Gauteng’s Amapanyaza boots-on-the-ground crime-fighting ‘is not working’

23 Oct 2024

A crime prevention expert says that for a more effective crimefighting strategy, more detectives, forensic scientists, data and tracking analysts are needed – and a strong anti-corruption stance within law enforcement agencies.

In early October, Dunnotar Military Base in the East Rand of Gauteng welcomed 400 trainee Gauteng traffic wardens for training, later to be deployed in Gauteng communities. This effort has been paired with drone and camera surveillance as Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi’s ongoing plan to curb crime.

In the less than two years the Amapanyaza or the Crime Prevention Wardens have been deployed, they have been accused of abusing their powers and assaulting citizens. There have also been administration challenges with contracts and payments.

Read more: Amapanyaza: instructors claim they were not paid as public protector confirms investigation

Daily Maverick interviewed Gareth Newham, the head of justice and violence prevention at the Institute of Security Studies, who said these efforts were outdated in comparison with the explosion of crimes such as murders, organised crime and other violent crimes. Newham suggests law enforcement needs more detectives to ensure high prosecution rates which would help deter crimes.

“Digital surveillance, in and of itself is not a solution; we know this from way back when in the early 2000s the CCTV camera surveillance was rolled out in Johannesburg’s inner city and how difficult it was to ensure we had the right technology, that the cameras had the right definition so we could identify people’s faces.

“It’s not just the technology itself, what’s more important is the ability for law enforcement agencies to orient themselves to be able to manage data, the infrastructure and then making sure they have the correct responses to identify criminals and intervene in time.

Technology management

“Technology does have the ability to enhance crime-fighting, but that has to be accompanied by good infrastructure and institutional capability. Those institutional questions are not often asked.”

Newham says, “You will see law enforcement agencies rushing to buy drones. There have been talks of body cams and a whole lot of things, but the real challenge to making that work is they are very expensive and you need to develop that capacity to manage those contracts, to manage the maintenance, update the software, to make sure that evidence that comes from that technology is accepted in court … that you have a proper management system for that data.

“These can be highly complex infrastructural issues and most law enforcement agencies just don’t have very strong technological training, certainly with SAPS there are not enough officers that are trained in these specialised skills and the remuneration system is not available to the police service to be able to pay the people that can run these systems.”

Newham says criminals will realise quickly if an area is under surveillance and has rapid response capabilities, whether by public or private policing. This results in crime moving to an area not under surveillance and without a rapid response capability.

Newham was formerly the policy adviser and special projects manager for former Gauteng MEC for Community Safety Firoz Cachalia. During this time he developed the Gauteng Safety Strategy 2006-2014, the Gauteng Aggravated Robbery Strategy (2009) and established a system for strengthening the provincial government’s oversight of the South African Police Service.

Newham was previously a senior project manager in the criminal justice programme at the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation. Newham’s work there included research on strategy development and change management within policing agencies, tackling police corruption, enhancing the management of police performance and strengthening internal and external systems for police accountability,

“But even in those areas, there are multiple methods criminals use to avoid being identified. So the technology itself doesn’t always address the factors of why people are committing crimes in the first place, so if you have all the infrastructure, rapid law enforcement capabilities and you are able to make sure these cases are brought before court and … increase prosecution of perpetrators, it still doesn’t mean you have a long term sustainable reduction in crime. You are addressing particular places, but not why people are doing crime in the first place,” he says.

Newham says the issue to address is trust in the police, so people can report cases and help police find criminals, which means strong anti-corruption beliefs and practices have to be instilled from training, all the way to seniority in the police service. Newham says other factors that sustainably reduce crime are social issues such as food security, early childhood development, child safety and supporting mothers raising children.

Tembisa

Residents of Tembisa, East Rand, a township where camera surveillance and crime prevention wardens have been deployed, say crime levels have not improved.

Makhosonke Nala is the branch manager of Zikode Village informal settlement in Tembisa, run by the Abahlali BaseMjondolo land rights movement.

“Crime is happening in the area, we are not even aware if those cameras are seriously working. Crime prevention wardens, they haven’t helped the community to stop crime, what they’re are good at is to take people’s alcohol if they find them drinking and also take their cigarettes.”

The community has little trust in the police and crime wardens which can sometimes result in community vigilantism. Earlier this year, the Tembisa Community Policing Forum denounced this behaviour after six suspected criminals were killed, allegedly by residents fed up with crime.

Residents reportedly complained that officers failed to deal with crimes in the community, which ended up going unreported. The forum’s Tumisang Rapudi urged residents to report crime instead of taking the law into their own hands.

“Our … emphasis in the community is that whatever crime, report it, let it be written to book because now if someone is caught doing a crime, they can never be linked to all the others,” said Rapudi.

Public trust

Newham said the single most important factor for a law enforcement agency was public trust, which resulted in people being far more likely to cooperate with the police.

“If there is a low level of trust, you have lost, they are far less likely to report crimes, people pocket information about crimes or criminals they may know about, they don’t listen to the police, they do not trust the police and the police’s jobs becomes far more difficult in promoting public safety.”

Surveys show that three out of five people in South Africa have little to no trust in the police. In some high-crime areas, four out of 10 people say they will not go to the police under any circumstances even if they know of a crime. Newham says this is partly shaped by a culture of little consequence for breaking rules, or corruption within the SAPS. Newham says the lack of an anti-corruption ethos in the service trickles down into the community.

“There are codes of conduct that are in writing, but the way newly recruited police are treated in the training schools, the way they are treated in the police stations, in the offices … they are bullied, shouted at, harassed and they see people getting away with criminality around them. The mechanisms to hold people accountable and professional in the service are very weak,” Newham said.

Disciplinary measures for misconduct or criminality in the police force are dwindling, says Newham

“Around 2015/16 they [could] hold 5,000 disciplinary hearings a year. [In] the last six years, they have battled to hold more than 1,000, and the most likely outcome of a disciplinary hearing after an investigation that shows there is evidence of misconduct is that the case goes away, it is withdrawn because the evidence doesn’t make it before the hearing or the person is found not guilty because the evidence is not there,” said Newham.

He says that despite the serious corruption problem, only 64 police officers were found guilty in disciplinary hearings, in 2022/23 and only 32 were fired. This sent the message that if a police officer was found guilty of wrongdoing, there were limited chances of serious consequences.

“This results in the public having little trust in the police. This means that even if someone has CCTV footage and investigators go there, they might not share [information] because they are worried that if they do cooperate, corrupt police may alert the criminal and get them in trouble,” says Newham

Newham said a lack of detectives and more inexperienced boots on the ground were hindering the country in effective law enforcement. Most countries use police presence as a deterrence, but Newham says this doesn’t work in South Africa because of the lack of trust and respect for the men and women in blue.

Newham said more detectives and investigators would help in creating increased trust that once criminals were arrested, evidence was collected, data and all information was found and properly stored to help prosecutors build airtight cases, especially involving organised crime rings and violent crimes such as murder and rape. Making a dent in these cases would enable the service to use its limited resources to address other crimes.

Policing in South Africa is based on an outdated model – that was why we have seen an explosion in crimes such as murder and organised crime.

“We do have detectives who are overworked, carrying too many dockets, they do not have the forensic support they need, it takes months to get results for fingerprints and DNAs back, we don’t have good tracking and tracing of firearms and that speaks to intelligence.

“Even the people who were heading our intelligence agencies have been found to be people with little credibility. They have had serious cases of criminality against them such as Richard Mdluli, head of crime intelligence at some point, who was involved in corruption,” said Newham

Newham said there were many men and women in blue who were honest, hard-working and diligent but were let down by a group that was involved in perpetuating a system of criminality and corruption within the service.

When asked what Newham made of the Amapanyaza, he reiterated that boots on the ground were not as effective if cases were not effectively handled and prosecuted.

“It is political theatre. You have more people who are less trained than the police, with fewer skills and powers. Politicians like … because it’s more visible and it feels like you are doing something about crime.

“But these people are not skilled, some of them are well-intentioned and want to do the right thing because they are aware of what is happening in their communities, but they are not trained for this and are not even sure if they are peace officers, so if that money had been used in a different way it might be more useful.”

Newham said that with less qualified people, cases of overstepping the law and brutality would often arise. “Those vetting processes have to be top notch.” DM

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Maverick Citizen

Technology management

Tembisa

Public trust