South Africa’s policing mess
The Portfolio Committee of Police has raised the alarm about the South African Police Service’s (SAPS’) failure to tackle rising crime rates in the country and hit its performance targets.
This follows Parliamentary briefings from the Office of the Auditor-General (AG), SAPS management, the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID), the Private Security Industry Regulatory Authority (PSIRA), and the Civilian Secretariat for Police Service (CSPS) on 9 October.
The committee welcomed the achievement of the AG’s unqualified audit opinion for the SAPS; however, it flagged a “serious underperformance in reducing critical crime trends that continue to besiege the country.”
While the CSPS, IPID and PSiRA reportedly met 100% of targets for audited programmes, the AG said that the SAPS met just 54% of its planned performance targets for 2023/24.
As outlined by the report, key set targets not met include:
- Contact Crime: Reported contact crime increased by 2.43% rather than showing a reduction.
- Crimes Against Children: These crimes increased by 2.57%.
- Crimes Against Women: There was a 3.90% increase in crimes against women.
- Neutralisation of Drug Syndicates: An average of 44.24% of drug syndicates and criminal groups were neutralised.
- Neutralisation of Organised Criminal Groups: An average of 28.25% of identified organised criminal groups were neutralised through arrests.
- DNA Case Exhibit Backlog: The target was to keep the backlog below 10%, but it stands at 19.31%, with 74,142 out of 383,858 exhibits not finalised.
- General Case Exhibit Backlog: The target was also to keep this backlog below 10%, but the current rate is 25.31%, with 161,747 out of 638,969 exhibits not finalised.
The impact of this is that “contact crime is increasing as the department’s crime prevention
strategies are not successful to reduce contact crime [and] drugs continue to cause disorder in our communities and… an increase in violent crime,” said the AG.
What drew notable attention during the meeting was the shortfall of over 3,200 arrests related to economic infrastructure crimes compared to its targets.
Committee chairperson, Ian Cameron, said that “in a country battling extortion, organised crime and rising violence, these failures directly undermine our ability to safeguard economic development and public safety.”
“The fact that the SAPS is failing to dismantle the extortion syndicates is confirmation of the committee’s view that the lack of a clear and actionable plan will continue to hamper efforts to defeat the scourge of extortion in the country,” he added.
Additionally, although SAPS claimed that the Crime Intelligence Division achieved 100% of its targets, “the rising levels of extortion, cash-in-transit heists, cross-border crimes and kidnappings suggest otherwise,” said the committee.
The committee is believes there is a disconnect between the reported achievements and the reality on the ground, which raises serious questions about the integrity of the performance data.
This was echoed when the AG flagged other pressing issues at SAPS, including:
- Inaccurate and incomplete recording of charges and victim information skews reported crime statistics, hindering the development of effective crime prevention strategies and appropriate resource allocation.
- Inadequate record-keeping and maintenance of case dockets compromise court processes and prevent victims from receiving justice.
- The Integrated Case Docket Management System (ICDMS) has not yielded a return on investment due to its limited use.
According to AG, ineffective command and control at police station level were key causes of this situation.
“The process of quality control has not been emphasised enough. As a result, officials at station level are not aware of how their daily operations affect the department’s overall audit outcomes,” said the office of the AG.
“Consequence management is not implemented at the right level of management, as a result the culture remains the same and no improvements or corrective action taken to address deficiencies on performance information,” they added.
AGSA also found data capturers are insufficiently trained on how to handle statements.
“Errors in capturing are due to capturers not understanding the different types of crimes, which leads to incorrect capturing of information.”
Issues with managing SAPS’s 10111 command centres also came under the spotlight during the meeting.
It was highlighted that the average call abandonment rate is 26%, and slow response times average 8 to 35 minutes.
Earlier this year, BusinessTech reported that, on average, only 41.31% of SAPS emergency call center positions are filled.
Such staffing issues have contributed to the fact that 14.9 million calls to 10111 have been abandoned in 11 out of the country’s 19 centres since 2018/19.
“Despite years of discussions about this issue, there is little evidence of improvement [and] for a service that is supposed to be the public’s first line of defence against crime, these statistics represent a gross dereliction of duty,” said the committee.
The committee also highlighted the critical underfunding of the Detective Services Division, which has seen its numbers decline from 26,000 to just 17,000 over seven years.
This has ultimately impacted detection and turnover rates.
The committee said that the reports present “a clear need for more decisive action and accountability across the entire police and security services sector.”
National police commissioner General Fannie Masemola said they acknowledged there “are areas of concern”.
“We realise that our problem lies more on your implementation level, that is the station management.”
He added they had introduced an orientation course besides the station management course.
“Through improving that, we think we will rectify most of our problems because we have seen that level of management, that is where most things seem to be going wrong.”
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