“Soldiers against gangsters?”

Evaluation of the impact of the army deployment against gang violence on homicides in the Cape Flats

Abstract

The debate on militarisation of domestic security around the world is mostly normative and conceptual, but there are few estimates of the direct impact of the use of military forces in public security tasks. This paper assesses the impact on local homicides of the 2019 deployment of the South African National Defence Force in police station areas in Cape Town, a measure taken to stem gang violence. It uses an interrupted time-series approach to estimate the effect by comparing homicide counts in relevant precincts before and during the deployment, compared to precincts with similar homicide rates and socioeconomic characteristics. Results show that there was an apparent initial reduction in the month in which the measure was taken, but the presence of the army was not associated with a significant decrease in homicides over the period.