Cape Town Mayor welcomes Police Committee probe into violent crime
26 November 2025
Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis says the City hopes parliament’s resolution to probe violent crime will help put the national spotlight on the urgent need to up conviction rates for gang, gun, and drug crime, and to properly resource the SAPS.
‘We can turn the tables on gang, gun, and drug crime, but this is only possible if we increase conviction rates, which remain extremely low.
‘This is why we welcome the Police Committee’s forthcoming probe into violent crime. The City will participate in it enthusiastically. This is an opportunity to put the national spotlight on the urgent solutions we have been calling for: more policing powers for City officers, and more resources for SAPS as our country’s primary policing agency.
‘SAPS and prosecutors are too under-resourced to gain convictions in the vast majority of cases. With more policing powers for our City officers to investigate crime, we can help to build prosecution-ready case dockets to secure more convictions for gang, gun, and drug crime.
‘Thanks to our major safety investments – including a historic 700 new boots on the ground this year - City officers are increasingly taking more guns and drugs off the streets. But the problem remains the conviction rate, which sits at just 5% for the 400 illegal firearms City officers confiscate annually, due to our broken criminal justice system and under-resourced SAPS and NPA.
‘We stand ready to bring to parliament’s attention the cries of Cape Town residents living in gang-impacted communities, and expose just how poorly resourced the SAPS is in most high-crime areas.
‘The Acting Police Minister has the power to change this situation in various ways. That includes urgent resourcing of SAPS and, most immediately, expanding the draft municipal policing power regulations issued by his department for public comment earlier this year,’ said Mayor Hill-Lewis.
In October, the City released data showing how its policing resources are increasingly overtaking the South African Police Services (SAPS). The City added 1 263 new officers to the streets since 2021 – a 48% growth in personnel - while SAPS dropped by an estimated 1 300 officers (15% decline) over the same period. There are also now 560 more City policing vehicles now on the roads compared to SAPS, based on 2025 fleet data.
‘There is a real crisis facing our police service, driven by national-level mismanagement as exposed by the Madlanga Commission. Stations are falling apart, detectives don’t have laptops, officers are forced to use their private cellphones, and we constantly hear reports about a lack of basic resources such as paper for statements and, more critically, DNA kits for GBV victims, allowing criminals to walk free.
This mismanagement, along with corruption, has systematically dug the hole that led to the violent crime epidemic our country now faces. If this probe helps steer the service back on course, it will benefit all our residents.
We believe that, working together with SAPS, we can stop the gang violence plaguing our communities through intelligence-led investigations that dismantle syndicates and remove them from our streets. This is exactly where the City can assist. But our increased efforts in the fight against crime will not be enough without urgent reform across the criminal justice system,’ said Alderman JP Smith, Mayoral Committee Member for Safety and Security.
A recent parliamentary reply shows that SAPS vacancy rates range from 20-40% across most Cape Town precincts, including 200 vacant SAPS detective posts as of August 2025.
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Published by:
City of Cape Town, Media Office
