The Future of Crimefighting: Grassroots innovation vs. systemic blockages
A Kayamandi shopkeeper spots a thief at work and sends an anonymous WhatsApp. AI extracts the location, maps the incident, and geo-tags it onto a shared dashboard. A patrol is deployed within minutes.
On the other side of Cape Town, residents in Hout Bay activate a 'Buzzer’ alert on their personal safety App, prompting a response from an Ops centre. Hout Bay now has 13 000 unique Buzzer users, and crime has plummeted – just four home invasions a year compared to 90.
These are just two examples of life-saving community-driven crimefighting projects happening right now. Both have full police and municipal support, and both are flying thanks to digital technology and public-private partnership.
Police want to collaborate – they need to collaborate. This was evident at a Cape Chamber safety & security dialogue last week outside Paarl, where the two innovations outlined above took centre stage. As much as the crime stats paint a grim picture, collaborative efforts are making inroads, in the suburbs as much as in the townships. There is no doubt that this is the future of crimefighting.
But where there is doubt is whether our criminal justice system is ready and able to play its part. If there's one thing to know about the headlines coming out of the Madlanga Commission and Nkabinde Inquiry, it's that the rot of State Capture appears to be far from over – apparently it's far easier to capture a State than to rescue it. Senior appointments at many levels of government were affected, and we continue to live with the consequences.
Catching criminals is one thing; prosecuting them for their crimes requires the same commitment we're seeing at grassroots levels, in the very communities most affected. SAPS statistics suggest far too many criminals escape the criminal justice net, resulting in a perception that crime does indeed pay – but at the expense of the broader society.
We urgently need criminal justice reform to back up the progress we're seeing in crimefighting.
As a business community, we have a crucial role to play—both in funding these innovative technological projects and in making our voices heard. Our economy will only grow, and our society will only prosper, when investors have confidence, when families have safety, and when a township shopkeeper no longer has to keep one hand on a panic button just to make a living.
John Lawson. CEO of the Cape Chamber of Commerce and Industry