Lack of resources leaves police impotent
ETHEKWINI is sliding into a state of lawlessness. With no speed cameras working or blood-alcohol testing kits, it is each to his own on the roads.
Only about a fifth of the CCTV cameras are working. These were meant to assist police in their fight against crime. More recently, the metro police K9 unit lost its teeth because it no longer has any dogs.
Senior Superintendent Geraldine Stevens, a spokesperson for the Durban metro police, confirmed that the speed cameras had not been in use for the past three years.
“There is an ongoing court case and the date is set for November 2023. Until the finalisation of the case I am not at liberty to discuss the matter.”
Stevens said metro police had three mandates; traffic management, by-law enforcement and crime prevention.
“Under traffic management, we are governed by the National Road Traffic Act and there are various traffic offences which are being enforced.”
In November last year, Rajen Chin, metro police director of specialised law enforcement, confirmed there were no blood-alcohol kits in Durban. It meant that there was no way to test drunk drivers and hold them to account in court if they broke the law under the influence.
Stevens said that the specifications for the blood bottles had since changed and, as a result, metro police were unable to secure a service provider to supply the kits.
“This is an issue that the South African Police Service (SAPS) is also dealing with,” she said.
Recently the DA criticised the city’s inability to ensure that the CCTV cameras installed were operational.
According to the party, only 98 out of the 499 cameras were working.
While the city did not comment on how many cameras were working, it did confirm there were issues.
Lindiwe Khuzwayo, head of communications for the eThekwini Municipality, said some street cameras were not working because supporting infrastructure such as fibre optic cables and electricity cables had been damaged.
The damage was caused by the floods last year as well as ongoing theft and vandalism.
“The city has had cameras for over 20 years in some locations. The city aims to expand to a minimum of 10 new street locations per year based on crime statistics and traffic statistics, working together with the SAPS, metro police, and other city units,” she said.
“Existing cameras are continuously upgraded to modern technologies when it has reached the end of life or based on needs analysis.”
Khuzwayo said their plan was to bring the cameras back to at least 95% operating levels.
“To bring a street camera to life you require a camera pole, camera and equipment on site, electricity supply to the camera pole, fibre optic cable from the camera pole to the closest municipality fibre optic junction point and networking to the control room and storage/software.
“The cameras are monitored and electronically moved (pan, tilt and zoom) 24/7 in the various control rooms located in the city for the detection, management and investigation of crime, traffic incidents, fire incidents as well as public realm issues such as non-functioning street lights, illegal dumping, potholes, verges and pollution.
“For the storage and software component, the city uses an intelligent video cloud system which is owned and managed by the municipality.
“Within the video cloud system, several video analytics are used such as licence plate recognition, facial recognition, behaviour detection and crowd detection.
“The city is working with the Department of Transport and Department of Home Affairs to ensure that up-to-date information for licence plates and facial features are integrated into the intelligent video cloud system in a secure fashion. This integration will ensure the effectiveness of the video analytics.”
Msawakhe Mayisela, eThekwini Municipality spokesperson, said in areas where cameras were not working, police were deployed.
“There is no evidence suggesting that the malfunctioning of certain cameras is resulting in crime getting out of control.
“However, efforts to get our entire infrastructure back on track are already yielding positive results. We, therefore, appeal to you to understand the magnitude of the disasters this city endured and humbly request to be given a space to get all our infrastructure fully operational.”
In terms of the K9 unit, metro police has confirmed that it is not using dogs.
Stevens said they were reliant on the public to provide the dogs and the SAPS to train the animals and the handlers.
However, the SAPS decided to charge a fee and this resulted in a breakdown of the agreement that had existed.
“We currently have four untrained dogs and their names are Rosco, Mike, Hurqlise and Kit. They are allocated to a handler who ensures that they are well looked after and exercise daily. All dogs are kept at the Montclair kennels.”
She said metro police would not take more animals until there was agreement with the SAPS on the way forward.
“The matter is currently with SAPS and city legal departments,” she said.
Sharmaine Sewshanker, DA eThekwini spokesperson on safety, emergency and security, said law enforcement would not be equipped to handle the planned national shutdown on Monday.
“There is a general sense of lawlessness in the metro. Law enforcement officers are incapacitated and underresourced. There are not enough boots on the ground to restore law and order in the city.
“Cameras should be a vital part of crime prevention as they serve as the eyes in the sky. A trained metro official could easily anticipate that a crime is taking place or about to take place based on what surveillance shows.
“It’s not even that the cameras are malfunctioning or in disrepair. The problem is that there is a technical issue whereby there is no fibre contract available to put the cameras on.”
She said new recruits needed to be trained and used to deter criminal activity.
“We need more visible policing, especially in hotspot areas where muggings and organised crime are rampant.
“The emergency call centres are quite efficient but the same can’t be said about the police.
“Arrests cannot be made accurately without cameras readily available to survey our city. Things have gotten out of control, with our tourists getting robbed as well. We need to ensure the safety of our citizens and tourists.”
Nirmala Gopal, UKZN professor of criminology, said resources were crucial to reducing crime.
“The recent crime statistics show that KZN has high levels of crime. The state does not seem to have the instruments to tell us exactly what kinds of crime need intervention.
“They garner information on general statistics, which are masked, but it still doesn’t drill down where the issues are and where the impact is truly needed. This is crucial for combating crime.”
She said the state should partner with academic institutions to establish empirical evidence of what steps were needed to deal with crime.
“As academic institutions, we have the resources to conduct research of what’s actually happening on the ground. Interventions by law enforcement cannot be properly effected without establishing if we have the right resources in the first place.
“There seems to be a reluctance to partner with those of us that have the capacity.”
Gopal said this was self-sabotage. “Why would a country with high crime not want to improve its crime stats by reducing crime?
“Crime has a socio-economic impact on its people. It affects tourism and our global standing. It is rather shortsighted of law enforcement to not be proactive.
“I don’t know what it’ll take to change. There seems to not be a will to change.
“There is a spate of murders happening where suspects are likely still in the country, yet police are not even close to finding them. This shouldn’t be rocket science”