Botswana: The residents of the Kopong community have been called to join community policing programmes. The Botswana Police Service has been working towards including the members of the community to fight crime in their village.
The Officer Commanding (OC) No. 13 District, Senior Superintendent Russ Letsebe encouraged the residents to support the police.when addressing He made this call while he was addressing a Kgotla meeting in the village yesterday (06/06/2024).
Meanwhile, Letsebe said the partnership between the police and the community is extremely important. This is because this partnership  yields positive results when it comes to crime prevention.
He highlighted that these collaborative efforts will ensure regular updates of crime status and trends, joint crime prevention activities such as patrols.
The Commanding officer further added that Botswana Police alone cannot win the fight against crime. He highlighted that the criminal activities happen within the community and perpetrators are also members of the same community.
He therefore, urged the community to reconsider the society’s traditional values where greetings and checking on each other. Furthermore, he reiterated the need for members of the wards to know each other as this will help them easily identify strangers.
He also encouraged the members of the community to always share their whereabouts with their neighbours. Senior Superintendent Letsebe, also warned residents to desist from leaving dangerous equipments lying around.
The people of ill intentions can use these weapons to break into the houses of the people and potentially cause harm to the people.
In addition, the Officer Commanding encouraged parents to closely monitor their children for signs of their involvement in crime. He highlighted that children use drugs and commit cybercrimes under their parents’ noses.
He added in a lot of instances children use their parents or home gadgets to commit such crimes.
Kgosi Michael Molefhe of Kopong gave the welcome remarks to the police officers. He also thanked the Officer Commanding for having found it appropriate to address his residents on issues of crime.
He further told the villagers that self-policing was the key to public safety, urging them to join collaborative crime prevention efforts.