OP-ED: Measuring the success of the Cape Flats army deployment By Carla Bernardo
Kinnes, who grew up in Manenberg, a community long and deeply affected by gang violence, provided Summer School attendees with background of the deployment, challenges faced by and between the SANDF and the South African Police Service , indicators to avoid when evaluating the deployment, his suggestions for the criteria to use, and a way forward.On Cape Town’s periphery are the “abandoned communities”, predominantly located on the Cape Flats.
In addition to crimes are further challenges faced by official policing, including a lack of legitimacy for the police in many affected communities, the rapidly changing nature of gangs where the old rules of the 1980s and 1990s no longer apply, lack of resources, police infighting, and the continued politicisation of the gang problem.Apartheid’s South African Defence Force was last seen on the Cape Flats in 1989, a deployment that resulted in civilian deaths.
Further challenges materialised in the early stages of the deployment: there were separate briefings, a lack of integration between intelligence structures and a further lack of collaboration between SAPS and the SANDF in communities. These changes midway through the operation, as well as probable changes to targets, present problems for the evaluation of the operation.Kinnes made the point that evaluating success should not be measured purely on statistics showing a reduction in gang crime.Even if the crime statistics have dropped, one could not necessarily argue that it can be directly attributed to the role of the army,” he explained.
The third indicator he identified is the financial and social costs of the operation. This must account for the cost of bringing soldiers onto the streets as well as what the outcome has been of that cost, namely, how have they interacted with the residents?
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