Two Sides of the Same South African Police Service
blurb:isstoday:170309saps
17 March 2009: Two Sides of the Same South African Police Service
There are two sides to the South African Police Service (SAPS): one that is efficient, effective and honest and one that is the opposite; inefficient, unproductive and corrupt. There are honest and hardworking policemen like Piet Beyleveld, the highly respected detective who rose to fame with his successful investigations, notably of serial killings. There are however murder cases that not only go unsolved, but very often are never investigated in the first place. When the well-known historian David Rattray was murdered in 2007, in Rorke’s Drift, KwaZulu-Natal, his murderers were arrested within four days of the murder. They were convicted and sentenced within weeks after their arrest. But when Inge Lotz, a young university student, was killed in 2005 in Stellenbosch, the police arrested her boyfriend, Fred van der Vyver, for her murder and botched the case. After a protracted trial lasting almost three years, Van der Vyver was eventually acquitted in November 2007. In this case, the defence, with the aid of foreign experts and to the shame of SAPS, was able to prove that the police manipulated certain technical evidence.
There are almost daily conflicting reports about the performance of the police in the South African media. It is as if they are reporting on two completely different organisations.
There are indeed a lot of positive stories on the SAPS. For example, on 30 January 2009 the South African website The Good News published a story where the police in Durban were lauded for their ‘biggest drug bust’ of 200kg cocaine worth R230m and the arrest of a foreign national. A few weeks later The Star of 25 February 2009 reported on the attempted hijacking of a truck in the Brits area by four heavily armed men. The police foiled the hijacking and killed the robbers in a shootout. There are many more recent examples of police dedication - such as the investigation that led to the conviction of the notorious Sandton ‘knife gang’ on 11 March 2009 - almost three years after their arrest. The Court commended the police for their excellent work in this instance. In another reported incident, the police by chance passed a supermarket in Norwood in Johannesburg where a number of armed robbers were in the process of carrying out an armed robbery. Again the robbers shot at the police and in return the police shot and killed one of the robbers, wounded a second and arrested a third.
However, examples of poor and even deplorable performance also abound. This is the less commendable side of the ‘thin blue line’. There are far too many incidents where the police fail to attend to complaints or calls for assistance, or arrive too late to achieve anything. Too often we hear the excuse that there aren’t enough vehicles when, on closer inspection, it would appear that this is the result of poor management of resources rather than the absence of them. For example, it is shocking that, according to recent media reports, the Pretoria Flying Squad that is supposed to provide an immediate response to emergency calls, are only able to field three out of twenty four cars due to the disrepair of the rest of the fleet.
Even worse than these examples of poor performance are reports of reprehensible conduct by some police officials. For example, the Pretoria News, on 26 February 2009 published an article entitled ‘Blue-light terror on the highway’. This report referred to another of many recent incidents where the conduct of members of the SAPS VIP Protection Unit were either blatantly unlawful or at least unjustifiable and deplorable. In response to queries about the increasing number of complaints against members of this unit, the Minister of Safety and Security admitted that one hundred and eleven of its members are currently facing serious criminal charges, including for murder and robbery. In Rapport of 8 March a full page was devoted to the growing number of incidents where police officials act with complete disregard for the law and the millions of rands that it costs the SAPS in civil claims.
There is no doubt that the SAPS is going through an extremely difficult time and judging from media and public opinion they appear to have a depressingly small circle of friends. In fact, according to recent media reports on complaints by SAPS management about political interference, even the new Minister for Safety and Security, Nathi Mthetwa, is outside this small circle. The situation is further complicated by the fact that the National Commissioner of the SAPS, Jackie Selebi (picture), is on extended leave since January 2008 and is facing criminal charges. For more than a year now the SAPS have been led by an acting National Commissioner.
The position of the SAPS is in many ways reminiscent of that of the security forces in Northern Ireland during the ‘Troubles’ when Hamill in 1985 published his well-known book ‘Pig in the middle’. But while the security forces in that country were caught between opposing religious and ideological groups, the SAPS are caught between what some analysts refer to as the police’s impossible mandate and the reality of what they are capable of. This creates its own pressures and explains to some extent why they attempt to pursue this impossible mandate by, for example, a continuous process of restructuring. This situation is very often aggravated by the appointment of managers and other staff without the necessary skills, training and experience.
The SAPS can and should turn away from the rot that is setting in and focus on that side of it that represents honesty, dedication and efficiency. But for this to happen it is important that Government urgently address the untenable position of an acting National Commissioner (and other acting positions in SAPS). What SAPS needs more than anything now is strong and dynamic leadership that is capable of firm control and re-establishing of discipline, as well as strict command and control throughout the police. Government should also seriously reconsider the mandate of the police and relieve it of those expectations that are impossible to meet.
Johan Burger, Senior Researcher, Crime, Justice and Politics Programme, ISS Tshwane (Pretoria)
