Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis says the City stands ready to immediately offer resources to increase conviction rates, following the release of the latest crime statistics on Friday.

Hill-Lewis says the quarterly crime statistics make it clear that violent crime continues to plague some of our most vulnerable communities, with gang activity being a common denominator for Cape Town precincts in the top 30 stations nationally for murder.

“We do take heart in the consecutive declines in murder across both quarters in Nyanga, Philippi East, and Khayelitsha, these are all areas where our LEAP officers are deployed to support SAPS.”

Hill-Lewis says the stats also show encouraging rates of police activity in confiscating illegal guns and drugs across most of these Cape Town precincts in both quarters.

“But this police action is not backed by a strong conviction rate. The City is also supporting these SAPS efforts by taking over 450 guns off the streets per year, but the conviction rate is just 5% in these cases due to the broken criminal justice system and under-resourced SAPS and NPA.”

He says Police Minister Senzo Mchunu has the power to change this situation, which includes expanding the draft municipal policing power regulations issued by his department for public comment earlier this year.

“With more policing powers for our City officers to investigate crime, we are immediately ready to build prosecution-ready case dockets to secure more convictions for gang, gun, and drug crime.”

In October, the City released data showing how its policing resources are increasingly overtaking the South African Police Services (SAPS).

The City added 1,263 new officers to the streets since 2021 – a 48% growth in personnel – while SAPS dropped by an estimated 1,300 officers (15% decline) over the same period.

The Mayoral Committee Member for Safety and Security, JP Smith, says City enforcement agencies have shown the ability to assist SAPS in addressing the gang violence plaguing communities through intelligence-led investigations.

“But our increased efforts in the fight against crime will only succeed with the necessary urgent reforms across the criminal justice system and the provision of additional policing powers.”

READ: Crime stat percentages mask the true scale of violence