Book review –
A horror anatomy of police corruption
Charles
Cilliers@City_Press28 July 2013 14:00
This is a book police
commissioner RiahPhiyega needs to read, because the only thing worse than the
culture of crime and corruption eating into the SA Police Service (SAPS) is
official denial of the problem.
Anyone who bothers to read
a newspaper from week to week doesn’t buy any of the excuses any more, and this
book is a timely reminder why.
Criminologist Liza Grobler
takes a comprehensive look at criminal and corrupt cops, and how they are
formed. She starts off with a look at cops in New York, London and Sydney –
cities in which there’s a general acknowledgement that about 1% of cops are
corrupt.
She explains how, because
of this understanding, wide-ranging programmes are in place in these cities to
try to curb police corruption.
A good example is New York,
where cops are given intensive ethical training and are kept in line with,
among other things, random integrity tests no cop ever knows is coming and only
finds out about if he or she fails. A pass goes on record, allowing cops of
good character to progress.
There’s nothing of the sort
in South Africa. Ours is a service in every kind of disarray, muddled by politicians
who have no place in what should be a paramilitary organisation. But, as
Grobler puts it, “a fish rots from the head”.
She unpacks every possible
kind of crooked South African cop, and it’s a long list. Some are drug users or
dealers themselves, easily manipulated after being co-opted as members of
gangs. Others are little more than criminals in uniform. They rob businesses,
commit fraud, rape suspects in custody and go as far as murder. But cop crime
includes “noble corruption”, where crime scenes have been tampered with to
provide false evidence.
Grobler also covers murky
relationships with informers, stealing and destroying dockets, police brutality
and a significant economy of accepting and soliciting bribes.
The cost of all this is
staggering. Just in financial terms alone, mounting ill discipline and crime in
the service has meant that since 2006, the cost of paying for civil cases
against the SAPS quadrupled from R5.3 billion to R20.5 billion in 2011/12. The
real cost is greater: criminals are empowered and hold the population and its
economy to ransom.
Grobler’s research makes it
clear it doesn’t really matter how many cops are crooked, because it only takes
a few bad apples at every station to undo the work of good cops. But the book
hedges wildly on how many cops may actually be criminals.
On one page, it seems it’s
just a small fraction, on another you get the impression the majority are
tainted. The reason is, as Grobler says, it is “difficult to establish the
extent of the corruption and criminality in the SAPS because statistics
gathered on it cannot be released”.
She trawls through media
reports, the police data that is available, court records, numerous interviews
with police officers (some while serving time) and many experts to paint her
unhappy picture.
It begins with poor
recruitment strategies and inadequate training, and is made worse by underpaid
rookie cops being mentored by corrupt officers. Education is no longer paid for
by the service; promotions and pay increases appear to have little to do with
merit and performance, and are subject to a poorly implemented system of
affirmative action; and the overwhelming culture of drinking and using drugs
doesn’t help.
Despite the challenge
fixing the SAPS presents, Grobler’s recommendations, if implemented, would
restore the public’s faith in the men and women in blue.
Continuing to deny the
problems, from Marikana to NathiMthethwa’s wall, helps no one but criminals.
That said, our cops are still the best we have. Without them, the country would
descend into chaos in a matter of days.
All the same, they can do a
whole lot better.
Crossing the line: When
cops become criminals
Jacana; 400 pages
R189at Kalahari.com
Jacana; 400 pages
R189at Kalahari.com
