Khayelitsha has again logged the most murders in the county, but Western Cape safety and security authorities say the rate is the lowest in 10 years.
”The situation has changed,” maintained Western Cape community safety MEC Leonard Ramatlakane on Thursday.
At the release of the crime statistics for 2004/5 on Wednesday, Chris de Kock, head of the police’s Crime Analysis and Information Centre, gave a simple ”yes” to a question about whether Khayelitsha was still the most violent policing area.
Two new police stations have opened in Khayelitsha over the past two years, bringing the total to three. Police in the one-million-resident dormitory town have also been given better human resources and support materials, including staff and vehicles.
Western Cape police commissioner Mzwandile Petros said conditions in Khayelitsha had changed. ”In 1999/2000 residents did not ride buses because of the bus/taxi war. In 2005 it’s a different ball game,” Petros said. While murders — such as three killings last weekend after an initiation party went wrong — could not always be prevented, police speedily made arrests.
Khayelitsha, together with Mitchells Plain, Nyanga, Gugulethu and Blue Downs, are the province’s crime hotspots. Another police station is planned for the Nyanga area to service residents of Samora Machel informal settlement.
This week’s crime statistics show the number of murders recorded in the East Metropole policing area, which covers Khayelitsha, Bellville and Atlantis, dropped to 934 from 979 in the 2003/04 financial year. Attempted murder also declined. However, rape increased from 2 116 cases the previous year to 2 158 cases. Station crime statistics are expected later this year.
The authorities ascribe the continuing high crime levels in Khayelitsha to poverty. The number of people per square metre is ”unbelievably high”, according to the MEC; there is no street lighting in the area’s squatter camps and unemployment is high — some 43% of residents live on less than the R800 poverty datum line.
”Poverty is enemy number one,” Ramatlakane said.
He said people had come to trust the police and reported crimes, no matter how small. If that meant an increase in crime statistics, it was a positive development, said Ramatlakane.
Such ”positive policing” was also at the core of the steep increase in drug-related crimes, which generally depended on active policing for detection. The 30 432 reported cases in 2004/05 were sharply up from 19 940 the year before — or 665,8 incidents per 100 000 people.
Ramatlakane said the province’s focus on eradicating tik, a highly addictive amphetamine popular among youths, had contributed to a hike in police anti-drug action.
Under the ”high flyer” anti-crime strategy, Western Cape police were targeting specific crime bosses, including drug dealers. This has led to the high rate of reported cases, explained Petros. ”We should not be punished for positive policing,” he said.