Crime won’t stop if cops are also criminals

You may call it farm killings, taxi killings, femicide, political killings, or any other name, but South Africa is the world’s murder capital.

Everybody knows a household that has lost someone to uncontrolled, horrific and unending killings. About 84 people are murdered every day, while 88 survive attempted murder.

In the last quarter of 2023, Police Minister Bheki Cele revealed that 7 710 people were murdered in just three months – that’s in just 90 days.

It is quite clear no one is safe in South Africa besides, of course, politicians who are surrounded by armed bodyguards whenever they are in public.

These daily killings in our communities have not only instilled traumas among the people, but the communities have lost their conscience. They have, in a way, become so paralysed that they’re no longer scared to watch the murder of another person or view the silent body of a murdered person.

What is so painful to the victimised families is that they may never see justice, due to the institutional failures of the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA).

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Like anyone in South Africa, I’ve always known criminals who terrorised my community when I was growing up.

I still know all the criminals who are terrorising my community. Many police know them too, but the problem is that they are befriending them.

Farmers around the community where I am staying in Zeerust in the North West, have installed surveillance cameras as part of measures to combat livestock theft.

I can tell you that the police and the NPA are still failing to prosecute a person who appears on camera footage stealing the farmers’ livestock.

How are people supposed to have faith in the justice system?

Killing people has become a lucrative business that attracts a lot of young people because they have the full knowledge that they would never be imprisoned – even when caught by police.

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While it is true that our police stations lack human, financial and technical capacity, it is also true that the existing human resources do not have the required skills to combat these killings.

Cele revealed to parliament in 2022 that over 1 300 police officials had left the South African Police Service (Saps) in the last five years, citing nepotism, workload, lack of resources, and corruption within the service.

What we also know now is that they are continuing to leave and nothing has been done to remedy the situation and improve the working conditions so these barbaric murders and other types of criminalities can be stopped.

Contrary to the belief that black people love their shanty towns or townships, many are living in fear in their communities and would leave instantly if they were offered a safer place to stay. White, Indian and coloured people are also not safe.

What can stop crime is to depoliticise the Saps and surrender crime prevention to the career police, who have been trained to deal with corruption.

We do not need a politician who will interfere with the good work of the police like Cele, who is obsessed with the cameras rather than fighting crime.

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We need good managers to lead various units of the police force who are not corrupt and will be respected as ethical leaders who take no-nonsense.

We have police men and women who are not respected by foreigners because some of them collect bribes from the same people who are committing crimes daily.

For a crime to stop in South Africa, it should first be stopped at the police stations. Police officers should be stopped from committing crimes in South Africa, and that is how they can restore reputation and respect back into the police service.

The police should be allowed to do their work independently without fear, favour or prejudice as we are seeing now.

– Mokgatlhe is a political writer and researcher