A NEW era for community policing is set to begin as the Malvern Community Policing Forum (CPF) will no longer have neighbourhood watch groups in the area as of Tuesday, February 1.
The decision to dissolve neighbourhood watches was taken early last year.
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“Malvern will no longer have neighbourhood watch groups. A neighbourhood watch is basically a sub-structure of a sub-forum of the CPF, and we took a decision not to continue with it. The commodity of the CPF are the patrollers and they need to be treated with respect,” said the chairperson of the Malvern CPF, Kevin Pillay.
He explained that the areas where neighbourhood watches exist will now be known as precincts.
“We have also adopted the community in blue strategy. Each precinct will have three community in blue co-ordinators. Every patroller will work under the Malvern CPF, but will belong to a precinct. There will be 12 precincts at the moment, and the launch of the initiative will take place soon,” said Pillay.
Patrollers and members of Malvern CPF worked tirelessly to ensure the community was safe and crime-free during the festive period.
“During the festive period, we had foot CBD patrols on most days. We had members ‘walking the beat’ in the CBD. Members worked in shifts and had on reflectors and, during that time, we had no incidents. The strategy has proven to work and the shoppers were very happy and felt safe. We also did not have any incidents of ATM knocking or carjackings,” he added.
Members of the CPF have also noted that foot patrols are more effective than vehicle patrols in the community.
“We also do foot patrols every Friday, closer to month-end, and it has proven to have more benefits. We encourage other residents to also join,” said Pillay.
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