The Institute for Security Studies (ISS) announced on Wednesday that the South African Police Service (SAPS) had adopted evidence-based policing in its annual performance plan.

This came just two days before the release of the first and second-quarter crime statistics for 2025/26 by the SAPS.

SAPS incorporated evidence-based policing (EBP) into its annual performance plan following successful trials guided by ISS.

“EBP improves planning and decision making by drawing on evidence and data to inform strategies and evaluate their outcomes. It shifts policing from tradition and opinion to activity informed by evidence of what works.”

According to ISS, the EBP approach now enjoys leadership support at national, provincial, and city levels in South Africa, and police and safety institutions are increasingly collaborating with researchers.

The institute said the first test of EBP in the country was in 2023 in Mitchells Plain, Cape Town, with data used to direct patrols to a violent-crime hotspot.

“It showed a 31% reduction in contact crime and demonstrated that EBP could reduce violent crime by making more targeted use of existing resources.”

The success of the intervention led ISS to expand it to Delft, Khayelitsha, Nyanga, and Gugulethu in Cape Town.

This expansion represents Africa’s first multi-site experiment in policing crime hotspots.

“An evidence-based patrol strategy was introduced in eight crime hotspots, preventing an estimated 100 contact crimes in four months, creating safer neighbourhoods, enhancing public trust, and improving police relations with local communities.”

ISS stated that there was a notable year-on-year reduction in multiple crime categories, including murder and attempted murder, while ambulance calls for violence-related trauma also decreased significantly.

“The strategy expanded to 11 police stations in 2025, and the Western Cape aims to deploy it in 30 priority police stations by March 2026. The City of Cape Town recently trained 800 new metro police cadets in the approach.”

ISS highlighted that the rollout to additional stations is now a formal performance indicator under the SAPS 2025/26 Annual Operational Plan and features in the work plan of the cooperation agreement between the police, Western Cape, and Cape Town.

It added that the Hotspots Policing Project was a collaboration between SAPS, the Western Cape provincial government, and the City of Cape Town, with the ISS and Hanns Seidel Foundation providing support.

Anine Kriegler, a senior researcher in the ISS Justice and Violence Prevention programme, said the evidence-based patrol strategy uses crime statistics to plan and deploy short, frequent, and unpredictable patrols across areas where crime happens most.

She said patrols last 15–25 minutes, which has been proven to prevent crime more efficiently and cause minimal disruption to other duties.

“Evidence from the Western Cape trials, and research internationally, shows the impact of a focused strategic police presence in time and place,” said Kriegler.

According to Kriegler, each hotspot is assigned a specific patrol schedule based on detailed crime pattern analysis, and police visit more frequently when crimes are most likely to occur.

She said patrol times, entry points, and routes are not fixed, making it harder for criminals to predict when police will arrive.

ISS said police have clear guidelines to maximise visibility, avoid being predictable, and prioritise positive community interactions.

The Western Cape trials incorporated tracking systems to boost the precision of patrol implementation and enable real-time adjustments.

This initiative significantly improved command and control, as well as management at the station level.

Speaking during the crime stats announcement, Police Minister Firoz Cachalia said after his appointment he was confronted with the crime situation in the Western Cape.

Cachalia said he has publicly stated that an integrated, well-resourced strategy is now in place to combat the scourge of gang violence in the Western Cape, Eastern Cape, Gauteng, and KwaZulu-Natal.

“I am confident that this is the right strategy; the challenge is going to be implementation. So the ministry will be monitoring the implementation of this strategy on a monthly basis. I can say that while we don’t see the progress that is necessary, there is some evidence that we are beginning to make progress,” said Cachalia.

karen.singh@inl.co.za

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