City of Cape Towns 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 Citys 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 Capes 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 .