AfriForum on 28 January 2015 released the Broken Blue Line Report, containing 100 examples of violent crimes in which South African police officers were involved since 2011. The report was compiled by the Institute of Race Relations (IRR).
AfriForum is of the view that National Police Commissioner, General Riah Phiyega is one of the main reasons behind the weakening of the South African Police Service (SAPS).
“The police no longer infiltrate gangs, but gangs infiltrate the police. How is it possible that one of every 100 police officers have a criminal record? The Broken Blue Line Report shows exactly why the police are failing in safeguarding the people of our country,” Ian Cameron, Head of Community Safety at AfriForum, said.
AfriForum proposed the following policy and other changes:
• General Phiyega should be replaced by a competent person.
• Minister of Police Nkosinathi Nhleko should be replaced.
• Transparency should be restored; the police should be seen as an honest institution again.
• Political appointments within the SAPS should end in order for service delivery to enjoy priority.
• The standard of training should be advanced.
• Specialist units should be revived without political interference.
• Criminal elements should be removed.
“The report shows that crime levels will not decline if wolf remains in sheep’s clothes. Private safety initiatives and structures are the only solution,” Cameron said.
• The report is the first of two knockouts by AfriForum against the police in the next two weeks. The civil rights organisation will release another report in February which indicates that government institutions have lost more firearms than licenced firearm owners.
Read the report here
https://www.afriforum.co.za/wp-content/uploads/Broken-Blue-LIne-finalised-2.pdf
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Alarm at high rate of criminality in South African Police Service
January 26 2015 at 10:57am By Carlo Petersen Cape Town - Four years after a research report exposed alarming criminality within police ranks, fresh evidence from the South African Institute of Race Relations (SAIRR) shows that nothing much has changed.
The SAIRR risk analysis unit’s findings, which highlight criminal officers’ involvement in serious and violent crime, is set to be released in a research paper titled Broken Blue Line Two on Wednesday.
The Cape Times obtained an unedited draft copy on Sunday of the new report that details 100 crimes, including rapes and murders allegedly carried out by police officers from April 2011 to November last year.
In the SAIRR’s first report, the same was done for the period between January 2009 and April 2010.
When the 2011 report was released, police said the problem was 'overstated' and that measures were in place to deal with police criminality. And the police has again poured cold water on the new report.
The SAIRR then applied the same methodology for their 2015 report to test whether anything had changed.
-- The 2011 report’s findings stated: “We found 40 cases related to murders. Rapes accounted for 20 incidents. Ten of the incidents related to armed robberies. Four cases implicate police officers in serious fraud, illegal dealing in weapons and ATM bombings.”
The findings for the 2015 report indicated 36 cases related to murders, 21 related to armed robberies, 27 related to rapes and 16 related to other types of crime ranging from torture to theft and burglaries.
“The fact that we could so easily identify 100 incidents over such a short period of time would suggest that South Africa continues to confront a massive problem,” the draft report states.
As solutions, the SAIRR makes proposals including restoring respect for the chain of command within the police.
“The choice of police commissioner in Riah Phiyega is so utterly inappropriate that it cannot instil confidence in other members.
“That such an important position can fall to such an incompetent person is indicative of the broader command and control problems facing policing in South Africa.”
In response, national police spokesman Solomon Makgale said on Sunday: “Criminality within the SAPS is not an invention of the national commissioner.
“Efforts are being put in place to reduce criminality within the police. Over the 18 months to October 2014, we dismissed 777 people.”
Makgale said Phiyega met SAIRR representatives on Friday.
“After questioning, it is being claimed that 'no case dockets were studied, neither were court reports or judgments taken into consideration as part of this research,” he said.
Institute for Security Studies spokesman Gareth Newham also questioned the upper echelons of the police force.
“It is a challenge that must be addressed. There is no sense in appointing someone who does not know policing.”
http://www.iol.co.za/news/crime-courts/alarm-at-high-rate-of-cop-criminality-1.1809027
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