Western Cape Premier Winde: Policing Model Fails to Curb Gang Violence

You can also listen to this podcast on iono.fm here . JEREMY MAGGS: More than 1 200 murders in the Western Cape in just over four months and despite soldiers and additional law enforcement on the ground, gang violence continues to terrorise communities. So what is actually going to stop the killing? It has become a very worrying situation. On the line now, Alan Winde, who is Premier of the Western Cape. Premier, a warm welcome to you. With this level of killing, do you think authorities have lost control of parts of your province? ALAN WINDE: Absolutely. We are not getting a handle on gangsterism and extortion, and of course, [for] the last few years thats the added extra crime that is a driver of so many of these shootings, because the extortionists use that component of fear. This is what Ive been calling for, for now seven years, is a new model of policing because the current model is not working. Weve got a new police minister (Firoz Cachalia), and every time I get a new police minister, I think, well, great, were going to actually see something change. The current acting minister was appointed one year and one month ago, and you get all excited, but then nothing seems to change. We cant keep doing the same thing over and over again and expect a different outcome. We now need to structurally change the way policing happens, and we need to very, very seriously, really support the criminal justice system as a whole, so that we can actually have a much stronger scientific base to fighting crime because the current system doesnt work. JEREMY MAGGS: Premier, you sound very frustrated in this respect. Why do you think your pleas are being ignored at national level? ALAN WINDE: Im not exactly sure. Initially, I think it was political – so the Western Cape is now the province thats asking for something different. I think that is now changing, because when I go to a lekgotla with the national cabinet, Im getting the same comment that I make made by the other premiers, specifically Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape, and of course, between those three provinces and the Western Cape, we are the four highest murder provinces. So absolutely, I am super frustrated, we cant just accept it. Then we deploy the army and that doesnt really make a difference. We make suggestions of how we think it should be managed, but it doesnt really change. Thats what has got to happen when youre not succeeding with what youre doing in the current model. In policing, there are new innovations that come through all the time and different innovations in different countries. Lets go and choose some of those models that are working in other countries and say, well, lets just try them here. And thats what I keep asking for. JEREMY MAGGS: Lets talk about that new model in just a moment. But you did reference the army. Its been supporting police through, I think, Operation Prosper, its called. Theyve been there since April. Yet by July, Premier, the police minister acknowledged not one gang had been dismantled. That operation is a failure, is it? ALAN WINDE: Yeah, this is not the first time the army has been deployed. It was deployed in 2019 and if you read all the reports of that deployment, you say, well, where did it work and where didnt it work? And that was the point of departure when the president (Cyril Ramaphosa) announced it this time. I said, well, lets use those lessons. And really, the province feels absolutely excluded when this happens, and I think the communities feel excluded as well. Youve got a force multiplier with some extra boots on the ground. Thats the key difference. But it has a success rate I think in the beginning when that first happens because people feel excited about it, I think that also perhaps scares maybe some of the criminals a bit. But then it doesnt take long until its almost as if the criminals’ intelligence network understands the movement of the military far better than even the police and the military system itself.