. Katanga

CRIME in urban areas is a source of concern which has prompted many people to ask whether residential neighbourhoods can be designed, or redesigned, in a manner that could promote safety.
Even the presence of police posts has not helped matters, while the inadequate number of law-enforcement officers to patrol streets and police residential areas has led to criminals wandering about almost freely.
The situation has been worsened by a lack of police patrol vehicles, meaning that the police officers have to take longer to reach the scene of crime than expected.
This has created widespread anxiety among many township residents who are always in fear of victimisation, attacks and loss of property at the hands of criminals.
Of course in the rare event of a suspect being caught in a residential neighbourhood, people have resorted to mob justice to mete out punishment on him instead of leaving this to the police and other law-enforcers.
Despite warnings from the police, people would rather take the law into their own hands than leaving this to the police who may not even show up after all.
However, people especially in urban areas have come up with measures to protect themselves and their households.
These include building wall and electric fences around their homes where they also keep vicious dogs to guard them.
The same houses, and vehicles, may be fitted with alarm systems to alert them whenever suspected criminals try to tamper with them.
Other people have gone further, keeping firearms in their homes with which they scare away the night human prowlers.
While these individual initiatives by residents to secure their homes, as well as police patrols, have to a certain extent paid off, crime in many residential areas has gone on unabated.
This is particularly true of Lusaka’s Libala South, Hill View and some parts of Chalala where residents say they continue to be attacked and their homes broken into almost on a daily basis.
What is even more alarming are reports that the criminals know when and where police patrols occur each particular night, thus making it difficult for these law-enforcement officers to crack down on these people, who are certainly a scum of society.

Residents of affected areas should, therefore, heed the call by Lusaka Province Police Chief Charity Katanga to form neighbourhood groups to work with police officers to fight crime. This happened in the past and crime rates in given residential areas were reduced.