Campus safety

Campus Protection Services (CPS) remains committed to its mandate of combating crime on campus and, most importantly, ensuring the safety of our students, staff, and visitors.

The University of Cape Town’s (UCT) campus is open, and several university properties, including student residences, are in neighbouring residential areas.

In 2022, we noted an increase in the overall number of crimes on and off campus. Robberies off campus remain a concern and UCT, in partnership with the Groote Schuur Community Improvement District, increased security presence on the fringes of campus. During this period, we saw several arrests for crimes committed such as vehicle-related crimes and theft. In addition, we regularly met with the station commanders from Rondebosch, Mowbray, and Woodstock South African Police Service to address concerns directly impacting the UCT community. Our partnerships with external role players is ongoing.    

Our risk operation centre has proven successful as we’ve seen an increase in calls into the facility. Calls are now easily managed, and the required assistance provided where needed. Managing operations from this space has also improved, as we are now able to dispatch an officer nearest to the area of concern. In addition, CPS can now monitor movement of our shuttle service in case we need to stop or redirect the service, and our officers are in radio contact with the drivers in the event of an emergency. 

The closed-circuit television (CCTV) renewal project is ongoing, with the focus of increasing CCTV capacity across campus. The focus areas for this installation will be critical areas to monitor activities across campus, which includes entry and exit points.