An evidence-based policing pilot in Mitchell’s Plain has shown some promising results, but not all crime-fighting stakeholders in the area are convinced it is working.
A new approach to policing that relies on data-driven strategies has shown measurable results in reducing violent crime in hotspot areas.
Speaking at Minister of Police Prof Firoz Cachalia’s stakeholder engagement on Tuesday (9 September), Anine Kriegler of the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) highlighted the impact of evidence-based hotspot policing, first piloted in Mitchell’s Plain in 2023.
The system has shown success abroad, but had not been tried in South Africa before. Kriegler said the approach was experimental policing, which tries different strategies out and measures their success.
“Many decisions in policing don’t have a clear answer,” Kriegler explained. “But by experimenting and testing strategies we can ensure resources are used where they have the most impact. We cannot afford to put resources into strategies that don’t work.”
The pilot project, carried out in partnership between the South African Police Service (SAPS), Western Cape Government, City of Cape Town and supported by the ISS, focused on short, frequent, unpredictable patrols in high-crime areas. In its first test in Tafelsig the strategy achieved a threefold greater reduction in contact crime compared to areas where policing continued as usual.
Encouraged by the results, the project was expanded in 2024 to include hotspots in Delft, Khayelitsha, Nyanga and Gugulethu. Patrols were conducted by police officers and the City’s LEAP officers.
Kriegler said: “We can say with more confidence than has ever been said in South African policing that we prevented at least 100 contact crimes in that period.”
Overall, areas where the new method was implemented recorded five times fewer contact crimes than comparable neighbourhoods.
Kriegler said the next step was to scale the approach up: “At the moment we’ve rolled it out to 11 stations in the Western Cape. The target is 30 by the end of the financial year, then two more provinces next year, and four the following year.”
She emphasised that the model does not require major financial investment, but rather community support and better use of existing police resources.
“Please trust that police can learn, that they want to change and they deserve the best tools for the difficult job they have to do.”
CPF have reservations
Mitchell’s Plain Community Policing Forum (CPF) said the method could be driving crime up in surrounding sectors, effectively moving the hotspot to a neighbourhood that is not being patrolled in the same way.
CPF chair Norman Jantjies said that while the method made sense he did not think police had enough personnel to use it widely enough to have real impact.
“We constantly need to look at ways to implement effective policing,” he said. “The evidence-based method makes a lot of sense. It means increased levels of visibility, improved relations between The South African Police Service and the community, and ultimately a safer community. I’m however not too sure whether the police are ready to implement this in the affected areas. We don’t have enough personnel and other resources to implement this effectively because the focus area is relatively small. Crime is simply being displaced to the surrounding areas.”
Personell questions
Staff shortages within the police service were also among the questions residents posed to police top brass at Cachalia’s engagement.
Dierdre Petersen, the chair of the Eastridge Neighbourhood Watch, asked when the vacant posts in the precinct would be filled so there could be more boots on the ground.
“If it was so successful then why in these hotspots do we have so much crime?” she asked.
National Police Commissioner Gen Sehlahle Masemola said the police service had 400 officers dedicated to the gang-strategy implementation and 200 more had been brought into the Western Cape from other provinces. But, he added, the manpower-shortage problem will not be solved overnight, and that it occurs across the country for a host of reasons, including retirement and voluntary exit.
“We have shortages all over, and it’s not a case of just waking up one day and there will be enough. Therefore, we must make do and strive with what we have.”
He said the number of vacant posts was roughly 54, which included officers who had retired.
Masemola said he was confident most of these posts would be filled by December with the next “passing out” of officers.
On the same day as the engagement the City of Cape Town graduated 700 Law Enforcement Advancement Plan (Leap) officers at a ceremony at Athlone Stadium. This is a specialised unit that works in partnership with the police as a “force multiplier”.
New strategies
On the efficacy of experimental strategies Masemola said: “We will work on those strategies now and see how we can deploy but at the same time we will work on other strategies.”
He added that strengthening the justice system was also crucial because offenders were frequently back on the streets after being arrested and gangs also still operated their networks from inside jails.
“We as police have done our job by putting them in jail and getting them sentenced, but now they still order killings from prison!”
The commissioner added he had met with the Minister of Correctional Services about a strategy for mitigating this.
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