Minister signs crime declaration

2008-12-02 23:06

Johannesburg - Safety and Security Minister Nathi Mthethwa on Tuesday signed a declaration that will see crime intelligence in the country being beefed up.

"We want to see concrete changes and the police are going to do things differently," said the minister's spokesperson, Trevor Bloem, after a Crime Summit in Midrand.

Bloem said they were going to improve service delivery in terms of how long it took police to get to crime scenes.

The quality of their service would also be improved in terms of how they dealt with people.

"We want to win back the confidence of the people and for us to do that they (the people) must have confidence that we can deliver," he said.

Amongst many challenges facing the safety and security department was that the public was discouraged from giving information because they were not receiving feedback.

"All that has to change, the police are going to be more accountable now."

Delays in DNA testing was named as one of the challenges facing the police, and the summit agreed that a laboratory was needed in every police cluster to speed up the process.

It was also decided that the police should be more accountable and that could be achieved by performance measurement and evaluation of officers.

"Police have to raise the bar and deliver a world class policing service, based on community needs."

The two-day summit declared that crime prevention initiatives should be enhanced by beefing up the crime intelligence and effective policing.

"Co-ordination and participation of all stakeholders in society should also be enhanced."

The summit decided on strengthening community police relations by holding public meetings, putting suggestion boxes into better use, and training Community Police Forum members for public communication, mediation and conflict resolution.

Bloem said Mthethwa was looking at putting into effect the summit's decisions before the end of his term in office.

The Crime Summit was attended by 400 delegates from across the country at Gallagher Estate.

- SAPA