Community involvement necessary to tackle crime

Residents must join their local CPFs to fight crime in their neighbourhoods, the Gauteng Department of Community Safety said.

“Community members must always be encouraged to join a social movement in the fight against crime in their respective precinct,” the department’s deputy director for media relations Hlulani Mashaba said.

Residents could join safety structures such as youth desks, community patrollers, CPFs, women as safety promoters, and men as safety patrollers.

These structures were available from local police stations.

Mashaba made the remarks as his department wrapped up its annual task of developing and implementing programmes aimed at making the province safe for residents, raising awareness about crime prevention, and promoting safety as well.

“The ultimate goal is to mobilise communities to join a social movement in the fight against crime and to enhance existing campaigns such as Take Charge and Ambassadors Campaigns. These campaigns encourage both government officials and communities to join the department’s volunteer campaigns in the fight against crime,” he said.

Mashaba said this was essential in building safer communities in the province.

“If we want to make Gauteng a safe and secure province, we must ensure we have effective and functional safety structures within our communities.

“It is important that, as members of various communities, we continuously engage on crime challenges and come up with interventions aimed at addressing it,” he said.

He further said that the province’s residents should all be involved in community dialogues.

“The fight against crime needs all sectors of society to join hands. Social mobilisation should be the order of the day to strengthen the existing working relations in the fight against crime,” Mashaba said.

One such community member who heeded the call was Chantelle resident Otshepeng Dichabe.

“I was tired of the high crime rate in our community,” he said.

Dichabe said, through his involvement, he hoped that people from his community would once again be able to walk freely, without a fear of falling victim to crime.

“I want the community to sleep peacefully at night without worries of being attacked in our homes or being robbed,” he said.

The community patrolling forum, Dichabe, was instrumental in the arrest of two people linked to several robberies in Chantelle and The Orchards.

One of their victims spotted the vehicle they were traveling in and then alerted members of the forum who subsequently intercepted it as it tried to evade.

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