Intensifying Efforts to Combat and Prevent Crime

On Wednesday, 10 September 2025, Premier Alan Winde chaired a meeting of the Western Cape Provincial Safety Council.

The council comprises multiple stakeholders, among them the South African Police Service (SAPS), municipalities and academic organisations. It provides strategic leadership and oversight of safety and crime prevention efforts, as well as promoting evidence-based decision-making and innovation.

In his opening, Premier Winde lamented, “Our residents are feeling the impact of high crime levels more than ever before. We must build stronger partnerships with a joint approach to addressing this issue.”

The Premier also commended the City of Cape Town for its deployment of 700 new Metro Police officers, the largest investment in personnel in a decade. This includes a dedicated neighbourhood deployment for every ward in the city – a first for Cape Town

The council received an update on the development of the new Western Cape Safety Plan. Key priorities include:

• Ongoing extensive consultation with stakeholders;
• Strengthening the function of Community Safety Forums;
• Increased commitment to devolution of policing authority;
• Addressing Western Cape SAPS under-resourcing;
• Increased focus on concentrating more resources in areas with the highest concentrations of violent crime.

The council agreed that the full implementation of the Safer Cities Cooperation Agreement signed between the Western Cape Government, national government, SAPS, and CoCT must be fast-tracked. “More urgency is needed. Incremental improvements in reducing some categories of priority crimes are encouraging. But the reality is that residents and communities impacted by violent crime, especially gangsterism, are not seeing or experiencing this change,” said the Premier. He emphasised that as much as there is a need to intensify crime-fighting efforts, there must also be a concerted focus on violence prevention.

The Premier’s Safety Digicon: Tackling gangsterism and organised crime through collaboration

The Western Cape Government’s violence prevention strategy was among the interventions discussed at a digicon, hosted by Premier Winde after the Western Cape Provincial Safety Council meeting. The Violence Prevention Unit (VPU), managed by the provincial Department of Health and Wellness, utilises data from healthcare facilities to identify and design unique interventions to better address the root causes of violence in communities.

The purpose of the Western Cape Government’s Policing Needs and Priorities (PNP) report was also discussed during the digicon. The PNP is a legislative mandate of the Department of Police Oversight and Community Safety.

It is aimed at shaping and influencing policing strategies and resource allocation

The 2025/26 version of the PNP has been finalised. The PNP report assesses certain metrics and contains findings and recommendations, including:

Budget & Resources

• Chronic underfunding despite high crime
• Recommendation: Equitable funding based on crime levels

  Human Resources

• SAPS staffing has dropped despite population growth in the Western Cape
• Ratios as high as 1:962 in hotspots
• Recommendation: Fill vacancies, improve training, revise HR model

Infrastructure & Equipment

• Stations in disrepair, vehicle shortages
• Recommendation: Upgrade facilities, decentralise servicing, modernise tech

Western Cape Minister of Police Oversight and Community Safety Anroux Marais noted that despite the challenges outlined in the PNP, the SAPS in the Western Cape has acknowledged the value of the reports, noting that the provincial government’s evidence-based recommendations are instrumental in enhancing service delivery and informing strategic interventions.

Mr Mark Shaw, Executive Director of the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, was the Premier’s special guest at the digicon.

The organisation is the biggest organised crime think tank in the world, comprising 140 analysts and 14 observatories globally, including one based in Cape Town. “It is not only the Western Cape that is affected by organised crime and gangsterism. This is a huge challenge globally. There are a lot of lessons we can learn from across the world. Our message is that we need a strategic, joined-up response; we need to work together to bring together all the resources we can in a coordinated way,” Mr Shaw said.

He outlined 6 recommendations that the initiative believes will boost the collaborative approach to tackling organised crime:

• There must be political will;
• A clear and simple strategy must be jointly developed;
• Authorities, including the South African Revenue Service, must undermine and disrupt the money-collecting abilities of criminal networks;
• There must be a clear understanding of resourcing needs;
• Remove illegal firearms from communities; and
• Build resilience in communities to reduce the legitimacy of gangs and organised crime.

Premier Winde, “Ultimately, we must prevent violence by building a safer society from the ground up.”