Visibility is key and that is exactly why the Department of Correctional Services (DOCS) Somerset West’s Community Corrections hosted a security cluster visibility drive in the Strand area last Wednesday (10 April).
Various role-players in the security industry, including police gathered at Strand Railway Station’s parking lot, to open the visibility drive event before they drove through the area in a convoy.
Robin Maripan of the Department of Correctional Services confirmed it was a coming together of the security cluster to join forces and drive through the community while conducting the monitoring of parolees and probationers.
He said: “The initiative was accepted by the community as we drove through and engaged with the residents. They have indicated that this is needed in the community.”
Maripan further stated that it is a societal responsibility for the Department of Correctional Services to partner with security cluster stakeholders to achieve the mandate of the department in contributing to safer communities.
John Philander of ADT mentioned that the coming together of government and private sector security partners show the community that they stand together in the fight against crime.
Lillian Albertyn, the Strand Community Policing Forum (CPF) coordinator for Sectors 1, 2 and 3, described the drive as a positive thing. She said it forces all the various organisations and police to work together.
Pastors Johannes Pick and Danfred Kleinschmidt who are both part of the Spiritual Crime Prevention Forum are heralding the drive as an important one that shows that everyone can work together.
“This was an eye-opening experience,” said Pick. “We look at these people, adults and teenagers alike, as junkies, when in fact they are just people like us. We have a social/moral duty to assist them. Then there’s the spiritual duty of addressing addictions before they escalate into reasons for committing these terrible crimes that land them in prison.”
Maripan described the initiative as a big success.
“We moved through the Strand community, where we were welcomed, and residents felt a sense of safety. The initiative will be hosted bimonthly throughout the Helderberg area.”
