SA Police force an "organisation of criminals"

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 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."

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.

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.

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," 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."