Significant drop in the crime in Cape Town CBD over festive period

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Cape Town - Cape Town's Central City Improvement District (CCID) has reported a significant decrease in crime in the CBD over the festive period. CCID safety and security manager Muneeb Hendricks attributes the drop in crime to the deployment of additional public security officers (PSOs) as well as the launch of the CCID’s crime-prevention campaign aimed at educating the public. “We attribute the reduction in crime to effective policing, operational and communication strategies,” Hendricks said. The CCID itself made 45 arrests and actioned 10462 crime-prevention initiatives last month. The continued influx of economically depressed people to the city centre has put enormous strain on the CCID, with the organisation saying it was finding it difficult to meet its mandate of keeping the CBD safe, clean and attractive to investors.

“Social issues continue to be the biggest concern, with parolees roaming the streets a close second. We are investigating projects aimed at addressing these concerns,” Hendricks said.

At its annual general meeting last year, the CCID said the tight economy had pushed it to its limits and it had become more difficult for them to meet the increasing demands of a lively, dynamic city centre that operated 24/7.

During the 2018-19 financial year, the CCID made 745 arrests and issued 23478 fines, worth R14 million, while 105624 crime prevention initiatives were conducted.

The City’s safety and security executive director, Richard Bosman, said: “Anecdotally, all of the major events held in the CBD went off relatively smoothly, with no major incidents reported.

“Furthermore, the City’s CCTV cameras detected 276 incidents in the CBD over December - down from 318 in 2018 - which represents a 15% drop. This includes by-law transgressions, fires, traffic incidents, criminal incidents and other miscellaneous incidents. There were 202 incidents of a criminal nature (233 in 2018): the top three were suspected drug offences, drinking in public and fighting in public.”

City Bowl ward councillor Dave Bryant said they had noted the number of reported incidents: “We did have a particularly rough time last year. It is important to note that the levels of crime around the CBD remain low but with the CBD being the centre of the metro and the heart of tourism and economy, it's vital for us to guard.”

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