Community involvement is essential in the fight against crime, Britain’s metropolitan police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair said on Thursday.
”I have an absolute belief that police alone cannot reduce crime … community policing is the answer,” he said as he wound his way though the streets of Alexandra to assess the outcome of a partnership programme geared to promote community responsibility in the Johannesburg township.
The programme, a collaboration between British and South African police, the Charlton Athletic Football Club, British Airways and the British High Commission, was initiated in Alexandra in 2003.
Based on models used in Southwark in the United Kingdom, the programme includes a coaching programme with English Premier League football club Charlton Athletic and the creation of a police cadet unit.
”This helps us not to get involved in drugs and prostitution and gives us a better life,” said 17-year-old Irene Lebepe, a member of Alexandra’s first 30-member cadet unit.
”I am disciplined and self confident … I’m learning things and having fun; everyone here is my friend,” said 15-year-old John Lekone, another member of the unit, who spoke fondly of Inspector Mbhazima Sambo, with whom he trains every Wednesday.
”We are proud of them … they appreciate what we are doing since we started taking them off the streets,” Sambo said.
Improved relations
Gauteng provincial police Commissioner Perumal Naidoo said the programme has helped improve relations between police and the Alexandra community. ”The programme helped to eliminate the hatred for police many young people grew up with,” he said.
While community involvement is key in the fight against crime, it is often difficult to solicit. ”Football was used because of the way the people of Alex feel about the sport … there is now a visible difference in terms of the community’s interaction with the police,” Naidoo said.
Blair was shown a DVD on the progress of the Alexandra project and then went on foot through the township streets to meet the teams and their coach, Rowrer Ace Montwedi.
”The kids are very interested. At the start [of the project] they were dragging their feet; now they are so keen they come and wake me up on weekends,” Montwedi told Blair as about 30 aspirant footballers warmed up on the field in the sweltering heat.
Blair said it is ”absolutely fantastic” how sport is being used to prevent youngsters from becoming involved in crime.
Training opportunities between British and South African police as well as the Scorpions is an essential component in successfully flighting the various projects, he said.
Alexandra, in existence since 1912, was once a centre of political violence, but after South Africa’s democratic transformation its notoriety has had more to do with crime.
Blair will launch the second phase of the project in Khayelitsha and Mitchells Plain in Cape Town on Friday. — Sapa