Community forms alliances with the police to fight crime
The KwaNdengezi community have chosen to stand up for their community, which led to them forming a neighbourhood watch that will work with the police to prevent crime in the area.
IN an effort to curb crime in their area, the community of KwaNdengezi has formed an alliance in the form of a neighbourhood watch. The newly formed neighbourhood watch has pledged to stop the sense of terror caused by criminal activities in KwaNdengezi.
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Morena Johannes, who is the deputy chairperson of the KwaNdengezi Neighbourhood Watch, said this is the brainchild of elders of the community who were fed up with the criminal activities in the area.
“After many observations, we picked up that the police in KwaNdengezi are overwhelmed by the population density and the many areas they had to cover. We then decided to join forces to help them out.
“The team consists of eight executive members. These are people who made themselves available and volunteered to be part of the watch. The team members patrol the area during peak hours at the crime hotspots. We have also issued our contact numbers to the community for them to call us if they are suspicious of anything,” he said.
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Johannes said they work very closely with the police as they have them present in their meetings that are set to be held twice a month. “Our relationship with the police is that we hand over the suspects to them after we have apprehended them, and we make sure to operate within the perimeters of the law. In the two weeks we have been fully operating, we have been able to apprehend a house-break suspect who is in the holding cells as we speak,” he said.
Furthermore, Johannes said they have been in talks with the mayor of eThekwini Municipality to fix the broken street lights. “This has also been a contributing factor to the crime, and so we pleaded with the eThekwini Municipality to have the lights checked. We have been in talks with the mayor, and we were promised that the issue will be prioritised,” he said.
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KwaNdengezi police station commander, Lieutenant Hlengiwe Gcabashe, said they are aware of the neighbourhood watch and they applaud them for this initiative.
“The development of the area has outnumbered the police, and we are grateful to the community for taking on their role. It is important for communities to not fold their hands and expect the police to do all the work because it could never be enough,” she said.
Gcabashe encouraged the community to work together with the police and the neighbourhood watch as they have learned that community members want to avenge, which leads to the high murder rate.
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