Citizen patrol groups going beyond their mandate – and above the law: that’s the potential spiralling situation that a member of the Youth Crime Prevention Desk (YCPD) in Nemato has warned against. But one local citizen patrol group has hit back at claims made about such groups, saying instead that they’re protecting the rights of community members by offering a service that the South African Police Service lacks resources to carry out.
The recently established national South African Police Service initiative, YCPD, aims to help create safer communities by promoting productive working relationships between SAPS and young people. YCPD Nemato member Thembekile George believes that young people are unfairly and illegally targeted by local citizen-run crime-fighting groups.
“In South Africa we are governed by bylaws, by the constitution, human rights. All of those have been violated by [certain organisations]. They’re unregulated and they act without regard to human rights,” said George.
“They terrorise the community. The worst is that the authorities – the police and the municipality – allow this to happen to the very people they are supposed to be protecting.”
George cited an incident earlier this year involving a citizen crime-fighting group.
“There were two initiates (abakhwetha) who were accused of stealing something,” George said.
Their accuser had paid the crime-fighting group their standard charge to “investigate a case”, R250, and asked them to get their property back.
“They took those boys away and beat them up,” George said. But that was wrong.
“Only a court of law has the authority to declare a person guilty of a crime. Everyone is not guilty until proven guilty.
“It is our job [as the YCPD] to make sure that young people are not treated barbarically by being bullied and beaten.”
Mandate
Talk of the Town has previously reported on the Port Alfred Crime Fighters (PACF), a group established last year by residents of Nemato. Without implying that the PACF acts illegally, TOTT spoke to one of its founders, Bonakele Moyikwa.
Moyikwa said the PACF was registered as an NPO. They had received a certificate from the Department of Social Development at a special function in Mdantsane, along with other Port Alfred based organisations.
Their mandate came from the community, Moyikwa said.
“We hold community meetings twice a week, on Tuesdays and Thursdays. People bring cases there. They tell us things like, ‘Hey! I can’t sleep in my place!’. Maybe it’s because someone keeps playing very loud music; or it can be because a neighbour has turned their back yard into a drug base.
They will say, ‘Can you please assist us in chasing these drug dealers out of my place.’
Moyikwa said the members’ code of conduct was contained in their constitution.
Asked about screening of members for the organisation, Moyikwa said members were such by virtue of their common goal of safety in a particular area.
“It is a community based structure. We are embedded in the community,” Moyikwa said. “We are the community. To qualify to be part of the structure, you must be a member of the community in that particular area.”
Moyikwa said community members loved or hated them, depending whether their family was involved in a crime or not.
“Recently a youth was accused of stealing something. His father was very angry when community members from the group came to the family’s house to retrieve the item.
“But a few months later, something was stolen from that father’s house. When we retrieved it for him, he couldn’t thank PACF enough.”
Moyikwa maintained that community patrol groups played an essential role for residents, because, he said, the response time of the police was slow; and Nemato Police Station had no holding cells and only one police van.
SAPS weighs in on community safety groups
Here in Q&A format is the response to TOTT’s questions by South African Police Service spokesperson Captain Marius McCarthy:
How many citizen neighbourhood watch/ Community in Blue/ CPF groups are there in Ndlambe. What are they and where are they? What is the difference between CPFs, Community in Blue, SCFs and how does SAPS interact with each of them?
- At Nemato Police Station, one Community in Blue Patrol group is registered that is operating in Nemato in collaboration with an active Community Police Forum and Station Management.
- The community policing forum (CPF) is the mother body under which all community structures within SAPS operate in terms of the South African Police Act, Act 68 of 1995.
- Community in Blue Patrollers is a concept that seeks to bring crime fighting groups like Neighbourhood Watches closer to the police for better support and working relations.
How does each of those community partnership structures interact with independently constituted groups such as the Port Alfred Crime Fighters?
- Interaction between SAPS and mentioned community based structures is mainly through meetings with the station management and dedicated police officers appointed as Sector Managers and Community Policing Officers that are working closely with the CPF, Sector Crime Forums and Community in Blue Patrol groups.
TOTT was told in August that SAPS was in the process of establishing sector crime forums. Have any been established in Ndlambe? How many, where and how do they operate?
- Nemato SAPS is still in the process of establishing Sector Crime Forums. The implementation process starts with the station precinct being demarcated into smaller, more manageable sectors and the appointment of a Sector Manager who will draft a profile of the sector and facilitate the election of a Sector Crime Forum Executive Committee.
Is SAPS aware of community complaints about the Port Alfred Crime Fighters concerning their alleged illegal activities, namely, reportedly assaulting community members accused of wrongdoing; entering people’s homes and searching them; confiscating property from suspects? Have any charges been laid in connection with this?
- According to police reports, cases have been reported against a patrol group in Nemato and arrests made [in respect of] some of those cases that are still under investigation.
Two young men died in Port Alfred as a result of vigilante action in July 2023 (Inkwenkwezi and THornhill). Was anyone arrested in connection with those incidents?
- It is the mandate of SAPS to prevent, combat and investigate crime. It is confirmed that an arrest was made in a murder case relating to vigilante actions during July 2023 and that the case is sub judice.
I have asked a non-CPF-registered neighbourhood watch group what it would take for them to formally work with and through SAPS. Summarised, their response is that they don’t trust the police to respond promptly and effectively because they are under-resourced. Please can you respond to the assertion that at Nemato police station: There is no holding cell; There is only one police van; There is insufficient staff (as in “feet on the ground”?
- Response time to complaints is constantly monitored by management and resources (more than only one van) are utilised effectively and efficiently to optimise their use. Suspects are being detained at Port Alfred Police Station.
Ndlambe Municipality’s role in community safety
What does the municipality’s Community Protection Services directorate say about citizen patrol groups; what is the municipality’s relationship with such groups; and what is the directorate’s relationship with the police?
In response to questions from TOTT, Director: Community Protection Services, Ndlambe Municipality, Nombulelo Booysen-Willy, said a request had been made to the Municipality from the Port Alfred Crime Fighters to meet.
“[Such a meeting] must only be confirmed after SAPS and the Community Protection Services [i.e. government entities] have had a separate meeting,” Booysen-Willy said.
‘When it comes to overlapping work between SAPS and the Municipality, the Municipality has the responsibility of [directly/ physically] protecting its own assets and nothing else.
“If crime occurs in the municipality we open cases with SAPS. As citizens of this country, we are all protected by the law enforcement agency which is SAPS.”
- This article was first published in Talk of the Town, February 27, 2025. The newspaper serving the communities of Ndlambe and the Sunshine Coast, with a weekly wrap of Makhanda news, is available at stores from early on Thursdays.
