Trevor Cohen, Capri
There are many hard-working police men and women, but the published crime stats indicate we are heading towards anarchy.
Sounds pretty far-fetched, but just like global warming unless we have committed involvement, it may be too late to arrest the slide.
Our stats for high priority crimes such as murder, hijacking and cash-in-transit robberies are among some of the highest in the world. Our ministers are quick to tell us that some of these have declined by one or three percent annually. I would prefer to see us drop more than that before I show ecstatic excitement.
Why is that perpetrators of property crimes, such as burglary, have a much greater chance of being caught and convicted in America and Australia than here in South Africa?
I ask you, with tears in my eyes, is this not a great incentive for our criminals to develop and grow this crime industry?
Why is it that our hard-working SAPS are less successful than our American and Australian counterparts? Generally speaking, we do not have a culture of community spirit in maintaining law and order as practised in those countries.
Evil and crime grow when good men and women do nothing. When we do nothing, we become part of the problem and not the solution
The solution lies with you in your communities. Regrettably, I often see the dropped shoulders and resignation of our communities in accepting this as the status quo. How often have you seen a crime and not taken the trouble to report it? How often have you seen a stolen shopping trolley and accepted this as normal? Worse still, the owner of the shopping mall calculates this as a business cost to be recovered from customers.
If we are to arrest the phenomenal annual growth in property crimes, we have to realise that SAPS cannot operate efficiently without community participation and equally the neighbourhood watches cannot operate without the support of SAPS.
It is a numbers game in eyes and ears to improve our arrest ratio.
Please consider joining or supporting your local neighbourhood watch even if it is only two hours a month or a donation of a few rand.
