Case dockets missing
A parliamentary reply reveals that a total of 671 dockets were lost or stolen in 2008/09 - up 57% from the 427 that were lost or stolen last year. This in turn represents a 75% increase since 2005/06, when 382 dockets were lost or stolen. Equally disturbing is the fact that in only 5 of the 671 cases, officers were dismissed for the loss of dockets, while only one fifth of incidents resulted in any disciplinary action at all. Missing dockets represent a severe impediment to any police investigation, and the failure to take action against offending officers means that there is no effective deterrent in place, and, thus, that the situation is unlikely to improve in future. It is also simply unconscionable in this day and age that we have handwritten dockets going missing. We have long called for automatic information backups to be made mandatory, and for a real-time crime information system, which would incorporate secure networked access to police case dockets, but the Ministry of Police have yet to give this proposal the attention it deserves. In sum, these figures show that the South African Police Service faces an array of severe challenges that simply are not being addressed.
