By: Asasnda Sokanyile
I
believe that in life we all have different roles to fulfil. I therefore believe that each of us should
undertake with pride our respective duties, particularly those within civil
society. With that said, I am not
convinced that the South African Police Service boasts a fully committed group
of community service providers. Police
are there to provide a service to the people, they are there to protect the
communities and most importantly they are to uphold the good name of the
country by ensuring that they are on top of all criminal activities. They should be able to uproot any criminal
elements in communities and should be visible at all times so as to eliminate
opportunity for criminal activity.
In
many communities, particularly black communities, vigilantism has taken
over. This is due to lack of efficient
policing within the communities. I
strongly believe that the police service is filled with people who are only
interested in their pay-cheques and not necessarily in the betterment of
society. Police do not respond timeously
to crime scenes, they hardly know what to do in cases of house breaking (or
perhaps they don’t want to do anything) and they are simply unfit.
In
my opinion, the six months’ training that police/future police undergo is
simply not enough. Policing is a mental,
physical, psychological and emotional job; it is therefore imperative that the
training tackles all of these aspects.
How is a policeman weighing over 200kg pure fat and not muscle going to
chase after a criminal weighing about 90kg? It is Ludacris to have fat
policeman and expect results; they are unfit therefore they will not be able to
fulfil the job so why are they in those positions? It is also important for police to remain
mindful of the fact that they are dealing with people with various problems and
therefore need to be handled differently.
They need to be taught how to be empathetic; in fact, they need to be
taught what it is to be empathetic.
They
need to be psycho-analysed so as to eradicate police brutality and spousal
killings by police. If police are going
to be the ones committing the crimes then what is the purpose of having them? Well, for now that is not really the issue,
the issue is that though they are available they are simply not visible enough
to combat any crime at all. Have you
ever called the police station to report a crime in progress and had the police
tell you “there are no vans, we have to wait for a van to come back from
another crime scene?” it is crazy. Even
crazier though, when they do eventually get to where they were supposed to have
been two hours ago; they can’t take down a simple statement. If you want your statement to be recorded;
you have to write it yourself.
Not only
do you write your own statement, you then have to follow up with the
police. That’s if you want anything done
about whatever it is that you called them about in the first place anyway. If you are lucky, your case may be attended
to in the next two to three years. Why,
you many wonder! Well because there “aren’t enough” police to get to your case. Though you may find them hanging outside
police vans eating Kentucky Fried Chicken in the wee hours of the mornings or
parked outside their significant others’ place of residence while on duty,
please do not hold this against them.
These people are not equipped enough to handle civil duties to their
full extent. In fact, they are not equipped to handle them at all.
In
my opinion, the entire SAPS needs to be scraped and a new compliment of
physically, mentally and psychologically fit people who are passionate about
the job should be taken on. If police
were efficient we would not be having people taking the law into their own
hands, we wouldn’t have people resorting to accepting taxi drivers “sorting
out” criminals. Crime is on the rise,
don’t let statistics fool you; government is very good at covering things
up. What about the crimes that aren’t
reported because people don’t see the need to? What about the crimes solved by
vigilantes? What about the vigilantism itself? Is that not a crime? Well, I was
of the impression it was, but hey, if SAPS says it’s not because if means extra
work and not enough time to spend at the local vetkoek parlour then who am I to
judge?
The
police ministry needs to go back to the drawing board and assess the current
work force, most importantly look into ensuring good sound service delivery to communities,
give tax-payers value for their money and clean up shop.