager Lizette Lancaster said the police had made progress after the enactment of the Firearms Control Act, but their efforts had been eroded as firearms were leaked back on to the streets through corrupt police and other security agencies and groups “selling on” guns in their possession.
Lancaster said the most well documented case was that of a former police officer, Christiaan Prinsloo, who sold more than 2 400 firearms to gangs in the Western Cape.
"Furthermore, the quarterly crime statistics released by the police for the period April 2020 to March 2021 showed a marked decrease in the seizure of illegal arms and ammunition," said Lancaster.
She said as a consequence, firearm violence had been increasing in the past decade and showed no sustained decreases during lockdown.
"For those key reasons, it seems that the police have not made any significant progress in rooting out illegal firearms," she said.
SA National Civic Organisation provincial chairperson Bongikhaya Qhama said police management should focus more on the conduct of officers alleged to be behind the leaking of illegal firearms.
Qhama called for tougher sentences for those arrested for being in possession of illegal firearms and ammunition.
Khayelitsha community police forum (CPF) chairperson Fransina Lukas said the police had not really made progress, because there were still too many illegal firearms in communities that were used to kill residents, especially the youth.
Anti-crime and violence activist Roegchanda Pascoe asked: "How can the police root out illegal guns when they are giving those illegal guns to the gangs?"
Pascoe said officers who sold weapons to gangs, and those who reported their firearms as lost or stolen, only for them to be later found in the hands of criminals, should be prosecuted.
Bishop Lavis CPF chairperson Graham Lindhorst said as long as police officers remained corrupt, the proliferation of illegal firearms would not be stopped.
Criminologist at Stellenbosch University's political science department, Guy Lamb, said historically, the police had done a good job, confiscating thousands of illegal firearms in the early 2000s that led to a significant reduction in the murder rate.
"We then saw a number of firearms entering the illegal market, and more criminals having access to firearms after 2010, with some of those guns being sold by the police, and some stolen from legal gun owners," said Lamb.