The G20 Cops Should Stay On the Streets And The Army Called Up to Back Them

The G20 summit has produced a spectacle in Johannesburg. Not in the conference halls or the diplomatic statements, but on the streets. Along every major highway, intersection, and arterial road stands a wall of blue-light policing power.

National, provincial, and municipal officers are deployed in numbers South Africans never see in their daily lives. It is heavy, visible, co-ordinated, and likely effective in keeping serious and violent criminals at bay.

Which raises the obvious question. If government can deliver saturation policing for the world’s dignitaries, why does it not do so for its own people?

For one week, the state has demonstrated the deterrent value of overwhelming police visibility.

South Africa’s police no longer have the investigative capacity, intelligence capability, or technological backbone needed to dismantle sophisticated criminal networks. They are held back by corruption, cadre deployment, broken procurement systems, and the absence of professional leadership. But standing on a street corner in uniform is not rocket science. Flooding high-risk areas with visible officers is not dependent on elite skills. It is basic policing and when government chooses to do it, it works.

Saturation policing should not be an exception reserved for summits. It should be a national strategy. Put officers on the streets – and call up the army to support them. Flood crime hotspots. Reclaim intersections. Make it impossible for heavily armed gangs to operate with impunity. Visible policing cannot fix everything, but it can dramatically reduce the frequency and success of violent crime while deeper reforms are built.

For the leadership of the Government of National Unity, keeping the officers on the streets is an easy win.