Reporting a Crime

For Active Citizens

We all need to become Active Citizens if we want to change things. But how can we contribute and add value through our everyday movements and responsibilities? Easy – become the eyes and ears of your community by actively reporting all crimes no matter how minor and providing any information possible on crimes reported.

Criminals are opportunistic and look for any chance to strike, if we connect and share information quickly we can make things very hard for criminal elements. The CrimeSpotter app allows you to report crime and even suspicious activity very quickly and notify other users who are nearby.

Imagine a crime is witnessed and reported on the app, immediately all other users are notified in a radius around the crime who can become crime lookouts, providing valuable trending information that can lead to an arrest.

For Neighbourhood Watches

All neighbourhood watches and road closures share information through apps like WhatsApp, but this quickly becomes abused with random comments or messages. People leave the groups because of disagreements or annoyance. CrimeSpotter only shares actual incident information so that residents are only alerted to meaningful and relevant information. Alerts settings can be set to turn off any alerts as well should they become too frequent.

As all incident are mapped and information is captured in a searchable database, it is easy to refer back to the original report to get and update. In this way the crime report is centralised.

This is the ideal tool to gather everyone on one simple, easy-to-use app that promotes awareness and community security.

For Security Companies

Security and guarding companies form a vital service in the fight against crime in South Africa. There are an estimated 500,00 security officers employed by around 9,000 registered security companies, which is equivalent to five times the active South African Police officers. The crime intelligence sharing and communication between these companies is often fragmented or not happening at all.

CrimeSpotter will help to create a hub where communication can happen easily as guard and response officers can all receive local crime alerts and respond accordingly. The benefit to the security companies is that there reports or interactions will give them exposure to the communities they are active in.
Every guard, every officer can become the eyes and ears alongside active citizens.

Residents will quickly see which security companies are active and effective which will influence who they choose to sign-up with.
This is the ideal medium for security companies to showcase their work.

For Community Policing Forums

The Community Policing Forum (CPF) acts within the mandate from the South African Police Service to provide an interface between communities and the police. Within this mandate they fulfil communication and information sharing in order for the the South African Police to provide effective policing. Each and every police station has a CPF office.

WHAT IS A COMMUNITY POLICE FORUM (CPF)?
A Community Police Forum is a group of people from different communities and police representatives who meet to discuss safety problems in their communities. They aim at ensuring police accountability, transparency, and effectiveness in the community. CPFs are established in terms of section 19(1) of the S.A.P. S. Act, Act 68 of 1995.

The objectives of the community policing forum are:

> Enhancing the quality of information available to the police to develop a proactive and problem-solving approach to crime and violence.
> Establishing a partnership between police and the communities they serve ensuring effective protection of communities and a better quality of life.
> Ensuring the police address the primary needs of the community, and are accountable to these needs.
> Providing communities with a visible and accessible policing presence.
> Enhancing the public’s confidence in the police and deterring criminals.
> Aligning the values of the police organisation with those of democratic South Africa
> Inspiring police officers who can interact sensitively with their communities and in a manner that respects local values.

The CrimeSpotter App has been developed over a long period of time with consultation and forethought to the ability provide residents, security companies and the police with a system to communicate and share crime related information effectively on a single platform.

The aim of the app is to reduce crime through improved communication and information. The app is aimed at protection and safety.

The objectives of CrimeSpotter App are;

> To simplify the reporting of incidents to inform the community.
> To use awareness to prevent crime. Allowing residents to avoid crime hotspots.
> To provide a platform where information can be shared for role-players to act on.
> To link local residents in the goal of reducing crime through information sharing.
> To provide the security and police with information on patterns and trends that they can study and together with the community formulate crime prevention strategies.

As mentioned in the South Africa Police Services 2019 Annual Report there are a total of 1144 CPFs across South Africa who could make use of the App.