Technology identified as key to crime-fighting

This was the common view among the police ministry and speakers at the recent Annual Crime Stoppers International Conference.

In the age of social media, police needed to find ways of embracing these platforms and accommodating those who want to report crime using these ways, said Musa Zondi, spokesperson to Police Minister Nkosinathi Nhleko.

Zondi was building on comments made last month by Nhleko, who identified technology as vital to combating crime.

Speaking to police officers at the Saps Awards, Nhleko referred to a 2012 study by Ascensia, which found that citizens generally believed police should be more open to digital tools to enable them to fight crime.

“[The Ascensia study shows that]…citizens have made it clear that they want to support police in fighting and preventing crime, but that they need more information from police to do so.”

“Digital tools should play an important role in communicating with citizens who want to support police to fight crime, but do not feel adequately informed of police activities. By adopting new digital technologies, police can create new communication channels to engage citizens and gather leads to support their investigations.”

Meanwhile, according to speakers at the Crime Stoppers Conference held last month, crime had entered a high-tech race between criminals and law enforcement.

Zondi noted that Crimeline, the anonymous tip-off line, had been very popular and had helped police in their investigations, but there needed to be more than just the SMS line to report crimes.

“If more young people use Mxit for example, have we embraced this social network for younger people to feel they can report using tools they are comfortable with? That was the discussion the Minister wanted to kick start,” Zondi said.

Zondi said the police used various other technologies, but chose not to mention these at the risk of alerting criminals to them.

A prototype that was currently being worked on using WeChat to report crimes to Crime Line was also presented at the conference as an example of how technology can play a role in fighting crime.

However, this function was not fully operational and had not been launched.