The Crises of gang violence in the Western Cape

Good Morning Honourable Members

Today I address you the house on the crises of gang violence in the Western Cape. A crises that is tearing our communities apart, extinguishing lives, and undermining hope for the future amongst our people. This crisis demands our full attention, our compassion, and our collective action.

Colleagues, I was in Cape Town for all of last week to directly engage with the communities who have been affected by this violence. I spoke to people living, in some of the worst affected areas such as Khayelitsha, Mitchells Plain and Mfuleni about their experiences and concerns. Included were community leaders, representatives of various community-based groups and faith-based organisations that are on the front line of trying to address gang violence and provide support to its victims. I heard first hand of how gang violence affects their daily lives and the horrors they are subjected to.

This morning, I will describe this crisis clearly, then frame it in moral and social terms that compel us to act, and finally set out the stance of the African National Congress on how we must respond — together, decisively, and justly.

1. Statement of the crises

What is unfolding in parts of the Western Cape is a scourge of gang violence that no society committed to dignity and human rights can accept. Sudden and devastating shootings, targeted assassinations, recruitment of children to commit criminal acts, extortion of small businesses, and public spaces transformed into zones of control for criminal networks.

Every murder, every attack, every shattered home reverberates far beyond the immediate victim and their loved ones. It serves to weaken the social fabric of our communities and undermines the democratic promise of our nation as a whole.

During this year, we have seen gang violence in the Western Cape reaching alarming levels. People are being shot and killed or seriously injured on a daily basis. Over the past six months, that is between April and September this year, the South African Police Service (SAPS) have already recorded 490 gang related murders.

During this time, almost 120 young people under the age of 18 were shot resulting in 23 deaths. Children under the age of 14 accounted for five of these deaths with and 41 wounded. Since August, murders have increased by 18% compared to the same period last year.

This is completely unacceptable and cannot go on.

Over 70% of all gang murders in the Western Cape province take place in the 13 following policing precincts:

1. Mitchells Plain

2. Bishop Lavis

3. Ravensmead

4. Elsies River

5. Delft

6. Philippi

7. Manenberg

8. Lentegeur

9. Grassy Park

10. Atlantis

11. Kleinvlei

12. Steenberg

13. Muizenberg

The numbers I referred to above, do not capture the human toll: the mothers who no longer allow their children to play outside; the entrepreneurs who leave the area, or close their businesses early for fear of extortion; the learners who cannot consistently attend school; the community organisations that struggle to hold safe and nurturing spaces.

These are not isolated incidents. They form a pattern of harm that traces back through decades of structural inequalities, fractured social services, and a criminal economy that preys on desperation.

However, in recent years we have seen notable shifts in the nature of these gangs and the way they operate. Most worryingly, young people are being recruited into gangs at ever[1]earlier ages. Condemning them to a life of crime, likely cut short by imprisonment or death.

Moreover, the gangs are increasingly becoming linked to national and transnational organised crime networks that are involved in a range of illicit activities. While long linked to dealing in drugs, illegal gambling and the nightlife economy of Cape Town, they have spread to an ever-wider range of criminal activities. They are growing their tentacles across the country and increasingly planning and driving their criminal activities from behind prison walls.

This while the gang bosses, and their associates become increasingly richer and more powerful. This enables them to infiltrate government procurement processes, hijack infrastructure projects aimed at improving the lives of communities, and even starting to infest our political system.

Gang violence is not merely the output of individual criminality; it is woven into social, economic, and institutional contexts. It adapts when pressured, shifting methods, territories, and recruitment. It uses poverty, marginalisation, and lack of opportunity to replenish its ranks. It thrives where governance is weak, where policing fails to protect and where justice fails to deliver. No single policy, institution, or leader can end it alone. Effectively addressing this problem requires sustained, coordinated effort across government, civil society, communities, and families.

2. Moral and social framing

At its core, what we face is a social crisis as much as a security crisis. The existence of gang violence in our towns and townships is a litmus test for our nation’s commitments to human dignity, equality, and social justice. The Constitution of the Republic of South Africa enshrines the right to life, safety, and dignity for all.

When children are recruited as soldiers in gang conflicts, when families live daily under the threat of violence, when survivors are deprived of justice, when those trying to fight crime and corruption are murdered, the promise of our Constitution is stopped. We must therefore approach this challenge with moral clarity: the protection of human life and dignity is non-negotiable.

Moral clarity requires compassion that is matched with courage. Compassion for victims and families demands our solidarity — immediate assistance, trauma counselling, livelihood support, and a commitment to long-term healing. Courage requires confronting uncomfortable truths about the conditions that have allowed this violence to flourish: entrenched poverty, intergenerational unemployment, weak schooling outcomes, inadequate mental-health services, and the breakdown of social institutions that once anchored communities.

We must resist narratives that reduce those caught up in gangs to mere criminals without context. Many individuals recruited into gangs are youth who have been failed by systems — by schools that did not reach them, by potential employers who turned them away, by social services that were never present.

Recognising that context does not excuse violent acts; rather, it obliges us to create alternatives. A moral response combines accountability with pathways to rehabilitation and reintegration. Perpetrators must face justice, and survivors must see justice delivered. Yet we must also open pathways for those who are willing to leave violence behind — through education, skills development, mentoring, and restorative justice programmes that repair harm and rebuild community trust.

Socially, gang violence corrodes the collective bonds that sustain towns and cities. Social capital — the trust between neighbours, the networks of mutual support, the civic institutions that enable cooperation — is eroded as fear displaces fellowship. Businesses close or leave, investments dry up, and the infrastructure of opportunity withers.

Young people, who should be the architects of a better future, are instead trapped in cycles of violence that limit aspirations and entrench victimhood. The long-term cost is not only measured in lives lost but in squandered human potential and foregone development.

We must therefore commit to a holistic response that integrates policing with prevention, prosecution with social investment, and enforcement with rehabilitation. The moral aim is twofold:

1. to protect the innocent and vulnerable today, and

2. to transform the conditions that will produce a safer, fairer society tomorrow.

This dual aim insists we do not substitute repression for reform nor excuse criminality with passivity. Instead, we pursue a balanced strategy: strengthen the instruments of law and order while investing in people, places, and possibilities.

3. What is required

1. Current status of initiative to tackle gang violence

Last week, I invited the SAPS National Commissioner, a number of his national commanders, the Western Cape Provincial Commissioner and his senior commanders to participate in these meetings so that they could also hear first-hand, from these communities, not only about their experiences of gang violence but also the challenges they face with policing.

I was not satisfied that the SAPS were on top of the situation given that the murders had not only continued, but were increasing. It was for this reason that I publicly stated that the plan in place was not adequate.

The SAPS National Commissioner then presented me with a new Stabilisation Plan, and I asked him to be specific about the deployment of additional resources and SAPS personal in the 13 worst affected precincts.

I also met with the Premier of the Western Cape Alan Winde and Mayor of Cape Town Geordin Hill-Lewis to discuss the role that they could play and should play, in addressing the violence in these areas. The parties to the GNU should share responsibility for safety. Government at national, provincial and local levels. Gang violence should not be used for populist partisan rhetoric.

We had a very fruitful engagement about a range of issues. One of the immediate outcomes was that the SAPS and the City of Cape Town worked together to identify a building which can serve as an additional police station for the people of Mfuleni. This is currently underway and I hope to receive a report on this next week when I will be back in Cape Town.

Next Tuesday, on 23 September I will be meeting, along with the SAPS National Commissioner, with the Minister of Justice along with other entities such as the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), their Asset Forfeiture amongst others to promote a better coordinated and collaborative approach to addressing gang violence. I will report back to the community as soon as I can report the outcomes of this process.

The next step is to consolidate a more comprehensive plan and ensure that we together, across departments and tiers of government, target the gangs and their criminal networks more effectively. The objective is to pursue the financial and organisational structures that sustain gangs. To disrupting the trafficking routes to move illicit goods, such as drugs and firearms, seizing their illicit assets, and effectively prosecuting leaders and senior enablers.

I will also be requesting better dedicated intelligence capability to identify the gangs, their networks and operations to guide this coordinated action. We will also be further considering how to ensure better collaboration and coordination between local law enforcement, the provincial and national agencies like the Hawks, SARS, and international partners where cross-border elements exist.

I am exploring various legal options for implementing targeted lockdowns to reduce the violence and restore some level of stability in the worst affected areas.

In addition to this, I will be exploring some of the following options

2. Reducing the proliferation of illegal firearms: Without access to firearms, the gangs will be seriously weakened. We need urgent interventions to remove firearms from gangsters and prevent further proliferation of these deadly weapons.

Perhaps the firearms stocks held in SAPS 13 stores in gang areas should be removed, secured safely elsewhere and subjected to priority ballistic testing. Rigorous and regular auditing must be done on all state entities and of private security companies that hold firearm stocks.

We could consider monetary rewards for information leading to the confiscation of illegal firearms and the prosecution of those who possess or deal in illegal firearms and ammunition.

3. Strengthen community policing capability: We support well-trained, well-equipped, and accountable policing that operates in partnership with communities. This includes bolstering investigative capacity to bring perpetrators to justice; improving intelligence-sharing; ensuring visible patrols in high-risk areas; and strengthening community-police forums that serve as a bridge between residents and law enforcement.

4. Strengthen the criminal-justice chain: From arrest to prosecution to conviction and sentencing, the criminal-justice system must be efficient, impartial, and victim-centered. We are working towards improved forensic capability, timely prosecutions, witness[1]protection measures, and courts that are safe and responsive to community needs.

Moreover, we need to disrupt the links between the gang leaders in prisons and the gangs on the streets. This can be achieved through measures such as erecting cellphone blocking technology at correctional facilities, and moving key gang leaders to correctional facilities outside of the province.

5. Combat corruption and complicity: Corruption corrodes every effort to build safe communities and must be rooted out decisively. Where there are allegations of collusion between criminals and officials, these must be investigated thoroughly and transparently.

This is particularly necessary for law enforcement agencies who are at the front line of addressing gang violence. We need to see enhanced integrity testing, counter-intelligence operations and lifestyle audits of police leadership in gang infested areas. There must be no doubt in the minds of our communities, that the police are there to serve them and not the gangsters.

6. Expand youth intervention programmes: Scale up proven initiatives that provide alternatives: after-school programmes, vocational training, internships, sports and cultural programmes, mentoring, and entrepreneurship support. These must be accompanied by deliberate job-creation strategies targeted at high-risk areas and youth cohorts.

7. Invest in education and early-childhood development: Strengthen schools in affected communities, address absenteeism, ensure safety for learners, provide psychosocial support, and invest in early-childhood development programmes that lay foundations for better life trajectories.

8. Enhance social and mental-health services: We need to provide trauma counselling, family-support services, substance-abuse treatment, and accessible mental-health care. These services must be available both in clinics and community-based settings, destigmatised and linked to schools and social-welfare departments. Many drug users are victims that need support and should be recognised as such.

9. Support community-based violence-prevention initiatives: Fund and partner with local NGOs, faith-based organisations, and neighbourhood watch structures that have proven credibility and impact. These actors know their communities and can deliver targeted, culturally appropriate interventions.

10. Address spatial and economic exclusion: Implement integrated development plans that improve housing, infrastructure, public spaces, transport, and economic nodes in gang[1]affected areas. Spatial transformation reduces the isolation that gangs exploit and creates environments conducive to commerce and social cohesion.

11. Foster social solidarity and civic renewal: We must promote campaigns that rebuild trust — between neighbours, between generations, and between communities and the state. Encourage civic participation, social entrepreneurship, and volunteerism as part of a broader strategy to reclaim public life from the dominion of gangs.

Conclusion

Let us be clear-eyed: the road ahead will be difficult. Gang structures adapt; progress will sometimes be uneven. But our resolve must be permanent. We owe it to the memory of those lost and to the promise of our Constitution to persist until every child can play without fear, every learner can study without threat, and every family can flourish.

In closing, let us remember that safety and dignity are not gifts granted by power; they are rights secured by concerted, persistent action. The African National Congress stands with the people of the Western Cape in grieving, resisting, and rebuilding. We call on all sectors of society to join us: to act with courage, to choose compassion, to demand accountability, and to create opportunities. Together, we can and must reclaim our communities from the grip of violence and build a future in which equality, opportunity, and peace are realities for all.