Community Safety

1. (1) No safety kiosks have been allocated to the Bitou Municipality and no requests have been received from this Municipality.     

(a) N/A

      (b) N/A

     (2) Yes, an important element of the provincial strategy to increase safety, is the concept of the whole-of-society approach, which encourage all parties to work together to make their communities safe. The Department of Community Safety therefore emphasises on the formation of safety partnerships amongst various role-players. 

One such partnership is with the Special Rating Areas or City Improvement Districts (CIDs) active mainly in Cape Town. These CIDs have had much success in reducing the crime rates in and around Cape Town through the use of CCTV’s, visible Law Enforcement and so forth. In 2011, the Department of Community Safety initiated a formal partnership with CIDs which started with the donation of the Safety Kiosks, designed to strengthen their ability to deploy security personnel in the areas most in need. The impact of these Kiosks is well documented.

During 2013/2014, the Department of Community Safety started creating a link between the Community Safety Kiosks and the Chrysalis Youth Work Programme with the objective of strengthening both projects through a process of nominating young people to attend the 3 months intensive training at the Chrysalis Youth Development Programme (residential) after which these young people are appointed, by the Department of Community Safety, on the EPWP programme and deployed with partners allowing them to work at the Community Safety Kiosks, promoting safety.

Initially the Community Safety Kiosks were deployed only through a partnership with CID’s. However, in 2014/2015 the department started engaging municipalities and the Violence Prevention through Urban Upgrade (VPUU) as partners to provide this service. Community Safety Kiosks are now also deployed at Knysna, Khayelitsha, Stellenbosch, Malmesbury and Villiersdorp. The objectives of expanding this programme to municipalities are to establish a formal partnership allowing for the co-production on safety between the department and the municipality and, to “unlock” municipal EPWP work opportunities, for young people working for safety. To date in excess of 1 300 young people have been trained and placed. The capacity of the Department of Community Safety to train, equip and deploy these young people will be enhanced through the WolweKloof facility and the national grant funding received.     

The SAPS was approached in November 2014, to partner with the department on the deployment of the Safety Kiosks in priority crimes areas. Discussions about this continue. Communities are set to benefit in a number of ways through the deployment of the Safety Kiosk, most noticeable they:

• provide communities with an easy access point to government, with services such as the certification of documents, which normally requires people to travel to the nearest police station;
• provide a link between, especially poor communities, and the South African Police Services through methods of communication such as a radio or phone line between the Community Safety Kiosk and the local police station;
• provide for a safe area for victims (such as domestic violence) whilst awaiting a response from SAPS.

It is envisaged to expand the services to also include CCTV monitoring (currently piloted with Provincial Traffic and VPUU) as well as the envisaged Community Safety Stabilisation Units which will be fully trained, vetted and certified security personnel, appropriated equipped to respond to and deal with a vast variety of safety challenges. 

In conclusion, the Community Safety Kiosks provide a base from which various services can be rendered and from which community initiatives such as Neighborhood Watch structures can be supported.  These units are to be used at local level to strengthen cooperation between communities, the police, provincial and local spheres of government. 

The Safety Kiosk combined with the portfolio of programmes, aimed at often unique safety needs within particular communities, such as Chrysalis and the Youth Work Programme provide an ideal platform from which the Western Cape Government can demonstrate its responsiveness to the safety concerns of communities at a Provincial level through partnerships with other role-players.

To date formal partnerships have been entered into between the department and the following organisations;

1. Greenpoint CIDS
2. Groote Schuur CIDS
3. Claremont CIDS
4. VPUU
5. Theewaterskloof
6. Knysna Municipality x 2
7. Stellenbosch Municipality
8. Saldanha Bay Municipality
9. Swartland Municipality
10. Parow Industria Improvement District
11. Sea Point City Improvement District
12. Airport Indutria Improvement District
13. Epping City Improvement District
14. Muizenberg City Improvement District
15. Maitland Improvement District
16. Observatory Improvement District
17. Woodstock Improvement District
18. Wynberg Improvement District

It is envisaged to procure and deploy 40 Safety Kiosks in the 2015/2016 financial year.