The City of Cape Town’s second Neighbourhood Safety Team (NST) is officially on duty.
The group, comprising 100 Law Enforcement officers, will work in shifts in Bonteheuwel and surrounds to help combat crime and anti-social behaviour.
The officers will maintain a visible presence, deal with by-law transgressions and assist with crime prevention duties in conjunction with the City’s Metro Police and Traffic Service, as well as the South African Police Service.
The City first launched the NST concept in Delft in December 2017, in an attempt to help reduce incidents of crime in suburbs identified via the SAPS annual crime statistics.
The need for intervention in Bonteheuwel and surrounds is clear, judging by the increase in gang-related violence and the resultant fatalities.
This, coupled with the fact that there is no police station in Bonteheuwel were the factors that impacted our decision to roll out the second Neighbourhood Safety Team in this area.
The NST model focuses on enforcement, including stop and search operations, vehicle checkpoints and visible patrols.
However, there is also a social element that will include everything from logging service requests for City-related infrastructure like broken streetlights and missing drain covers, to enforcing by-laws and even addressing truancy.
If left unchecked, the above-mentioned issues may lead to an environment where crime and violence becomes a norm, and that is why the NST model takes a ‘whole of community’ approach.
Our teams will work with residents, community organisations, schools and other interested and affected parties to achieve a common goal of making Bonteheuwel safer.
Crime is everyone’s business. Our City is facing an unprecedented crisis, particularly as it pertains to gang-related murders. The City of Cape Town does not have the resources or the mandate to do this alone but we are still committed to making Cape Town safer, especially for those worse affected by crime.
It is important that justice must be seen to be done, not just for residents who live in violence-plagued communities, but also the officers who put their lives on the line to patrol the streets daily and arrest suspects who break the law.
We appeal to national government to deploy adequate levels of police to protect communities and to shore up the criminal justice system so that gang-related cases can be properly investigated and convictions secured.
The work of this NST and any other ground-level enforcement initiative will be in vain if the rest of the criminal justice chain does not function efficiently. The City is enthusiastic about seeing the Neighbourhood Safety Team make a difference to the community of Bonteheuwel.