IN an effort to curb petty theft in the Durban North and uMhlanga communities, authorities have continued with their vagrant management programme. During the most recent operation, police, through the assistance of the Umhlanga UIP and the Durban North/Umhlanga CPF, targeted the greenbelts along the M4 as well as the uMhlanga taxi rank.

Lt Raymond Deokaran of the Durban North SAPS confirmed that 17 vagrants were processed during the ‘early morning blitz’. “Fingerprints were taken of the men and criminal checks will be done to determine if any can be linked to crimes in the area,” he said.

Deokaran said with the new by-laws police will now be able to charge and/or fine these individuals for various transgressions. “For vagrancy, people can be fined by up to R1 000, while begging at robots can secure a fine of R1 500,” he said. Deokaran said the efforts of these operations were to tackle opportunistic crimes impacting the area.

“Small crimes lead to big crimes. Cable and out-vehicle-thefts are just some of the small crimes that can have an impact on the community, and so we have now taken a hard stand against petty and opportunistic crimes,” he said. The operations, said Deokaran, would be conducted on a weekly basis.

During one of last year’s operations, police were able to successfully link two of the processed vagrants to house break-ins in the area and secure arrests.

Dewet Geldenhuis, co-chairman of the sector 3A CPF and spokesman for the UIP, said the success of these operations comes from community support. “A lot of information comes from the community, including our 21 street captains, who report everything from crime to broken streetlights,” he said. In addition to the greenbelts, authorities will also be targeting the beaches.