Police need the experience of former cops, say experts and a police union.
SOUTH Africans are increasingly turning to private detectives and security agencies to solve crimes as their confidence in the police continues to plummet.
Security experts and a police union agreed that it was time to re-employ former police officers to share their experience and increase staffing.
In the past nine months nearly 600 experienced detectives have left the force, according to Police Minister Senzo Mchunu.
Many have joined the private sector, the banking industry or moved overseas in search of better prospects.
Various organisations in the security industry told the Independent on Saturday that former cops should be rehired to bolster the number of experienced hands on the force and serve as mentors to rookie cops. In addition, private security companies should be brought on board to assist the police in combating crime.
Private investigator Rick Crouch said they were inundated with requests for assistance because citizens were disillusioned with the police.
“We receive a large number of criminal cases for investigation because people do not trust that SAPS will solve or even attempt to solve the case. What we have noticed is that the police won’t do anything and sometimes will not even open a case if you do not have the evidence and a suspect. Gone are the days when police actually investigate a case: they expect the complainant to bring them everything.”
Crouch said he received at least five requests a day from police officers looking for jobs, and these were seasoned detectives with 10-15 years experience. “The brain drain is real,” he said.
Earlier this year former police minister Bheki Cele revealed that between 2018 and 2023, 5.4 million cases had been closed, all unsolved. In Gauteng, 564 011 cases were closed, 359 557 in KwaZulu-Natal and 274 370 in the Western Cape between April and December 2023.
Crouch said police should enter into a formal agreement with the Private Security Industry Regulatory Authority which would include security companies and licensed private investigators.
“The training received by police in most cases is not great. Most do not know what to do when they arrive at a crime scene, most crime scenes are contaminated from the first minute that police arrive. You only have to look at the Senzo Meyiwa case to see that: the crime scene was contaminated from the first arrival of police and vital evidence was not collected,” said Crouch.
Marius Cloete is the managing director at National Anti-Hijacking Police, a non-profit consisting of former officers and SANDF members who collaborate with SAPS to investigate crime.
Cloete said many seasoned officers resigned for better pay in the private sector where they could earn up to R15 000 more, or they headed to countries like Iraq or Sudan where they were paid in dollars and pounds.
“And then they (SAPS) get all these inexperienced people that don’t really have the experience to actually investigate a case. So there is a little bit of a knock they’re taking there. And what most of them do these days is that they get a docket and sometimes they will just write onto the docket that there’s a lack of evidence or whatever and take it to the prosecutor, they file that docket, they archive it.”
Cloete said bringing back retired officers would solve a lot of issues.
“I would say retired ones that still want to keep themselves busy with doing the right thingfor the public. If the government can see who resigned, give that guy a chance and make him a better offer. Most of these guys who resigned were quite good detectives. Bring them back so that they can have a proper function and all these youngsters can learn from them.”
While the reappointment of former public servants is usually a contentious issue, even the South African Policing Union (SAPU) believes it’s the only way to solve the ongoing problems and staff shortages, exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic which prevented new officers from being trained in 2020.
SAPU spokesman Lesiba Thobakgale said: “Members have to wait for 12 to 13 years to be promoted one rank. Remember, in SAPS, rank goes with money. Some, they think that instead of me sitting here and being killed, I might as well go and work somewhere else. So, the repercussion is that those who are left in the system get to be overloaded. That clearly means the dockets keep piling up and they have to do investigations on all of those dockets.”
He said returning members would not be taking anyone’s job but only improving the existing capacity. “The only enemy we have is crime, it’s not about the egos of members, and if one is coming, it’s not coming here to take another one’s job, it’s here to capacitate. Already we see the type of burdens the detectives themselves are carrying.”
DA MP Lisa Schickerling, whose party lodged a request for information under the Promotion of Access to Information Act to get more details, said that with all the unsolved cases as well as dockets that went missing or were stolen, many victims of crime had lost hope of any justice.
Particularly shocking, she said, were the 61 740 rape cases that were closed.
“They were definitely victims of crime and will never gain back that trust again. So the people of South Africa have really lost trust in the police services, and they will definitely have to try to do something to regain the trust and make sure people actually aren’t afraid to go and report cases.”
Jacques Broodryk from the civil rights organisation Afriforum says given the shortage of at least 8 000 police officers, communities must fight crime by joining their local safety structures.
However, it would take years to fix the decay in the police caused by the lack of resources, mismanagement, political interference and up to 400 cases per detective, all of which had impacted on their morale.
Afriforum said it was ready to work with SAPS and had called on the minister to formalise agreements with private structures.
“We have 177 neighbourhood and farm watch structures countrywide who play an active role in keeping their communities safe. They have a great working relationship with the police service members on ground and I think it would be very good for the minister to, from a higher level up, from a political level, also acknowledge these working relationships and then get together and see how we can formalise these relationships.”