Police ‘still grappling’ with how to transform
POLICE management was still grappling with transforming the service from an authoritarian one with disregard for human rights into one that followed democratic principles, Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa said yesterday.
While public complaints to the Independent Police Investigative Directorate declined last year, the watchdog body warned that this did not reflect the worrying extent of police brutality and corruption.
“It is a fact of history that policing in SA was traditionally enforced selectively, with total disregard of human rights and authoritarian. While these characteristics ensured that the police were effective under apartheid in controlling the political opponents of the government, it meant that they were poorly equipped for crime control and prevention in the new democracy,” Mr Mthethwa said at the crime summit hosted by the Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union.
The gathering aims to find ways of fighting and preventing crime.
Mr Mthethwa said that as management went about transforming the police service, its approach should address a type of police service made up of officers who respected and upheld the constitution and those who enforced the law without fear or favour.
“To a large extent, we also need to acknowledge that while there are pockets of excellence within the organisation, there is sadly a culture of unaccountability and poor management. We have emphasised the culture of oversight … but that such a process must be constructive, open and fair,” Mr Mthethwa said.
He said one of the crucial priorities for this year was the policing of public protests.
“At any moment we must be able to uphold and enforce the law. Such public order policing units must be capacitated, strengthened with clear command and control structures to effectively carry out these duties, so that relations between police and communities are not compromised, but sustained,” Mr Mthethwa said.
Dr Johan Burger, a senior researcher at the Institute for Security Studies, said the police service needed to fight corruption and criminality from within if it wanted to be respected by the public.
Public perceptions of police officers were that they were corrupt, often overweight and had received poor training, he said. The growing number of incidents of criminality and misconduct by the police was steering the police service away from the objectives of policing.