06 Dec 2007: ISS Today: Without Better Communication, Can We Keep Track of Policing Trends in South Africa?

6 December 2007: Without Better Communication, Can We Keep Track of Policing Trends in South Africa?

 

(Picture courtesy of www.saps.gov.za)

It is no secret that for some time now, communication has not been the South African Police Service’s strong point. From the time that the police placed a moratorium on the release of crime statistics in 2000, things started to go wrong. Not only were the figures kept from the public for around 18 months, but the information available to journalists – both on the wires and via police spokespersons – was also gradually restricted. Since then, senior police officials have made fewer and fewer public appearances and now rarely speak to the media. This is made all the more frustrating because accessing official documents on police strategy is almost impossible without personal connections in the department.

 

The proceedings of a recent ISS conference suggest that little has changed. In fact, the immense pressure on the SAPS in the past two years in the wake of a spike in robbery and murder figures may be worsening the situation. Entitled ‘Policing in SA: Key issues and developments’ the conference was held from 31 October to 1 November in Centurion, Gauteng. Attended by around 200 delegates, many of whom were SAPS members, the conference first considered the 2006 organisational restructuring in the police, before moving on to the SAPS’ capacity to ensure crowd management at the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

 

Debates around the process and likely impact of the SAPS restructuring revealed that it is not only communication with the public that has suffered in recent years. The style and nature of SAPS head office communication (or lack thereof) with its own members seems equally fraught. The extent of participants’ frustration led the hapless police spokesperson dealing with the issue to comment wryly that ‘I should have worn a bullet-proof vest’.

 

The problem with the way the SAPS communicates with the public and with its own members is one of both quantity and quality. Although the conference did not deal with the crime statistics issue, discussions around the restructuring, measuring station level police performance, tackling police corruption, and oversight mechanisms, suggested that more information would be helpful, but more accurate information is particularly needed.

 

In the case of the restructuring, there is no doubt that SAPS management intendeded to communicate with members: provincial offices and commissioners were consulted, road shows were held in all nine provinces, station commissioners were briefed during provincial visits, and the internal police magazine published news on the changes. Communicating with 165 000 members in a country as vast as ours is no doubt a challenge. But in the case of a plan as drastic as this one is, communication should have been the most important part of the process. Based on discussions at the conference, questions remain about the reach of SAPS’ communication strategies, their timing (before, during or after the plans were finalised?), as well as the clarity and consistency of what was presented.

 

Very briefly, the restructuring process aims to boost station level capacity and performance by closing down one of the four layers of the SAPS administration (the Area offices) and transferring members from these offices (and even head office in some cases) to police stations. This may sound relatively simple, but it was telling that although almost two years have passed since the process began, conference participants (again, many of whom were police members) struggled to understand and keep up with the changing terminology used by SAPS head office last week: Would the changes be temporary or permanent? When will the new ‘interim strategy’ be replaced by the long-term arrangement? Would restructuring mean a ‘redeployment’ or a ‘migration’ of members – and what is the difference?

 

Although no representative study has been conducted of SAPS members’ views of the restructuring process, anecdotal evidence, supported by officers’ statements at the conference, provides cause for concern. One SAPS member summed it up last week: ‘Morale is at an all-time low; it’s rock bottom; 11 000 members have been affected by the restructuring so far and an average of 30% of members from Area offices left [the police] when the Areas were closed down’. How accurate his figures are is unknown – and that is precisely the point. Although the practical implications of the restructuring are far-reaching and complex, when presented publicly, the plans are short on detail and specifics, particularly numbers of members involved and time-lines. So although the SAPS insists that assessments of the process will be conducted, anyone outside head office will struggle to interpret the results or provide independent evaluations.

 

This is a shame because, inevitably, when communication on issues as emotive and pressing as crime and policing is not prioritised or is allowed to falter, the aggrieved parties – whether the public or police members – suspect the worst. ISS research on public order policing presented at the conference found that members thought the restructuring was management’s way of ‘punishing’ them. This view was also expressed during the conference. For those outside the SAPS, the lack of communication on crime and policing makes keeping track of developments difficult, and increases scepticism about the police’s ability to act effectively. Considering the immense challenge that making South Africa safe presents, this seems an unnecessary and costly diversion.

 

Antoinette Louw, Senior Research Fellow, Crime and Justice Programme, ISS Pretoria