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For a number of years we have watched as the SAPS has descended into serious trouble. Sometimes it’s difficult to know whether the troubled state of the policing organisation is a figment of media exaggeration, or a reasonably true reflection. Over the past sixteen years the SAPS has undergone dramatic changes – it had to transform itself from the keeper of the apartheid state into a policing organisation that reflected the good intentions and stringent human rights requirements of the new democracy. In doing so it had to contend with deep internal divisions along race and gender lines, and at the same time provide a home for the police of the former Bantustans. When we should have been settling down to consolidate the organisation, deepen and improve training and address the shortcomings of crime scene management and crime detection, the organisation was the subject of a curious management experiment that involved the closing down of all specialist units and the redeployment of skilled police specialists to stations. While the argument in favour of this ‘re-structuring’ was beguiling – to make sure that the skills of specialists were available at station level to deal with crime – as it happened, however, the outcome was in fact the dilution, or loss, of badly needed skills and the weakening of the administrative and internal oversight systems.

As if that wasn’t enough, over the past 11 years the police have been treated by the ruling party as a prize to be passed to loyal cadres as a reward for loyalty to the chief – “No experience required”. We thus have had two successive Commissioners of Police whose integrity and suitability for the position have been questionable at best: former Commissioner Jackie Selebi was found guilty of corruption after a lengthy criminal trial, and current Commissioner Bheki Cele has been found by the Public Protector to have mismanaged matters relating to the expensive lease of property from a politically connected businessman. So we find ourselves in 2011 with a deeply embattled police service. It is difficult to see how this can be remedied without at least professionalising the position of Police Commissioner and ensuring that all senior appointments are made purely on merit.

Two of the articles in this edition of SACQ shed light on manifestations of the current crisis in the police. David Bruce presents evidence that ordinary police members have, over the last few years, resorted to an ever more brutal style of policing. Johan Burger looks at the effect that media coverage of police brutality and corruption has had on public faith in the institution, and calls for an urgent remedy. In addition, Andrew Faull interviews Francois Beukman, a lawyer and politician who has made his way to the head of the police oversight body responsible, at least in the minds of the public, ‘for cleaning up’ behind the police.