Our murdered children point to policing failures

The data is out once again. Two children are murdered on average in the Western Cape every day. Whether it's 2025, 2024 or 2023, the data about child murders remain stuck. The hard facts are that these are politically black children. These are children of which the overwhelming majority live in violent townships.

These are the children of very poor people. These are children between 15 and 17. These are children who don't rate high on any priority list. Not as high as farmers. It's common to hear politicians say, "The community must keep their children away from gangs and off the streets. It's the community's duty to protect their children. We need better parenting." And from the deep hollow of my guts, I want to scream. 

About 730 children die violently each year. In police precinct after police precinct, every gang is known. The overwhelming majority of gang members are known to police. Every gang hide-out is known. Every gang leader is known. Every drug den is known.  And in several cases, most hits, executions and gang fights are also either known or anticipated. The police know. 

Gathering local intelligence about crime has become the burdened duty of parents and care givers. However, police stations do possess critical intelligence related to criminal activity that they don’t act upon. They often address community meetings as if it were the first time they had heard about a matter. Some neighbourhood watch meetings have become poorly constructed police performance review meetings instead of focusing on the critical issues that must be addressed. The crucial issues are: which drug dens are marked for closure.

Which gangsters are being charged and arrested? What illicit money schemes are being investigated. It is that straightforward. While children are murdered daily, our police are trying to explain to the nation how difficult their work is. A president invited an entire cultural group of 8 million people to apply for refugee status because, on average, 40 of them who work in the agricultural sector are tragically murdered annually. The 730 black and poor murdered children and their traumatised households are not murders that trigger any action.  

The devolution of essential services to municipal or provincial level makes complete sense. It's at the local level that police management, deployment, and assessment must be conducted. It's the duty of a province or local municipality to secure its residents.

Our national police service has morphed into his highly centralised service that dutifully attends the funerals of murdered people but cannot stop murders. It has 9 provinces, 245 municipalities, 1160 police stations, and 176 000 police officers to manage. That this highly centralised service can effectively manage systems, deploy staff and secure 60 million people every day is the height of absurdity.

The young man in Jakkelsvlei Laan in Bonteheuwel, who gets threatened by gangs daily and who later caves in and joins them because he fears for his life, does not register on their agenda. Recruitment into gangsterism is that easy. 

Where is the national emergency conference about the murdered children? Where are the door-to-door house searches to flush out the criminals? Where are the patrol vans in the mornings when learners walk to school and in the afternoons when they walk home?

I hear the voices replying, “We don’t do that. We don’t live in a police state.” Well, we seem to be pretty comfortable living in a murder capital. Where are the police leaders who pitch up and take off their nice leather jackets, roll up their sleeves and walk the streets to proclaim, "No child will die in these streets anymore." 

Parents are tired of being the police. The police must be the police. The police must gather intelligence. The police must charge, arrest and prosecute. The people need a police service. What we have is very far from a police service. The murdered children tell us that.

*Davids is Executive Director of Urban Issues Consulting.

Cape Argus