GOOD Statement by Brett Herron,
GOOD Secretary-General & Member of the Western Cape Parliament
08 May 2025
Between them, the Western Cape Provincial Government and the City of Cape Town have no plan to address a deeply ingrained culture of gangsterism. They regard gangsterism as a law-enforcement matter, and take no responsibility for improving the conditions in which most residents live, that breed crime.
As the body count continues to mount – at least nineteen murdered over the past 10 days, including two policewomen last weekend – the best the Western Cape Government could come up with in response was another call, last week, for the devolution of policing powers from the national government.
While certain policing powers should be devolved to the provinces, or Metros, the idea that this will magically dissolve the gang culture is pure nonsense.
Meanwhile, the City of Cape Town announced last week that it would spend R100m on the provision of security to enable emergency and service crews to conduct their work in crime-ravaged areas.
Between them, the City and Province are already spending Billions of Rands on a safety programme it calls the Law Enforcement Advancement Plan (LEAP). LEAP promised that its well-trained law-enforcement practitioners would halve the murder rate in the highest crime areas but, according to quarterly police statistics, they have had zero positive impact on the numbers.
The City maintains a large and well-equipped Safety and Security Directorate, bristling with modern technology. According to the City, the directorate is responsible for enhancing safety and implementing strategic safety and security plans.
While it is true that, in a sea of crime, being seen to spend money on more policing is reassuring to citizens – and photographs of politicians with new “police” recruits makes for great Public Relations – no number of extra police will address the deeply ingrained culture of gangsterism that feeds off the unrehabilitated structure of the apartheid-engineered City of Cape Town.
While personal income inequality is a product of the capitalist system, and Cape Town is ranked among the most unequal cities in the world, there’s a second layer of inequality that directly feeds the gang culture: Massive disparities in the quality of services and living environments.
When nearly half of the people in your community don’t have jobs, when there’s a shortage of social workers and development programmes – and there’s sewerage bubbling in the street, last week’s garbage hasn’t been collected, the roof of the council flat you call home is leaking, and you can’t afford heating – the culture of gangsterism thrives.
If your teenager from Newlands or Camps Bay develops anti-social habits, the chances are good that it will be picked up and necessary interventions will follow. Your teenager from Manenberg or Khayelitsha will likely be subsumed into the gang culture – and there’s nothing that the City is doing, structurally or systemically, to stop it.
In the short-term, there is no option but for the City to spend more millions of Rands on the safety of ambulance and fire crews, and other service personnel. Stripping poorer people of critical services is not an option.
But if Cape Town wants to address the culture of gangsterism it has to stop regarding the City’s inherited spatial plan as a template for good and bad service delivery.
Being poor should not be a life sentence to indignity and erosion of self-worth, and this is not an equation that any number of police will ever be able to fix. Fixing it will take investing more in the people and their living environments.
Practically, property in Bishop Lavis will never attain the same value as property in Bishopscourt. But that’s no reason to accept apartheid-created ghettoes as normal or continue to provide second and third-class living environments for what are viewed as second and third-class citizens.
The City of Cape Town rightly wins international awards for its natural splendour, its splendid wines, restaurants and hotels, and well-functioning suburbs and tourist-frequented areas.
Taking responsibility to fix the incubators of crime, the parts of the City that those who give out the awards – and many middle-class residents – don’t see, will create a truly world-class and sustainable city.
Cape Town needs a vision and strategy to address its disparities and inequalities and develop a new sense of pride – in ourselves and our city – and a new sense of consciousness about our inter-dependence.
Although police intelligence sometimes prevent crime, it is the primary job of the police to respond to crime. It is the primary job of municipalities to enable the development of social environments in which good people – not gangsters – have the opportunity to prosper.