New Safety Partnership Launched – 40 Safety Kiosks towards Safer Communities | Western Cape Government

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New Safety Partnership Launched – 40 Safety Kiosks towards Safer Communities

23 April 2015

Statement by Dan Plato, Western Cape Minister of Community Safety

I am excited to launch the new Safety Partnership between the Western Cape Government, City of Cape Town and safety stakeholders across the province.

Through these new Safety Partnerships, the roll out of 40 Safety Kiosks by the Department of Community Safety and relevant safety stakeholders will enable communities to play an active role in identifying and resolving safety concerns that exist within their neighbourhoods.

The Safety Kiosk will be utilized for crime prevention by increasing visibility in hotspot areas and through daily operations and blitzes, some of which will be deployed in order to conduct their operations in high gang and crime affected areas.

In 2011, the Department of Community Safety in the Western Cape initiated a formal partnership with the Special Rating Areas or City Improvement Districts (CIDs) in and around Cape Town. The trailers provided for a base from which various services could be rendered and from which community initiatives such as Neighbourhood Watch structures are supported. Historically, these units have been used at local level to strengthen cooperation between communities, the police, provincial and local spheres of government.

The successful donation of the previous 19 Safety Trailers have necessitated a strategic rethink and approach to ensure a whole-of-society approach in creating safer environments.

Objective of the Safety Kiosks

The Safety Kiosks are equipped to be a visible point of safety in communities with its own power source and lighting inside and outside for maximum visibility with the objective to:

  • Provide communities with an easy access point to safety and services, such as certification of documents;
  • Provide a link between communities and the South African Police Services (SAPS) through direct communication via radio or phone line to the nearest police station;
  • Act as a place of safety for victims of crime, such as domestic violence, while awaiting a response from the SAPS or medial emergency services, and
  • Serve as a departure point for services currently being piloted. These include CCTV monitoring (piloted with Provincial Traffic and the VPUU) as well as the deployment of Community Safety Stabilisation Units. The latter consists of fully trained, vetted and certified security personnel, appropriately equipped to respond to and deal with a vast variety of safety challenges.

These mobile, high visibility points of safety will proudly display the logos of all safety partners involved, provide access to the services of all partners and feature additional safety services available to the public, such as the Western Cape Provincial Police Ombudsman.

Safety is everyone’s responsibility and the Department of Community Safety strives to implement the necessary and meaningful interventions to assist our dedicated men and women in blue in creating safer communities through cooperative crime prevention.

The New Safety Partnership

The new Safety Partnership will see the Department of Community Safety enter into unparalleled and innovative agreements with, among other, the:

  • City of Cape Town Metro Police and Law Enforcement,
  • Violence Prevention through Urban Upgrading (VPUU),
  • The newly created Special Rating Area/City Improvement District, in partnership with Metrorail, and
  • Other capable safety partners.

Partnership with the City of Cape Town Metro Police will see the Safety Kiosks deployed in high crime areas and supported by armed response. To further capacitate the Metro Police in this regard the Department of Community Safety has provided funding of more than R2 million to the City of Cape Town to train Chrysalis Graduates as Law Enforcement Auxiliary Officers to assist the Metro Police with their crime prevention strategies. The Department of Community Safety will recruit a total of 240 Chrysalis Graduates to be integrated into the City of Cape Town’s metro police as auxiliary officers, with the first 80 integrated in 2015.

A first under the new partnership with the City of Cape Town will see the deployment of the Safety Kiosks in priority areas identified by Metro Police but in consultation with the Department of Community Safety. This will ensure that the safety services available to the public remains responsive to the needs of communities. The Safety Kiosks earmarked for the first phase rollout will be deployed as roaming units in the communities of Hanover Park, Manenberg, Grassy Park, Delft, Clarke Estate, Wesbank, Mitchells Plain and Tafelsig.

The distribution of Kiosks in a new partnership agreement with the Violence Prevention through Urban Upgrading (VPUU) will see the Safety Kiosks deployed by the VPUU, the Department of Community Safety and the SAPS in areas identified as hot spots for vigilante attacks. The first of these Kiosks will be deployed to Khayelitsha, Nyanga and Paarl East.

The partnership with newly created Special Rating Areas, or City Improvement Districts (CIDs) for the distribution of Kiosks, will be facilitated on a needs and application basis.

Another first is the agreement with the Voortrekker Road Corridor Improvement District (VRCID) which has a particular focus to enhance the safety of commuters at the Bellville and Parow transport interchanges. As part of the agreement with the VRCID, and in partnership with Metrorail, the deployment of 200 additional highly visible personnel as a force multiplier to existing security and law enforcement officers can be deployed on trains and train stations in the Western Cape. The Western Cape is vulnerable to  declining levels of safety of rail commuters. This exciting pilot has the potential of a safety multiplier effect where people commute to work and move about.

The new Safety Partnership sees an expanded and formalised link between the Safety Kiosks and the Chrysalis Programme within the Department of Community Safety, affording an estimated 600 youth the opportunity to work towards the promotion of safety within the communities from which they were recruited , while earning a stipend from the Western Cape Government linked to the National Expanded Partnership Programme.

The first phase roll-out of the 40 new Safety Kiosks across the province will see 12 kiosks allocated to urban priority areas and 2 will be prioritised to rural communities in line with the rural safety strategy where applicable. The 14 Safety Kiosks will be allocated to:

  • City of Cape Town Metro Police (5 x Kiosks)
    • Mitchells Plain
    • Tafelsig
    • Manenberg
    • Hanover Park
    • Wesbank
  • VPUU (4 x Kiosks)
    • Khayelitsha (2)
    • Nyanga (1)
    • Paarl East (1)
  • Grassy Park (1 x Kiosk)
  • Metrorail / Voortrekker CID (Parow Station) (1 x Kiosk)
  • Brackenfell (1 x Kiosk)
  • Kranshoek/Plettenberg Bay (1 x Kiosk)
  • Montague Gardens / Paarden Eiland (1 Kiosk)

An additional two Safety Kiosks will be utilised by the Department of Community Safety’s Security Risk Management (SRM) division to further help reduce opportunities for crime and anti-social behaviour, to create safer and more secure operating environments. The two sights earmarked for deployment of the Safety Kiosks are the Tygerberg Hospital and within the Cape Town Central Business District.

Following the success of the Safety Trailers already donated by the Department of Community Safety, additional requests have been received from communities and are being considered as the roll out of the rest of the 26 Safety Kiosks continues. These include requests from communities in Ceres, Hermanus, George, Claremont, Stellenbosch, Langebaan, Drakenstein and Worcester.

Going forward, the Department of Community Safety will continue to investigate and expand the Safety Kiosks to be used at local community level to strengthen the cooperation between communities, the police, provincial and local spheres of government.

This whole-of-society approach, combined with a basket of services and support from the various safety partners involved, provides an ideal platform from which the Western Cape Government can demonstrate its responsiveness to the safety concerns of communities.

We believe this partnership will assist in creating safer communities and we will continue working closely with the SAPS, who is primarily responsible for fighting crime in the province.

Safety is everyone’s responsibility and I appeal to every person in the Western Cape to support the efforts and initiatives announced today, to get actively involved in the safety of their immediate environments and to help make our communities safer by working with the different spheres of government, safety stakeholders and the SAPS in this regard.

Media Enquiries: 

Ewald Botha
Spokesperson for Minister Plato
Cell: 079 694 1113