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28 October 2004

Social Crime Prevention Initiatives

The cluster has completed a benchmark document that will be used by the provinces to assess progress in reducing contact crimes by between 7% and 10%. This process will allow cluster sub-structures in the provinces to submit quarterly reports indicating whether they have met the target or not, thus enabling a global assessment at national level.

The main thrust in this is that provinces have been given a list of additional police station areas for which profiles and interventions should be completed by the end of January 2005. In this regard, priority police station areas would be 150 and not the original 63.

The cluster departments at national and provincial level have been implementing other ongoing social crime prevention programmes. A signpost for the Safe School workbook was rolled out to the following provinces during the period under review: Limpopo (14 - 16 July); Eastern Cape (19 - 20 July); Free State (27 - 28 August); Gauteng (19 - 20 August) Northern Cape (19 - 21 August).

The workbook is a tool for interventions at schools for children experiencing social challenges such as bullying, sexual abuse, gangs, use of weapons, substance abuse and racism. Interventions target children as either victims, offenders or those who are at risk in this regard. Interventions are immediate or necessitate referrals to medium and long term providers such as counsellors.

Integrated Law Enforcement Operations

Integrated law enforcement operation measures that included clean-up operations have been introduced in the 63 police stations. On the basis of these operations since July, the following numbers of suspects were arrested.

* 895 for murder
* 1 396 for rape
* 3 501 for robbery

Implementation of the Firearms Control Legislation

The implementation of the Firearms Control Act is ongoing. The SAPS is disseminating public information on obtaining competency certificates and renewal of firearm licences. Between June and August 6 686 firearm licence applications were successful while 19 053 were refused. 4 competency certificates were issued and another 286 remain pending. Firearm owners have to renew their licences from 2005.

Regarding the ongoing law enforcement operations, the SAPS confiscated 5 971 firearms. A total of 26 081 firearms were destroyed in the past two months. More than 200 firearms were confiscated during operation CIFAT.

Interventions on Drug and Substance Abuse

The Central Drug Authority’s (CDA) review of the National Drug Master Plan will be outsourced to service providers and the expected completion time for the review is February 2005. Another initiative in this regard has been a project aimed at reducing the demand for alcohol and drugs. In order to inspire provincial implementation of the project, the cluster has distributed United Nations Drugs and Crime Guidelines and a resource directory.

Between July and August 2004, security sector operations have led to the arrest of 62 suspects travelling abroad to drug couriers. During the same period four clandestine laboratories were dismantled and drugs with a street value of R20 125 120 confiscated. These include:

Drug Type
Cannabis

Quantity
688kg

Drug Type
Mandrax

Quantity
8711 tablets

Drug Type
Cocaine

Quantity
64kg

Drug Type
Crack/Cocaine

Quantity
34 rocks

Drug Type
Ecstasy

Quantity
772 tables

Drug Type
Heroin

Quantity
207 grams

Drug Type
LSD

Quantity
13 units

Drug Type
Magic Mushroom

Quantity
9 grams

Drug Type
Catinone

Quantity
88 grams

In other operations between July and September 2004, illegal drugs and/or substances used in making them were confiscated at harbours and ports and the street value thereof was estimated at R2.5 billion.

The top 200 criminals

Since the State of the Nation Address, some arrests have been made. These include:

* 8 suspects wanted for 2 or more cases of murder, rape and robbery
* 44 suspects regarding cash in transit and bank robberies
* 4 serial murderers and rapists
* 94 suspects wanted for murder, rape or robbery in the 63 priority stations
* 31 leaders of organized crime syndicates
* 59 suspects for major commercial crime cases
* 32 suspects wanted on 5 or more cases of property related crimes.

As a result of a planning session on an integrated approach to organised crime held on 24 and 25 August 2004, 10 organised crime projects have been initiated. These projects are in Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal, Eastern Cape and Western Cape. Consequently a total of 51 syndicate leaders have been identified and are being investigated.

Organised crime

Prevention of money laundering

The Financial Intelligence Centre is currently involved in several joint projects/investigations with other departments regarding organised crime. The departments involved have an access to information from other countries within the EGMONT Group with whom Memoranda of Understanding have been signed. Cooperation also exists with all the FATF countries, all of whom are EGMONT members and members of the Eastern and Southern Africa Anti-Money Laundering Group.

Inter-regional and continental collaboration

The Department of Home Affairs (DHA) is holding bilateral discussions with neighbouring countries and other African countries, addressing issues of mutual concern in the Immigration and Civic Services environment. Multilateral forums that address issues of the said environments are attended.

During 2004, bilateral meetings were held with Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda and Zimbabwe. Issues discussed included harmonisation of procedures at ports of entry and policies on regular and irregular movements, development of one stop border posts, training of Immigration Officers technical study tours and exchange of information. These issues are also discussed regionally at the Inter-State Defence and Security Committee of the SADC as well as at AU level as members of the Social and Labour Commission.

Integrated Justice System Centre Courts

The Cluster is sustaining the IJS court centre projects. The 46 current sites are being strengthened and a further roll-out to other courts will continue once the procurement process regarding the computerized operating system has been finalised.

Specialised Commercial Crime Courts

The Commercial Crime Courts in Port Elizabeth and Durban have started to operate on a trial basis and will be launched soon. The setting up of the Cape Town Commercial Crime Court is receiving attention.

Sexual offences

The Interdepartmental Management Team on the Anti-Rape Strategy, chaired by the Sexual Offences and Community Affairs Unit of the National Prosecution Authority is busy finalizing a plan and budget for the roll-out of Thuthuzela Care Centres.

Prisons Overcrowding

In order to alleviate overcrowding, the Department of Correctional Services has been placing offenders under correctional supervision and has assisted offenders to obtain money to pay their bail and fines. Between August and September 2004, the DCS placed more than 4 157 offenders under correctional supervision.

Rehabilitation of Offenders

In terms of rehabilitation, the department has finalised a conceptual document of Development and Care, which is an approach to meeting the spiritual, social, psychological, health and other needs of offenders. A draft policy on correctional programmes is at a consultation stage. Draft guidelines are being formulated on the development and design of these programmes as well as their evaluation. A team that has been tasked to do this is currently engaging service providers in identifying appropriate correctional programmes for targeting offending behaviour.

Border Control and Security

The SANDF/SAPS exit-entry project is in progress. The aim of the project is to shift borderline control to SAPS. The SANDF/SAPS exit and entry strategy for 2004 to 2008 was completed. The first SAPS deployment in border posts commenced on 12 September 2004 on the borders between RSA/Namibia and RSA/Botswana borders.

The amendments to the Immigration Act and the new Regulations will assist in balancing the promotion of trade, tourism and co-operation with the need to protect South Africa’s territorial integrity.

The Department of Home Affairs has established a one stop border post with Mozambique as a pilot project. If this project is successful it will be implemented in other border posts throughout RSA and can be used as a model to facilitate cross border travel and pave the way for other similar projects with other neighbours.

The implementation of an Airline Liaison Officer Network at problematic airports abroad would, once implemented, further clamp down on organised illegal immigration to the RSA.

The DHA is introducing new technology to facilitate cross-border movement of SADC citizens and security needs. The objectives of the RISDP and SIPO address this issue. This process will assist with the illegal movement of mainly economic migrants and refugees, the computerisation of border posts and the issuance of computer readable passports, the UNIVISA system, visa reciprocity, harmonisation of border post procedures, etc.

All these issues are elements of the Regional Indicative Strategic Development Plan (RISDP - Social economic part of SADC) and Strategic Indicative Plan for the Organ (SIPO - Organ part of SADC) objectives which are being dealt with in the multilateral forums of the SADC Council of Ministers and the Inter-State Defence and Security Committee.

The DHA is in the process of addressing disparities at ports of entry between departments. These include infrastructure, personnel, IT and technology and finalising upgrading of 53 land ports of entry and building new border posts inter alia for the new Transfrontier Conservation Areas.

The roadmap for infrastructure development at ports of entry has been completed. It included office and residential accommodation, technological needs and Transfrontier Parks initiated Border Posts.

The DHA has adjusted timeframes to make an impact and to support those ports of entry that are in dire need of repair.

Issued by: Ministry of Safety and Security
28 October 2004