The City of Cape Town has introduced a second phase of its controversial gunshot detection initiative, which uses high-tech systems to combat the escalating gunshot incidents in crime hotspot areas in the city.
The crime-fighting initiative was initially introduced in 2016, at a cost of R32 million. It became the subject of debate early last year, when critics questioned its efficacy in its stated goal of eliminating gangsterism and violence in Hanover Park and Manenberg – crime hotspot areas, where it was deployed for three years.
The initiative is a collaboration between the Law Enforcement Advancement Project (LEAP), the South African Police Service (SAPS) and the Metro Police.
It uses ShotSpotter, a US-developed acoustic gunshot detection system that alerts law enforcement authorities of gunfire incidents as soon as they happen.
When used with CCTV cameras, aerial surveillance technology and sensors placed in different parts of the city, the system is able to identify and pinpoint the exact location of a gunshot and suspects, during a shooting incident.
The African Centre for Security and Intelligence Praxis and opposition legislators had criticised the technology, noting the body count from gun violence in the city shows it has not been effective in reducing crime.
Despite this, the City of Cape Town has renewed its contract with ShotSpotter, to rollout a new phase of the gunshot detection initiative. It notes that over 200 lives were saved in Hanover Park and Manenberg, and the recovery of illegal guns increased five-fold during the first phase of the project.
Cape Town executive mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis explains: “The City of Cape Town is doing more to increase safety in communities impacted by high crime levels, and making use of innovative technology like ShotSpotter greatly assists our officers to provide quicker response times and arrest more criminals.
“This project emphasises our targeted focus on innovation and the benefit of intelligence-driven crime-fighting for residents. Investments in cutting-edge technology will help make residents feel safer in Cape Town, and more innovative projects are planned for 2023.”
Since going live in the first week of December, ShotSpotter has detected 68 gunfire incidents and 224 total shots fired in the coverage area, claims the city.
The information gathered so far has enabled law enforcement to identify high-risk areas and times of day in violence-ridden Hanover Park, where crime operations to retrieve illegal firearms will be targeted, it says.
ShotSpotter, which touts its technology as a “game-changer” in fighting crime, is a US-based precision policing technology solutions firm that enables law enforcement to effectively investigate and deter crime using high-tech surveillance systems.
However, there is a growing chorus of criticism directed at ShotSpotter, in Portland and Chicago, US, where it has also been deployed, with authorities complaining of its inefficiency and high costs.
The City of Chicago’s inspector general released an investigative report detailing four key problems with the ShotSpotter gunshot detection system.
While the Western Cape has a reputation as being one of the country’s best-governed provinces, the City of Cape Town is known as the murder capital of SA.
According to the Western Cape government’s fourth quarter crime stats report for the 2021/22 financial year, cases of murder within the Western Cape increased by 12.3% year-on-year. There were 1 015 murders recorded in the Western Cape for the period January to March 2022, compared with 904 in 2020/21.
The City of Cape Town’s Metropolitan Police Services Department has also deployed body and vehicle surveillance cameras, in efforts to help its members intensify the war against crime.
According to Hill-Lewis, the City of Cape Town’s law enforcement agency has been on a path to intensify its digital strategy. He says it became the first in the country to recruit a CTO in the metro police department this year – whose job is to focus on the investment pipeline for crime-fighting technologies in Cape Town.
Alderman JP Smith, mayoral committee member for safety and security for the City of Cape Town, states: “The success of the technology when it was previously utilised by the city meant that over 70% of the firearms recovered in Cape Town were recovered in just Manenberg and Hanover Park due to the operational efficiencies created by the system.
“With the system expanding to other neighbourhoods now, it will allow for the recovery of many more firearms, improving on the impressive recovery of firearms that Metro Police and LEAP have achieved over the last year-and-a-half, which means many more lives saved.”
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