At a meeting held at the end of July, Brigadier Morgan Govender, the Grahamstown police station commander and Community Policing Forum (CPF) Director, said that one of the main problems in fighting crime is the lack of communication between the community and the police.
At a meeting held at the end of July, Brigadier Morgan Govender, the Grahamstown police station commander and Community Policing Forum (CPF) Director, said that one of the main problems in fighting crime is the lack of communication between the community and the police.
CPF member Mantombi Jadi said that the police need to educate community members in how to arrest perpetrators.
“If a person is arrested and released the next day, people will see no use in reporting crime,” she said. One of the issues raised at the meeting is how there are still taverns selling alcohol to under age children and are not ceasing trade at 2am on weekends as they are supposed to.
This is when most crimes take place according to Jadi. “We can't sleep peacefully on weekends because of the loud music coming from these taverns.
“My community signed forms that were given to us by people who said they wanted to open a pre-paid electricity shop in our community.
We thought that was a good idea because we were no longer going to go to town to purchase electricity, later we found out that we had signed for an alcohol business licence,” she said.
The CPF members came to the conclusion that most robberies occur at the end of the month around pay-day as criminals are more likely to get lucky.
Vuyani Kolisi, Chairman of the CPF suggested that when the people want to start a street committee they should consult the police and elect ten people from that street.
“Every one of these ten people should be responsible for a particular issue facing that particular area or street,” added Kolisi.
Likhaya Ngqoyiya a CPF member from Extension 7 said, “We need to fight crime together, we should make sure who we elect in our street committees because we might be electing a criminal.”
Metal theft in graveyards, poor lighting on the road leading towards the monument, the noise levels in New Street on weekends and the non-attendace of meetings by ward councilours are some of the continuing problems.
Apart from dialling 10 111 you can also contact the police on the following number: 082 779 7110.
| Type of Crime | Number of crimes Recorded (July) |
|
Murder |
6 |
| Rape | 17 |
| Business robberies | 3 |
| House robberies | 3 |
| Robbery with firearms | 2 |
| Common robberies | 65 |
| scrap metal theft | 44 |
| Computer theft | 28 |
| Cellphone related cases | 76 |
| TOTAL | 244 |
A crime report compiled by the police according to reported crimes in July shows that:
•Most crimes occurred on the fourth, tenth, 25th and the 31st of July. All of these days were Sundays
except 10 July with the 25 and 31 falling on pay day weekends. Assaults, housebreaking, robberies
and rapes were the most crimes reported.
• Weekends still show the most dramatic crime incidents. Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays are the
most problematic with Thursday being the most problematic weekday. Cases of assault and robberies
mostly occur over weekends.
• From 12pm to 9pm are the predominant times for assaults and robberies. Crimes such as housebreaking
and theft occur overnight or over a period longer than 24 hours.
