Strengthen the Disciplinary System to Clean up the South African Police Service

In a welcome sign of the South African government’s intention to improve policing, the Minister of Police Nathi Mthethwa released two media statements in as many days (on 6 and 7 December) last week, promising to remove police officials who are corrupt or incompetent. This was billed as “a clean-up operation of corrupt police officers and staff who are not deserving to be in the South African Police Service (SAPS)”. While this will be music to the ears of many people who have experienced police misconduct or abuse, much has to happen to improve the management and the internal disciplinary system of the SAPS if this is to become a reality.

Published on 15 December 2010 in ISS Today

Gareth Newham, Head of the Crime and Justice Programme, ISS Pretoria

In a welcome sign of the South African government’s intention to improve policing, the Minister of Police Nathi Mthethwa released two media statements in as many days (on 6 and 7 December) last week, promising to remove police officials who are corrupt or incompetent.  This was billed as “a clean-up operation of corrupt police officers and staff who are not deserving to be in the South African Police Service (SAPS)”. While this will be music to the ears of many people who have experienced police misconduct or abuse, much has to happen to improve the management and the internal disciplinary system of the SAPS if this is to become a reality.

Following a briefing to Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on the Police in which it was revealed that members of the SAPS had lost 3 453 firearms during the 2009/2010 financial year, the Minister released a strong statement warning that where this was a result of negligence, police officers would be declared incompetent and would be dismissed from the Service.  The following day, the Minister released another media statement stating that in the same time period a total of 119 police officials had been dismissed from the SAPS for corruption and fraud.

What is particularly concerning in relation to the missing firearms, is that the situation has been getting worse. Quoting an opposition member of the Portfolio Committee, the Pretoria News reported that the number of firearms lost by police members had increased by 17% compared to the previous year and by 240% when compared to 2001.  This is a far higher increase than the approximately 60% increase in police personnel since that year. Ostensibly, the reason for this ongoing problem is that there is little accountability for many police officials when firearms go missing. In 2009/2010, only 26 police officers had been charged with misconduct related to the loss of firearms.  Of this number, only 18 had been found guilty.

While the dismissal of 119 police officials for corruption sounds impressive, it does not compare well to 810 police officials who were arrested and the 193 criminally convicted for corruption as a result of investigations by the SAPS Anti-Corruption Unit in 2000. This was shortly before the Unit was closed down by the disgraced former police chief Jackie Selebi. On the available evidence, systems for holding police officials accountable for misconduct or negligence have been weak for a long time and have been seriously neglected by those tasked with managing the organisation.  

Between 2004/05 and 2007/08, the number of disciplinary hearings held against police officials dropped by 58% (from 8 252 to 3 476). However, during this time the size of the SAPS increased by 14 000 people. Importantly, public opinion surveys conducted during this time revealed widespread public discontent with and mistrust of the police as a result of perceptions that the police officials were ill disciplined or corrupt.

Unfortunately, a cavalier approach to discipline seems to continue amongst the upper echelons of the organisation.  Investigations by the Special Investigation Unit (SIU) had uncovered 945 SAPS officials having being involved in social grant fraud. Earlier this year it was reported that SAPS top management had decided that this was too many people to dismiss and so instead issued written warnings and “suspended dismissals.” This set a dangerous precedent that the criminal act of fraud is not a dismissible offence for police officials. The Minister may now find it difficult to ensure that those inclined towards this activity are dismissed from the service in future.

There are some signs however, that there are attempts to improve discipline. The numbers of SAPS disciplinary hearings have increased by 24% over the past three years and the number of police officials fired for misconduct has increased by 76%.  Nevertheless, there is still a long way to go if police officials are to take the disciplinary system seriously. If a police official was hauled before a hearing in 2009/10, the most likely sanction was a fine (21% of the outcome of a hearing). The second most likely outcome was that the case would be withdrawn (20%), followed by a “suspended dismissal” (16%) and then dismissal (12%).  The fact that cases are withdrawn in one fifth of hearings should be of serious concern to anyone wanting to clean up the police service. This means that in a 869 instances where there was enough evidence to charge a SAPS official for misconduct, a condition necessary for a hearing to be instituted, for various reasons the disciplinary process broke down and the case was withdrawn.

Much has been done over the past 16 years to transform the SAPS and indeed it is a very different organisation to its predecessor. However, improving discipline in the police has remained a serious problem that the government has yet to tackle adequately. This has resulted in ongoing frustration by the public with the conduct of many police officials and has negatively impacted on those many hard working and honest police officials who are tainted by association. If the Minister’s recent statements are to really signal a desire to clean up the organisation, they will be have to be backed up by a thorough review of discipline within the organisation and a clear strategy for improving the internal systems of accountability.