Violent Organised Crime (VOC) Achievements and Status

[Last Updated : 16 July 2009]

Quarter 2 - 2009 - Dr Graham Wright Provides an Update on VOC Progress ...

1. VOC Overview

Without exception, the Work Group continues to receive exceptional support from both the SAPS and business sector partners.

The Work Group (business) focus is on the following elements:

· Ensuring the business sector’s house is in order with respect to crime prevention and combating capabilities;

· Aligning business sector crime information and operations to those of law enforcement; and

· Responding to specific requests for support from the SAPS.

In addition, the BACSA focus has been on mobilising the VOC Project in six provinces and ensuring that crime prevention practices within the business sector in these provinces are improved systematically and aligned to support the efforts of the SAPS.

The Work Group is encouraged by the knowledge that where focused effort is applied, considerable gains are made (recent examples: the Honeydew initiative and the Gauteng 10111 Operations Centre Improvement Programme).

One is mindful, however, that the overall level of violent crime remains unacceptably high across the country. Sustained effort is clearly required to make the impact required.

2. Recent VOC Developments

· The Minister of Safety and Security appointed Jennifer Irish Qhobosheane to lead a Task Team charged with the responsibility of compiling a Status report on the Private Security Regulatory Authority (PSIRA). The scope of work includes identifying the challenges and threats facing PSIRA, as well as recommending associated remedial actions. This is one of the most important recent interventions from Government in this problematic area. The Task Team will complete its brief by the 20^th April 2009, just before elections;

· The Gauteng 10111 Operations Centre Improvement Programme is now beginning to deliver the required performance improvements. The foundations required for service delivery improvement have almost been completed and performance has consistently improved when measured relative to agreed measures:

o The Q-Ratio (i.e., cost per compliant call) has fallen from R89.84 per compliant call in November 2008 to R5.60 per compliant call in January 2009;

o The quality assurance score has consistently remained in the high-70 percents or low-80 percents;

o The “compliance rate” (i.e., the proportion of all calls fielded that met the stipulated public service criteria) increased from a stubborn 0% between August and October 2008 (i.e., not one single call in the entire facility complied with the stipulated public service criteria) to 44% in January 2009.

The Quest operational involvement is due to end on 30 June 2009, following which Quest will maintain a ‘watching brief’ till the year end. BACSA will continue to engage with the SAPS to ensure that this holistic solution is sustainable and will support the application of associated Best Practices in the SAPS roll-out of 10111 Centres.

Implats has recently donated R 250 000 towards the creation of a Recreation Facility for the 10111 Centre, thus enabling the creation of the necessary recovery environment for staff working in this stressful environment.

· The Private Security Alignment pilot project in Honeydew, undertaken in partnership with the Security Industry Alliance and private security companies, continues to contribute towards a significant decrease in the Trio crimes in the area. The full evaluation of the Pilot project still needs to be completed in order for the SAPS to consider converting this success into a formal SAPS National Instruction and Standard Operating Procedure. Once this is done, the model will be duplicated across the country. In the interim, due to the urgent requirement for this type of intervention, the initiative is being adopted by other high crime cluster areas in Gauteng (particularly in Alexandra/Sandton) and other provinces including Mpumalanga, KZN and North West.

· A Police-led, and BACSA supported, multi-faceted Anti-crime Initiative has been launched in the Johannesburg cluster, involving all businesses, Associations and NGOs in the area. The initiative is facilitated by BACSA and involves relevant local stakeholders. The intention is to pilot an approach to deal with business robberies, especially those impacting small businesses in the area with a view to applying best practices and lessons learned in other high crime areas;

· The retail sector and the shopping centre owners and managers, facilitated by the Shopping Centre Safety Initiative and the CGCSA, have recently agreed to jointly formulate and implement a set of security standards and measures designed to ensure the safety of shoppers in these environments. This work has recently been initiated;

· The SAPS National Joint Operations Centre, NATJOC, continues to operate successfully, with business participation being enabled through the involvement of the various Associations, such as SABRIC, the CIT Companies, the Shopping Centre Security Initiative, the Tourism Safety Initiative, the Consumer Goods Council of SA (CGCSA) and SAPIA. The full-time involvement of business has been enabled through various types of sponsorship from business (especially through SBV and other companies). The resulting co-operation between business and the SAPS has proven to be beneficial in speeding up information-sharing and communications. This has enhanced the fight against business and other robberies;

· The ANPR Roaming Vehicle continues to impress police and business alike. The SAPS National Commissioner has approved business access to SAPS stolen vehicle information (through Tsohle-Unicode), thus enabling the creation of information platforms (enabled through Syntell) for the roll-out of the technology. Further roaming vehicles are being mobilised for Gauteng and KZN to augment the current vehicles deployed in Gauteng (sponsored by SPAR) and Western Cape;

· As part of BACSA’s ongoing quest to have Microdot Technology applied to all motor vehicles in the country, it is pleasing to note that the Microdot Standards (SANS 534-1) have been finalised, and will be formally launched in June 2009. These standards provide a framework through which the technology may be rigorously applied in South Africa, and will contribute towards improving vehicle identity, thus reducing vehicle theft and hijackings.

· The VOC Project has been initiated in six provinces (Gauteng, KZN, WC, EC, MP and NW), with each at varying stages of implementation. This is important since the Trio crimes continue to increase across the country. The roll-out includes the implementation of core initiatives (War Rooms/Crime Management Centres, Task Teams, specialised Prosecution/Courts, Joint Operation Centres and governance structures), as well as the alignment of business. There has been pleasing progress insofar as the implementation of focused initiatives in these provinces, with the resultant impact on Trio crimes expected.

3. Looking Forward

· As a result of the successes of the pilot initiatives in Johannesburg (to address business robberies) and Honeydew (to address residential robberies), a number of roll-out interventions will be initiated in other high crime areas. These include business-led, SAPS-supported, security interventions in selected shopping centre and retail environments, as well as SAPS-led interventions focused on residential robberies;

· A Tourism Anti-crime Initiative has been established in Mpumalanga. A number of IBM specialists from different parts of the world will be working closely with the SAPS and business sector stakeholders (in particular, the tourism and security sectors) in the Nelspruit environment with a view to identifying opportunities for the deployment of technology through which tourism safety can be enhanced in the area;

· Following the successful training of 500 Gauteng Detectives in 2008 (sponsored by the South African Insurance Association) and given the ongoing concern regarding the identified need for additional Detective training, further representations are being made to SAPS on this matter.

Dr Graham Wright

BACSA Deputy CEO and

Head of the Violent Organised Crime

Work Group

2009 Quarter 1 - A Word from Deputy CEO, Dr Graham Wright ...

Since its inception early in 2007, the Violent Organised Crime (VOC) Work Group has focused on the Trio crimes and related matters in a determined effort to reduce these crime types. The business sector continues to forge close ties with Government agencies, particularly the SAPS and the NPA, and to engage in initiatives aimed at ensuring that the business sector plays its role in the overall effort.

Over the past few months the following progress has been made:

• The original focus on Gauteng has been broadened to include other provinces, namely KwaZulu-Natal, Western Cape, North West, Eastern Cape and Mpumalanga. The intention is to align business support to SAPS VOC initiatives in these provinces, thus providing a broader footprint of initiatives aimed at tackling the Trio crimes;

• A number of SAPS capacity-building initiatives are well-advanced, or have been completed. These include the training of 500 SAPS Detectives in Gauteng (sponsored by SAIA) and the improvement of the Gauteng 10111 Operations Centre;

• Operational alignment and information-sharing between the SAPS and the private sector continues to improve through a number of joint initiatives, including the National and Provincial Joint Operations Centres;

• The Private Security Industry continues to address its own operational alignment with SAPS (through a project piloted in Honeydew) and improving its own internal workings (through, for example, the voluntary vetting of private security members);

• Challenges associated with reducing the incidence of business robberies continues to be addressed in a holistic manner with an increasing number of sectors joining this national effort. A number of important “best practices” have emerged, such as cash management protocols and CCTV standards, and are at various stages of implementation across sectors;

• The small and informal business sector robberies are also being addressed through an initial pilot in Johannesburg and Tembisa;

• Much progress has been made in the development and piloting of technological innovations. An Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) system has been successfully piloted and the potential benefits demonstrated, whilst the planned Electronic Licence Disc for motor vehicles is making good progress;

• The Road Traffic Management Corporation is finally making progress in addressing fraud and corruption within the traffic management environment, and has adopted the Business Against Crime South Africa “Best Practice Model” (BPM) as one of their pillars of their implementation approach;

• An integrated approach to addressing Residential Robberies has been successfully piloted in Honeydew, and is currently in the process of being rolled-out to other high risk areas.

These, and other successes, have been enabled by the ongoing commitment of the Business sector to support Government’s efforts in reducing the Trio Crimes. The alignment of the business sector to these crime-fighting efforts continues to improve, although it is clear that a sustained effort is required to achieve acceptable levels of crime and violence. We remain convinced that these efforts will reap rewards in the medium-term.

Dr Graham Wright

BACSA Deputy CEO and

Head of the Violent Organised Crime

Work Group