Crime fighting starts with YOU

BECOME an activists and get involved! That was the message to come out of the Save Our Berea emergency Monster Meeting on Tuesday night. The meeting was organised to facilitate discussions and plan a way forward in light of the perceived escalation in crime in the area.

A resolution adopted at the meeting called for residents to acknowledge and support the good and hard working police members and encouraged communities to expose corruption. Former councillor and MP, Mark Lowe, in summing up the resolution at the close of the meeting urged residents to report all crime, no matter how small and to keep pressure on police in following up on complaints and investigations.

“Residents are urged to get involved in the fight against crime by joining local Community Policing Forums, Neighbourhood Watch Groups and Sector Policing. We also need to keep pressure on police, municipal officials and councillors and hold them to account,” he said, adding that it was imperative that residents reach out to others in their communities and get to know their neighbours. “We need to be committed to fighting crime,” he said.

Guest speaker at the meeting, Prof Monique Marks from the Urban Futures Centre at Durban University of Technology, spoke about a research project she was involved in, alongside local security companies and the SAPS which dealt with ‘breaking down walls’ in the community.

“We are dealing with people building physical and metaphysical walls, with the need to create fortresses to protect themselves. The physical walls around properties are becoming more and more unsafe. We have been researching communities which are highly walled and those which are not walled, and have used Westville and Umbilo as examples of this. Through the process of going through incident reports with the SAPS, we have found people are more vulnerable to violent crimes in highly secured properties, as people are isolated and not in sight of their neighbours. This is frustrating to security companies and the police,” she said.

She said it was very sad that people no longer knew their neighbours, and encouraged those present at the meeting to break down the walls and get involved with knowing their neighbours and others in the community.

She said they had approached the City to pilot a project to encourage people to break down their high walls in a precinct in Durban to test this theory, however the City had been unresponsive.

“The Alliance Francaise in Morningside will be doing this, and we will be experimenting in Johannesburg. It comes down to ‘choosing’ your crime. I would rather my property be more open to my neighbours and the police, and choose petty, opportunistic crime, than violent crime that takes place behind high walls,” she said.

The second speaker, Mary De Haas, spoke about her work with cases of violent crime in the townships around Durban and said that the crime experienced in Berea was nothing new.

“The roots go back to apartheid and we have to look at the bigger picture. I’m not minimising what residents are feeling regarding the crime they are experiencing in the community, but what’s happening now is not very different to what happened years ago. I feel the crux of the problem is the criminal justice system and the fact that there is corruption in the police. What residents can do is get involved in policing by joining CPFs, identifying and supporting good police and exposing bad police,” she said.

Col Xulu, acting station commander from Berea SAPS, reiterated what was said by the speakers, and said the challenge they faced was that not enough people were attending CPF and sector meetings. He said he had an open door policy and urged the community to support the police and be the eyes and ears of the police.

“Crime is being waged on the community and the residents need to get involved in the social crime initiatives like CPFs and neighbourhood watches. High walls around properties and people not knowing neighbours is a problem,” he said.

Save Our Berea, co-founders Cheryl Johnson and Kevin Dunkley were pleased with the way the meeting went.

“People are angry, but people aren’t getting involved. Residents need to get involved and attend crime meetings and be activists. Unless we start to break through religion, race and different communities and start talking to each other, the criminals are going to break us down. Residents need to go to meetings to offer solutions and complain about issues, the responsibility lies with us,” said Dunkley.