15 Nov 2017

Divisional commander for North Central - Traffic, assistant commisisoner Pelontle Kesupile says community or cluster policing is a highly effective model in the fight against crime.

 

He said community policing still remained the widely practiced and most effective crime prevention strategy ever to be adopted by the country from way back in the 1980’s.

 

He said this during an event held to re-launch the Mabothaphofu Crime Prevention Cluster in Selibe Phikwe recently. 

 

Since the cluster policing initiative was formerly introduced in 2008, he said the crime rate within communities had been reduced. This, he said could be attributed to concerted effort of the police working collectively with individual residents or the community.

 

However, he mentioned that crime rate in Selebi Phikwe in 2015, in regards to house breaking, burglary, robberies and store breaking was high and reduced from the beginning of 2016 up until October. 

 

When BCL Mine closed in October last year, he said Selebi Phikwe realised several incidents of crime sprawling once more.

 

Therefore, he said the re-launch of Mabothaphofu cluster was highly commendable to help fight crime in the area. 

 

“The precedence set by Mabothaphofu Crime Prevention Cluster and residents in embracing the need for collaborating with the police is commendable and I urge everyone of us within our various cluster groups, to emulate this cluster in showing unwavering commitment and support to combating crime,” he said.

For his part, station commander of the Selebi Phikwe Police, superintendent Victor Nlebesi explained that Mabothaphofu cluster could be viewed as a product of the concerted effort of the Selebi Phikwe Police personnel in conjunction with Phase II residents in the fight against crime.

 

He said the cluster committee would devise strategies to fight crime in the area in collaboration with police. 

 

He said the committee would also schedule to hold meetings fortnightly through, which they would weigh their action plans against the set crime prevention strategies.

 

He said their success stories would be shared among other clusters in Selebi Phikwe to learn from the strategies the Mabothaphofu cluster had put in place to combat crime.

 

Meanwhile, chairperson of Mabothaphofu cluster, Mr Edward Mabelebele indicated that cluster policing was important in every community to help combat crime.

 

He also noted besides fighting crime, cluster policing could be used as a tool to check in on fellow members of the community who might be sick, in their old age and live alone to find out if they were coping well and assist them.

 

Kgosi Mark Thipe of Kagiso gave a note on the history of community policing service initiatives and its benefits. 

He also mentioned that the police, BDF and other law enforcement could not manage to combat crime alone and needed concerted efforts of the public as well to fight crime.

 

He further commended the Botswana Police Service noting that the force had been recognised and had been ranked as number one in Africa and 47^{th i}n the world according to the World Internal Security and Police Index.

 

He said Botswana Police Service had done well in combating and reducing crime within the country and also in combating corruption.

 

For his part, councillor Ms Lillian Sethula thanked police and all participants in the cluster policing initiative. 

 

She said all had an obligation to play a role in the fight against crime.

 

 

 

 

Meanwhile, during the launch, participants in the cluster policing initiative were awarded certificates for dedicating their time towards fighting crime and for putting their lives on line due to the dangers associated with fighting crime.  BOPA