SAPS 'full of criminals'
2008-05-12 13:25
Pretoria - Only 192 police were suspended for "corruption" in the past year - a little over 0.1% of the 137 000-strong police service.
New figures released by police exclusively to Beeld show that overall, 552 policemen were suspended between April 2007 and March 2008 for committing serious crimes. This amounts to 0.4% of the police on our streets.
But independent researchers and criminologists have slammed the statistics saying they indicate the SAPS "doesn't have a clue and doesn't want to have a clue" about the extent of corruption and criminal activity in its ranks. And they have warned that the police force is fast becoming an "organisation of criminals".
'They are in denial'
"One gets tired of hearing about a few bad apples," says Liza Grobler, an independent criminologist whose PhD thesis examined police criminality. "That is absolute rubbish. That is why we have this problem. It is because they refuse to admit there is a problem and the more they are in denial, the less chance we have of anything being rectified. It is hard not to be negative."
Research she has conducted in the Western Cape and interviews with convicted policemen have led her to believe that at least 10% of police are corrupt or criminal but, she says, "that is probably too fair".
Says David Bruce, a senior researcher at the Centre for the Study of Violence, who has conducted extensive studies of policing and police oversight structures: "If the SAPS was a model of integrity, those figures would make sense. But I don't believe it for a moment."
"I think the police is riddled with corruption.
"Management controls are generally weak in the SAPS, there is no systematic approach to corruption and there is no investigative unit looking specifically at corruption."
Many lead double lives
Grobler says many police lead double lives.
"There's the concept of a parallel career. Many policemen have been criminals since their first week. One guy I interviewed got away with everything for 17 years. Except murder, he didn't do murder. He was eventually busted for issuing a fake gun licence but before that he had hijacked, he was running a prostitution ring, he burgled...It's unreal.
"The station where he would work night-shift, there was never a senior officer on duty. The entire night shift staff was rotten and if there was a policeman who wasn't, he'd be worked out.
"If they got a call and they were having a braai or drinks at the back of the station, they just wouldn't go. But if the local gang called on them they would go because that is who was paying them. They were in it together. It was a completely symbiotic relationship."
Eight years ago, the police's Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) arrested 1 048 police for corruption and obtained 193 convictions. A year later, on the instructions of Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi - who himself now faces charges of corruption and links to organised crime - its staff complement was halved. It was later unceremoniously closed down.
Corruption and Fraud Prevention Plan
But police maintain they are determined to weed out criminality and corruption. The key, they say, is a 30 page Corruption and Fraud Prevention Plan. Three years in the making, it has yet to be fully implemented.
In the document Selebi writes: "The key to combating corruption and fraud in the SAPS is effective supervision of SAPS employees at all levels, but particularly at station level...Corruption and fraud will not be tolerated in this police service and those found guilty...will be dealt with to the full extent of the law and the SAPS Disciplinary Regulations."
Assistant Commissioner George Moorcroft, the police's strategic management head, is at the helm. And his mantra is "prevention, detection, investigation and restoration". For him the fight is about "control-measures", "integrity documents" and "risk assessments".
"We are detecting a lot [of corruption cases], which is a good thing. We are not saying there is more corruption, we are saying more is being detected...We must show corrupt elements that we are taking no nonsense."
Definition of corruption
He says current corruption figures are so much lower than those recorded by the defunct Anti-Corruption Unit because the definition of corruption has narrowed.
"In the past we included all criminal cases under the heading 'corruption-related crimes'. We now have a strict definition of corruption.
"You can also argue that it is low because cases are not reported or it is low because we are doing something about it. We can only look at that when we do an internal survey to determine what is happening."
"It is semantics," says Liza Grobler. "If you want to look at the rottenness, you can include all their crimes into the category of corruption because of the nature of their job and the powers they have. They are not like ordinary criminals."
Moorcroft says that while the figures provided to Beeld provide a "rough" picture of cases over the last year: "I cannot vouch for them...It could be that the systems have more included."
Moorcroft is dismissive of the ACU which carried out 23 000 investigations between 1996 and 2001 and arrested more than 3 200 police before its closure in 2002.
"Nobody liked those guys, they only investigated. There was no prevention. What we did after them, we looked at broadening the strategy. We wanted to prevent corruption so we asked the question: How do we detect corruption?"
Motivating the ACU's closure, police Commissioner Jackie Selebi said its functions were duplicated by the Organised Crime Unit (OCU). Ironically, just before the ACU's demise in early 2002, the head of the OCU in KwaZulu-Natal was convicted on corruption charges stemming from a case built by the ACU.
Says police spokesperson Director Selby Bokaba: "We have been criticised for closing down the Anti-Corruption Unit...but they only investigated. This plan is a departure from the way we did business. We are now looking at all aspects."
Screening, e-docket system helping
Moorcroft says proper screening should begin with recruitment. He says it is working. "We are arresting people in the police college who have fake certificates."
He says a new computerised e-docket system, which is currently being tested, will help prevent docket thefts and disappearances.
"Once a case is registered, you can try and cover up as much as you want...I can guarantee you that once a case has been registered it will be investigated.
Police from different stations will investigate each other in a bid to thwart the police trying to cover for one another.
"If a case of corruption happens at, for example, Hillbrow, then people from Vereeniging will go and investigate."
Moorcroft says the police Crime Intelligence has a desk dedicated to investigating corruption and sees no need for a specialist unit to tackle the problem.
Bokaba says such a unit would be a drain on resources.
"With such high levels of crime in the country and the limited capacity we have, do you want us to slash that capacity to concentrate on looking for corruption?"
According to Moorcroft, national, provincial and stations heads will have the Prevention Plan written into their performance agreements and will be assessed on how they conduct corruption and fraud risk assessments in their departments and ensure cases are effectively investigated and monitored. And it will become part of their overall operational plans.
Moorcroft said all 1 150 police station commissioners would be trained in the implementation of the plan by July this year. So far about 300 have been trained.
Implementation
David Bruce says part of the problem with plans like this are that they are "often used as a way of pretending to the world that something is being done about the problem".
Implementation, he says, is another matter. And without a dedicated anti-corruption unit the plan will be toothless.
But Moorcroft is determined the plan will be a success. "It is all about service delivery. Why are we doing this" Because we know there are cases of corruption and we will not take nonsense."
Grobler says she has "never heard anything more ridiculous" than the SAPS plan for police to police each other.
"It is a crazy, crazy concept that is completely against any international norm and international best practice. New York and London all have separate, removed investigation units. It is the only way you can do it.
"We don't have any sort of strategy and they [ the police] are not interested in devising one properly or implementing one."
'They will kill you broer'
For the police the consequences of reporting corruption are cause for real fear.
In February the State's case against police officials accused of stealing more than R100m from the Benoni police station safe collapsed after four key witnesses, including a policeman, were systematically murdered.
In January, a woman who was due to testify against two allegedly corrupt Booysens policemen was shot dead.
"They will kill you broer, they will kill you," one senior police official confided. "People close ranks, that is the problem. It is something that has been going on for years, ever since the police existed."