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Speaker 1: Good morning, Cape Town with Africa Milani in for let's

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Speaker 1: to give it.

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Speaker 2: We all have a voice, use yours.

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Speaker 1: Call to one double four six oh five six seven,

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Speaker 1: join the conversation on k talk. So we've seen quite

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Speaker 1: a few floor crossings in the world of gangs, just

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Speaker 1: the kids joining the Americans, the clever kids and hard livings.

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Speaker 1: We've seen many Americans and inglorious bastards joining the fancy boys,

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Speaker 1: the IGBs defecting to the hard livings, the ghetto kids

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Speaker 1: joining the hard livings and fancy boys, Americans joining the

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Speaker 1: dollar kids, and Mongrels becoming only the family. What does

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Speaker 1: this mean in the ecosystem of gangsterism in the Cape?

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Speaker 1: Brandon Davis is an associate at the Global Initiative against

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Speaker 1: Transnational Organized Crime. Joining me on the line now, Brandon,

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Speaker 1: A very good morning and welcome to the show.

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Speaker 2: Hi Africa, thanks for having me, and good morning all

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Speaker 2: your lessoners as well.

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Speaker 1: So what drives all this floor crossing amongst gangsters?

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Speaker 2: So Africa, I think, you know, we need to look

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Speaker 2: at the stats around gang vinus to give everyone a

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Speaker 2: better picture of the situation. So since twenty twenty, well

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Speaker 2: in twenty twenty, there were four hundred and twenty two

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Speaker 2: gang related murders across the Western care and what the

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Speaker 2: do ARTI show is now, I won't go through all

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Speaker 2: of the stats, but there's been this increase, a steady

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Speaker 2: year and year increase, and in twenty twenty five that

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Speaker 2: number is more than double, standing at one forty. And

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Speaker 2: one of the reasons for this is this fragmented landscape,

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Speaker 2: and fragmentation is this umbrellas to them that we use

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Speaker 2: to describe what's happening in the landscape. And just one

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Speaker 2: factor of that is flow crossing. Now, floor crossing is

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Speaker 2: essentially when gang members just move over to another gang

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Speaker 2: their defect, and this has been causing high numbers of

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Speaker 2: violence in many different gang affected areas, especially in areas

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Speaker 2: like kind of a park for example Kensington now where

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Speaker 2: we've seen numerous reports of gang violence and shootings emerging.

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Speaker 2: And it has various other effects as well, but for

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Speaker 2: the most part, you know, we've seen this rapid increase

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Speaker 2: in violence and there are many reasons for this. So

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Speaker 2: gang members could essentially just be unhappy with the gangs,

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Speaker 2: with the way in which the gang's being led. They're

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Speaker 2: not happy with the amount of money they're receiving or

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Speaker 2: they feel unsafe in the gang they're in already and

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Speaker 2: they just move over to another gang.

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Speaker 1: And when they move over to another gang, do they

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Speaker 1: bring with them intelligence on how the operations of their

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Speaker 1: previous gang, for example, would be realized, and therefore the

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Speaker 1: new gang will use that as a way of attacking

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Speaker 1: the person's older gang.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so, if you've been following the news recently, it's

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Speaker 2: something that are The Western k Police Commissioner also noted

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Speaker 2: to be a big problem. So while gang members give

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Speaker 2: various reasons for moving gangs, including safety, it can actually

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Speaker 2: bring about more instances of violence. So when they move

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Speaker 2: to another gang, they inherit the new gang's rivalries while

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Speaker 2: also making enemies of their previous gang. And as you

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Speaker 2: rightly said, when it comes to the previous gang, you know,

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Speaker 2: they move away with intelligence worth weapons worth manpower of

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Speaker 2: the previous gang and that can often result in violence.

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Speaker 1: Does that then complicate the fight against gangsterism?

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Speaker 2: It definitely does. So what gang fragmentation as a whole

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Speaker 2: does is it adds more moving parts to an already

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Speaker 2: complicated system. And while the police are dealing with inter

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Speaker 2: gang violence over you know, as gangs fight over territory,

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Speaker 2: over drivative It just makes the entire situation more complicated

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Speaker 2: because now you have internal battles, you have you know,

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Speaker 2: instances of violence that wouldn't ordinarily emerge in the gang

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Speaker 2: landscape that are all happening now and it just means that,

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Speaker 2: you know, police have to rely more on the intelligence structures.

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Speaker 2: And we know the intelligence has been a big issue

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Speaker 2: in the past and it continues to be so now

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Speaker 2: as they struggle to act on it. But it is

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Speaker 2: something that needs to improve over time as the ganglandskip

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Speaker 2: becomes more fragmented and more unpredictable.

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Speaker 1: How then do we even begin to respond to this,

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Speaker 1: I wonder. I mean, there's the police trying to fight

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Speaker 1: obviously against gangsterism and the impact that it's having on communities,

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Speaker 1: but more important, the communities then are having to you know,

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Speaker 1: learn new ways of whatever that lived experience is going

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Speaker 1: to be when somebody has gone from just the kids

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Speaker 1: to join the Americans and they live just next door.

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Speaker 2: So as like I mentioned before, there needs to be

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Speaker 2: great intelligence gathering and we need to act on that intelligence,

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Speaker 2: but we also need to remember that policing the situation,

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Speaker 2: it's just one part of the entire problem. Crime prevention

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Speaker 2: does not rat solely on the shoulders of the government.

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Speaker 2: It is up to the whole of society to do so.

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Speaker 2: And one way to do that is to develop waste,

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Speaker 2: to develop networks of involving resilience to gang violence and

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Speaker 2: to joining gangs, and that needs to be implemented in

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Speaker 2: partnership with local community organizations who are often on the

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Speaker 2: front line when it comes to combating gangs. They are

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Speaker 2: the ones that are providing safe spaces for children, they

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Speaker 2: are the ones that tend to be mediating gang conflicts.

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Speaker 2: So in that way, I think we need to not

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Speaker 2: just stabilized communities. We've seen the deployment of the army

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Speaker 2: now and that is an important step to stabilize levels

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Speaker 2: of gang violence at the moment, But if we look

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Speaker 2: at previous deployments, it's been you know, it's been done before,

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Speaker 2: and there have been lessons that we learned from that,

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Speaker 2: and what we do now now is that that should

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Speaker 2: not be seen as a long term measure, that infronment

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Speaker 2: of the army. It needs to be seen as a

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Speaker 2: shorter measure just to stabilize the community, so that long

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Speaker 2: term interventions like bold and resilience can be implemented to

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Speaker 2: ultimately reduce gang violence in the long.

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Speaker 1: Run, because that is ultimate goal, is it not. Brandon,

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Speaker 1: thank you very much indeed for your time this morning.

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Speaker 1: Brandon Davis is an associate at Global Initiative against Transnational

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Speaker 1: Organized Crime talking to us about the fragmentation in the

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Speaker 1: gang and gang warfare profile, in part affected of cause

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Speaker 1: by floor crossing in inverted commas where people shift from

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Speaker 1: one gang to the next. If you live in those

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Speaker 1: communities that are riddled with gangsterism and you'd like to

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Speaker 1: share what your lived experience is like, we always welcome

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Speaker 1: your calls on two one four four six oh five

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Speaker 1: six seven, particularly where you've seen a shift from one

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Speaker 1: gang to the next and how that has impacted on

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Speaker 1: your routine and your lived experience in that community. You

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Speaker 1: can also send us a text message or voice note

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Speaker 1: two seven two five six seven one five six seven