The specialised police crime fighting unit known as the ‘war room’ has received high praise following the arrest of 65 suspects in 24 hours. The war room was established in May 2008 to tackle serious crime in the Western Cape, by focusing on the co-ordination and sharing of information. It got off to an impressive start, with 266 suspects arrested in the first 11 days of it being operational.
An article in the Cape Times quotes Arthur Minnaar, the Mowbray police station’s spokesperson, who explained how it all works. Within an hour of arresting a suspect their details are sent to the war room. These details are then circulated to all stations to enable police to link suspects to a number of crimes and to pick up on crime trends.
Maitland police station’s spokesperson, Siyabulela Vukubi, said the war room is ‘working wonders’ and that everything is running smoothly and is better co-ordinated. Another measure of its success is the fact that Western Cape police have attributed the arrest of 186 hijacking suspects and an estimated 5 500 others linked to various crimes in the past three months to the ‘war room’, according to an additional article in the Cape Argus.
It will be interesting to see what the long-term impact the ‘war room’ will have on combating crime in the Western Cape. Do you think it can make a significant difference?
