Police minister Cele announces new measures to stop violent crime in South Africa

Minister of Police, Bheki Cele, has announced a “stabilisation intervention plan” to put an end to serious and violent crimes, particularly aggravated robberies.

Speaking at a media briefing on Monday (4 June), Cele said that South Africa has recently been plagued with serious and violent crimes which has instilled fear in innocent, vulnerable and law-abiding citizens.

“I have directed the SAPS top management to adopt an extraordinary operational approach to stabilise this crime wave, which must be followed by a normalisation approach. Therefore, in our efforts to stamping the authority of the State, we will be introducing the execution of a high-density stabilisation intervention going forward,” he said.

Cele added that in provinces such as Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and the Western Cape (which are most affected by this crime wave) the SAPS will be boosted by the deployment of Lieutenant Generals.

“We will also be mobilising all police (functional) members that are ordinarily tasked with administration duties to augment the visibility of police officers, particularly in identified hotspot areas in all provinces,” he said.

“Our intention is to combat crimes, among others, cash-in-transit heists, car hi-jacking, murders, house robberies, gang violence and related crimes, taxi violence and related crimes.”

Alongside this increased presence, Cele said that a number of teams will be dedicated to tracking and arresting wanted suspects as part of the Organised Crime Threat Analysis (OCTA) approach.

“In order to ensure a sustainable stabilisation of crime, we realised that we would also need to ensure a downward management of ‘red dockets’ (cold cases),” he said.

“In this, dedicated detectives will be working around the clock to gather information and evidence to identify those responsible for committing serious and violent crimes. This will be a 24-hour multi-disciplinary activation plan dubbed “Squeezing the space for criminals through an offensive approach.

“Moving forward, we will ensure high density visibility of uniformed police officers on foot and vehicles, supported by the SAPS air wing, continuous cordon and search operations, continuous roadblocks and relentless search for wanted suspects.”

Read: New crime stats show the types of vehicles being targeted by South African hijackers right now