‘City of Cape Town’s policing operations are removing over 400 illegal guns from the streets every year, but a broken criminal justice system secures convictions in just 5% of these cases. The South African Police Services (SAPS) and prosecutors have secured just 81 convictions so far from the 1 670 guns seized by municipal officers from 2021 to January 2025.’
These were the figures revealed by Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis at a safety briefing in Hanover Park on Thursday morning, 22 May, together with City’s MMC for Safety and Security, Alderman JP Smith, reports Cape {town} Etc.
Attributing the lack of convictions to a failing justice system riddled with a shortage of detectives and investigative capacity within SAPS, outstanding ballistics and DNA reports, as well as slow court and prosecution processes, the duo continued to assert that the devolution of criminal investigative powers is the solution to solving the Western Cape’s gang, gun and drug crime crisis.
‘As it stands, municipal officers have the power to arrest and seize firearms, but have not yet been given criminal investigative powers to build case dockets for successful prosecution – powers which the Police Minister can immediately devolve to our well-trained officers by way of regulations under the SAPS Act,’ said Hill-Lewis.
‘We have the necessary policing resources which are immediately available to help police and prosecutors dramatically raise conviction rates and remove hundreds of violent criminals from communities suffering due to gang, gun, drug and extortion-related crime.’
Hill-Lewis added that while City’s Law Enforcement is engaging with SAPS ‘at all levels of their hierarchy to unlock a more solid partnership’ to take on this crisis, the devolution remains the only outstanding step to take.
‘Above all, the most important step remains the one required of the National Police Minister: to take the simple action of publishing regulations under the SAPS Act to grant criminal investigative powers to our municipal officers,’ he emphasised.
‘We will soon submit draft regulations to the Minister for consideration, and have already workshopped these with SAPS and other stakeholders at a regional level. We stand ready to help gain more convictions for the sake of long-suffering communities where the poorest and most vulnerable are hardest hit by violent crime.’
The City’s data revealed that of the 1 670 illegal firearms recovered by Law Enforcement from 2021 to January 2025:
- 81 cases (4.8%) resulted in a guilty verdict
- 126 cases (7.5%) are enrolled and the trial underway, many suffering months or years of delay waiting for ballistics testing
- 75 cases (4.5%) await the NPA’s decision to prosecute
- 38 cases (2.3%) have warrants of arrest issues, some dating back as far as 2021, with the accused on the run
- 152 cases (9%) have outstanding ballistic or DNA reports
- 180 cases (10.8%) were ‘provisionally withdrawn’, meaning the case is not dropped, but suspects remain out on bail because the NPA and SAPS still need to finalise the criminal docket before it is ready to be brought to court
- 826 cases (49.5%) were deemed by the NPA to either have insufficient evidence (320) or no prospects of successful prosecution (506)
- 111 cases (6.6%) are either being transferred between stations or deemed to have the incorrect case particulars
- 12 persons (1%) cannot be tried as they are deceased, and a further 5 cases resulted in a not-guilty verdict
Echoing the sentiment, Smith revealed that around 70% of cases did not proceed to successful prosecution due to the ‘alarming’ lack of SAPS resources, including incomplete investigations, outstanding ballistic and DNA reports or insufficient evidence gathered.
‘From the City’s firearms confiscations tacking data over the last four years, we see around 1 150 accused persons directly implicated in a firearm confiscation by the City’s police, who should have been removed from our society if found guilty, but who are still in the very same communities,’ reiterated Smith.
‘It is important to note that there are killers still walking free even after being caught as far back as 2021, simply because SAPS lacks the capacity to complete the dockets necessary to go to trial and win.’
Smith added that the City has introduced a special training module to ensure all its officers have the necessary statement-writing and docket-building skills and established a Safety and Security Investigations Unit (SSIU) in anticipation of this devolution of investigative powers.
‘We remain hopeful that the recently signed Memorandum of Cooperation with SAPS in our region will lead to a solid partnership in removing violent criminals from our streets,’ said Smith.
‘It is vital that, together with SAPS, we now settle the implementation protocol to give life to this cooperation agreement.’
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Picture: City of Cape Town
