Cape Town – Community members, particularly parents, have a vital role to play in helping police and other departments tackle gangs and drugs by helping to ensure that they know the whereabouts of their children, Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa told community members on Tuesday.
Addressing Mitchell’s Plain residents at Spine Road High School during an engagement on tackling crime, Mthethwa emphasised that gangsterism had not been solved anywhere in the world with the help of the police alone.
An integrated approach involving various organisations and government departments together tackling poverty and unemployment would help address gangsterism, he said.
Mthethwa pointed out that among all nine provinces, the Western Cape had one of the highest levels of missing children and that many drug victims were getting younger, with burglarly the most prevalent crime.
Parents, he said, needed to play a role in ensuring they knew the whereabouts of their children at all times, while fellow community members had a duty to ensure that pupils were at school.
He said Mitchell’s Plain police had from January to date arrested 4 976 suspects – of which 184 were children – while in all, 2 975 drug convictions were made in the last financial year.
Police had also since January confiscated 116 firearms and had secured 134 arrests relating to unlicensed firearms, including two teens younger than 13-years-old.
In 2007, a total of 179 drug houses were closed, while in 2013 alone, 81 drug houses were already closed.
Referring to the Second-Hand Goods Act, which came into effect last year and allows for prison sentences of up to 10 years to be handed down for both the buyer and seller of stolen goods, Mthethwa called on community members to refrain from buying stolen goods.
He also called on community members to take the names of abusive and corrupt police officers and report these to the authorities or to community policing forums.
Tuesday’s community engagement – which was expected to be followed by a second meeting by Mthethwa with residents at Intsebenziswano High School in Phillipi East – comes after the announcement last week by Mthethwa of the setting up of a joint operational unit to tackle drugs and gangsterism in the city.
The joint committee will involve police and city authorities meeting weekly to co-ordinate action against gangs and drugs.
During the engagement emotional community members called on the committee to arrest drug merchants and gangsters, to close down shebeens, clamp down on corrupt and abusive police officers, tackle prostitution, help up-skill unemployed youth and address problems in the justice system that see criminals remain on the streets.
Also present with Mthethwa were Deputy Police Minister Makhotso Sotyu, Western Cape MEC of Community Safety Dan Plato, Cape Town mayoral committee member for safety and security JP Smith, Provincial Police Commissioner Arno Lemoer, the Deputy Minister of Human Settlements Zou Kota-Fredericks and the chairperson of the National Assembly’s police committee Annelize van Wyk.
Addressing residents, Plato, who called for the army to me deployed to better tackle gang violence, said the state authorities and police needed to address the issues more coherently.
Smith said that residents continued to make tip-offs to his office and said he had been out on patrol with metro police four times in the month so far, on trips lasting six or seven hours at a time and had spoken to community members on neighbourhood crime issues.
Smith, who detailed a number of interventions that the city was involved in to fight drugs and gangsterism, said the city was pressing to evict drug dealers from council flats.
However, he said court processes to conclude evictions often took up to two years, adding that upon being evicted, dealers often ended up moving into another flat.
Van Wyk called on community members to take down the name of corrupt police officers and report these members to the authorities.
“We defeated apartheid. How can we not defeat gangsterism in our areas,” said Van Wyk. – SAnews.gov.za
