Police allocate additional resources to townships ahead of equality case

Lieutenant-General Khombinkosi Jula, the Western Cape Commissioner of Police, has announced that an additional 1140 police officials will be deployed in the Western Cape, with 790 being deployed in seven priority areas, including Khayelitsha, Bishop Lavis, Delft, Harare, Manenberg, Nyanga and Mfuleni. The relatively low allocation of resources to these and other township areas is the subject of a case currently before the Equality Court, for which CSPRI researcher Jean Redpath is an expert witness.

The Equality Court case, brought by the Social Justice Coalition, arose out of the Khayelitsha Commission, which through Redpath's analysis uncovered a vast disparity in per capita human resource allocation, with Harare having the lowest per capita allocation of police officials of all police stations in the Wester Cape, with only 111 police per 100 000 people, compared to the province average of 393 per 100 000.

The analysis also uncovered some anomolies in the way in which the allocations are calculated at the national level.

The additional allocations announced by the Commissioner will ameliorate the situation to some extent; however Harare alone would need an additional 227 police officials added to the number reported during the Khayelitsha Commission in order for the numbers to meet the province average.

In his briefing, the Commissioner noted that these 7 police stations contribute 52% of all reported serious crime in the province.