Cape Town - Police Oversight and Community Safety MEC Reagen Allen is poised to release a report on an investigation into how the police refused to act against 1 577 operational drug houses across the province.
These houses where drugs are sold had been known to the police who reported knowledge of their existence to the legislature in 2021.
Allen said 53% of the drug houses were located in the city and 47% fell outside the metro. Allen requested the investigation by the police ombudsman in his capacity as MPL before he assumed his role as MEC.
This comes as Justice and Correctional Services Minister Ronald Lamola’s reply to questions by DA MP Janho Engelbrecht revealed that the conviction rate in the Western Cape dwarfs all eight other provinces and more than triples the combined conviction rate of Limpopo, Mpumalanga and North West.
As of July 1, there were 1 675 remand detainees with 1 460 sentenced, totalling 3 135 cases nationally. Justice and Correctional Services were unable to provide updated figures.
The July figures show that the Western Cape had 798 remand detainees and 642 convictions for drug-related crimes. Gauteng: 529 remand detainees and 220 convictions. The Free State and Northern Cape combined: 25 remand detainees and 95 convictions. The Eastern Cape: 132 remand detainees and 207 sentenced. Limpopo, Mpumalanga and North West combined, 62 remand detainees and 187 sentenced.
Allen said the high number of remand cases and convictions shows how using and dealing in drugs affects people’s lives. This requires interventions against drugs, he said.
He repeated his call for a devolved SAPS.
UCT Global Risk Governance programme criminologist Dr Simon Howell said the figures highlight active policing in the Western Cape.
He said the primary reason the Western Cape has high drug-related crimes is that “geographically and geopolitically it is ideally suited” as an international drug trade transit route.
“In terms of demands and use, the Western Cape has a history of organised crime in the form of gangs and it makes drug-dealing more pervasive, structured and organised here than anywhere else,” Powell said.
“Couple that with disparities in societies and large areas with low incomes, it causes a lot of drug abuse.”
Asked whether over-policing the drug trade would eventually subdue the drug trade, Powell said: “Not at all. People have been trying to police drugs for many, many years and have never really had much success. The solution ultimately is to deal with the reasons why people take drugs.”
Powell said that at the supply level, arrests can have an impact, but not so much on the user level.
He said the Western Cape’s call for devolving police powers may be beneficial to the province generally. However, it would not impact on the current drug-related crime rate as “police arrests are not effective at the user level anyway”.