Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Western Cape losing war against crime
Dysfunctional criminal justice system hampers efforts
WITH only a three percent conviction rate for gang activity, law enforcement agencies in the Western Cape are not winning “the war against crime and gangsterism”.
JP Smith, Mayco member for Safety and Security; and Social Services, said: “We will never turn things around while the criminal justice system is this dysfunctional.”
“The police need specialised units. SAPS OPS combat is a good start, but it needs prosecutors and investigators assigned to it, to drive the convictions.”
Still the city plugs on. Between July last year and last month, the city’s Gang and Drug Task Team, together with the city’s law enforcement agencies, sometimes in partnership with SAPS, confiscated 36 fire- arms, confiscated 797 rounds of ammunitions, arrested 90 suspects for the possession of illegal firearms and ammunition and made 546 drug-related arrests, with a total of 908 arrests.
“Other arrests include outstanding warrants for suspects wanted for murder, theft and general crimes committed. These arrests also include the confiscation of large amounts of illegal drugs,” said Smith.
In recent months, civil society led by NGOs have taken to protesting the increase in violent crime in the city’s most vulnerable communities, where women and children appear to be the main targets. Gangs cost lives and money in the damage done to people from their living to their work environments. It has worn down many communities to apathy.
President of the Cape Chamber of Commerce, Janine Myburgh, said the majority of the workers employed by Cape businesses were exposed to the “dangers of crime on the stations, in the trains and generally travelling to work”.
“One can live in a relatively safe area and still be a victim of crime. The second problem is the effect on morale. This can affect the quality of work and productivity and, in the long term, the additional stress can take its toll on employee well-being. The costs can be enormous. The example we like to quote is copper theft. Thieves can do many thousands of rands worth of damage by stealing copper wire that they will sell for just a few hundred rands. The cost comes in the replacement which requires new materials and expensive skills.”
“There is also the cost of disruption. This can be clearly seen when copper is stolen from Metrorail and trains are delayed for an hour or so. When 100 000 people are an hour late for work the lost man-hours can run to many millions of rands for just one day,” said Myburgh.
Smith said the city was engaging in beefing up the security but also social services programmes that could uplift vulnerable communities.
“The City’s law enforcement agencies have been a major contributor to the fact that gang murder and gang violence have been reduced through the Gang and Drug Task Team in Metro Police.”
“It is unfair that the City should be placed in a position where it must fight gangs and drugs, something which the SAPS and national government should be doing according to the constitution, but the City has not hesitated to step into this gap and to protect the residents of our suburbs.”
“The Stabilisation Unit and Gang and Drug Task Team have had spectacular success, along also now with the Social Housing Unit.”
“The City is finding new ways to protect the most vulnerable residents and finding every possible way to do this, not hesitating and hiding behind excuses of cumbersome and restrictive national legislation, lack of resources and limited powers, but erring on the side of action,” said Smith.
The SAPS provincial commissioner declined a Weekend Argus request to interview SAPS gang specialist Major-General Jeremy Vearey.