Detective shortage now at more than 8 000

WHILE police are in the process of recalling detectives who have either retired or moved on, the investigative capacity of the SAPS is severely affected due to a shortage of more than 8 000 detectives, resulting in investigation delays.

In reply to a question about the capacitation of the detective services during a Peace and Security National Assembly parliamentary meeting last week, Deputy Police Minister Cassel Mathale said the government is now enlisting detectives.

“The number of dockets our detectives have at hand are more than what they are supposed to do,” he said.

This issue lies not only with detectives, but with the police service as a whole, he said, as the number of officers has decreased while the population of the country has increased to 62 million.

“We have for the first time in the history of this country trained 10 000 new police officers in the past financial year,” he said. For the next three years 10 000 more will be recruited each year.

Mathale said that on December 15, these new recruits will have a passing-out parade. He said from the 10 000 recruits, 2 880 new members were going to go into the detective space.

“As a country, we have committed a mistake by allowing the weakening of this sector,” said Mathale, but President Cyril Ramaphosa is rectifying it.

Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (Popcru) spokesperson Richard Mamabolo said the issue of detectives retiring or leaving detective services for other reasons represented a major challenge.

As a result, he said, their case dockets must be redistributed among the remaining overstretched detectives.

“A lack of detectives is having a severe impact on the investigative capacity of SAPS, resulting in growing backlogs and delays in investigations.

“This harms the public’s confidence and trust in SAPS and gives rise to complaints about cases dragging on for a long time without being finalised,” he said.

Criminologist Guy Lamb from Stellenbosch University said detectives are a crucial component of the criminal justice system and need to build strong dockets to get convictions.

“If the docket is in bad shape (insufficient evidence) … the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) will not take that docket to court.

“As a result, the victims of that crime don’t get justice and the perpetrators aren’t brought to court.”

According to Lamb, when there are fewer detectives, their caseload overwhelms them to the point where the quality of their work suffers.

“Violent crimes such as murder and attempted murder have increased since 2011 so there is a need to be investing more in detectives.

“Bringing retired detectives back with a lot of experience is important.”

Legal manager of People Opposing Women Abuse (Powa), Naledi Kuali, said there was already a backlog and the situation was going to be exacerbated by new cases being reported. Kuali said a lot more needed to be done by the SAPS in terms of proactively finding solutions.