Gang violence in the Western Cape is rife.
As Parliament begins a wider inquiry into gang-related violence, lawmakers are turning their attention beyond street-level shootings and arrests to the criminal ecosystem that keeps gangs supplied with guns, money, drugs and new recruits.
Portfolio Committee on Police chairperson Ian Cameron told the Parliamentary Summit on Gang-Related Violence at Parliament on Thursday that the inquiry must answer a difficult but urgent question: what drives and sustains gang violence, and what will it take to dismantle it?
The inquiry comes against a grim backdrop in the Western Cape, where gang violence remains one of the leading drivers of murder.
According to the latest publicly available SAPS quarterly crime statistics, 983 people were murdered in the Western Cape between January and March 2026, while another 1,025 attempted murders were recorded. Of the murders, 225 were linked to gang violence nearly one in four killings recorded in the province during the three-month period.
