Domestic dishonesty on the rise warns Justicia

ACCORDING to Alan Carey, operations director of Justicia Investigations, the sad reality is that crimes committed by domestic workers are on the rise and employers need to know how to deal with this constructively.

According to statistics South Africa, over one million people work as domestic servants in South Africa. As with most crimes in this country, though, there are no available statistics to indicate how serious the situation is. Cases investigated by Justicia during the first half of 2013 have increased by 70% percent on the number of cases handled during the first half of last year. In July alone, Justicia has investigated 10 incidents in the greater Durban area.

Crimes investigated by Justicia cover a wide range – from stealing money or jewellery to staged break-ins to more sophisticated crimes such as passing on information taken from bank statements and financial documents to syndicates.

“Although much theft within homes involves opportunistic, petty theft, criminals do use vulnerable people earning low wages to get information,” he warns.

Carey puts the increase in what he formally terms “domestic dishonesty” down to a combination of the pressures of a tight economy – rising food prices and taxi and bus fares – as well as old fashioned, greed. Theft of items such as jewellery are often discovered well after they have occurred, making it difficult to recover items.

“A domestic crime is painful and stressful because it has happened so close to home. Small things lead to bigger crimes and, once a trust relationship has been violated, it is gone. Unfortunately, people don’t act when they should because they are often afraid that the culprits will come back,” he says. However, he stresses that if correct procedures that protect the rights of both employer and employee are followed and homeowners are aware of and use the expertise available to them, this seldom happens.

A broad guideline is that employers of domestic workers should take the same approach as they would in the workplace. An expensive professional labour expert is not always needed, but employers should follow standard disciplinary procedures, document a disciplinary hearing and, should the crime be proved, get the perpetrator to sign an admission of guilt before dismissal.

Most importantly of all, he says, employers should do a full evaluation and pre-employment check on new employees, especially those in a position of trust or caring for children or the elderly.

“How well do you know the people that are working for you? Few employers even know the addresses of their own domestic workers! Rather than simply going by a referral from a friend or family member, you need to interview applicants, find out where they have worked before and then contact those people. Like we do with our own staff, you can even do a pre-employment polygraph.”

However, he also advised that home owners should prevent unpleasant situations by locking away valuables and not leaving money lying around.