Back to Basics towards a safer tomorrow
1. Back-To-Basics Approach
The SAPS’ Constitutional Crime categories
Critical deficiencies and key challenges and were identified during the in-depth analysis. The majority of the deficiencies and challenges identified relate to the tried and tested, fundamental principles of policing, which have been neglected for a long period of time. In addition, there are specific areas of under-performance within the police’s annual performance plan that are linked to the three fundamental functions of policing: crime prevention, crime investigation and crime intelligence. This analysis has necessitated the introduction of a “Back-to Basics” approach to policing, which focuses on every police officer doing the basics of policing and on doing these basics properly and consistently. This approach is centred around a few critical organisational concerns that will be rigorously addressed going forward. These issues include:
- Discipline, and the manner in which police officers conduct themselves, as a distinctive characteristic of policing;
- Enhanced police visibility, which implies more police officers in uniform, thereby minimising opportunities to commit crime; and
- The targeted, informed deployment of operational resources to ensure the optimal utilisation of the limited resources that the Police have at their disposal, ensuring that they are applied for maximum effect.
In addition, those areas of chronic under-performance must be corrected through specific recovery plans targeting the visible policing and detective service capabilities in SAPS, thereby linking the recovery plans to the crime prevention and investigation of crime imperatives. The recovery plans are not only focussed on ensuring the improvement of performance and the achievement of annual targets, but are also driving the Back-to-Basics approach. The performance analysis conducted by SAPS’ senior management also included the identification of the worst performing police stations in terms of both the reported incidence of serious crime as well as the detection of crime. This enabled the targeting of these under-performing stations for the immediate implementation of the visible policing and detective service recovery plans.
The Visible Policing Recovery Plan focuses on a number of crime prevention and station management priorities, including: ensuring crime advice and awareness; improving police visibility to address the “opportunities to commit crimes”; the conducting of special police action operations to prevent crime; the conducting of social crime prevention operations (including partnership policing) to address the “desires to commit crime”; addressing crimes against women and children; ensuring effective border security management; the proper policing of all incidents of a public disorder or security nature, which are not deemed to be “normal” crime from “first response” (as per SAPS protocols); assisting the detectives in the tracing and arrests of wanted persons; addressing the proliferation of firearms, drugs, gang conflict, liquor abuse, stolen and robbed vehicles as contributors to serious crime; the targeting of the proliferation of stolen goods; quality service delivery and responsiveness; victim support; personnel and physical resourcing availability at stations; addressing the internal organizational climate and culture at stations; leadership and governance at stations; performance monitoring, evaluation and reporting; and addressing criminality.
The Detective Service Recovery Plan, designed to dovetail with the Visible Policing Recovery Plan to ensure synergised operational activities between the two policing capabilities, addresses the following crime investigation priorities: improve and measure the investigation and management of case dockets; implement measures to continuously update the crime administration system to continuously capture actual performance to avoid an annual performance spike; conduct a docket age analysis to inform the management of individual case dockets; assess the docket allocation methodology (1st and 2nd Quarters 15/16) to match case complexity with detective experience / expertise; ensure the effective management of wanted suspects lists and the tracing and arrest of confirmed wanted suspects; verify the manner of closure of case dockets as undetected and withdrawn to determine whether dockets were correctly closed or if further investigation is required; determine timelines for investigating categories of crime to determine standard resolution rate per crime type; ensure the effective management of crime scenes; the effective management of exhibits; optimize the utilization of forensic evidence and leads; ensure the taking of buccal samples by authorized persons of all persons arrested in terms of Schedule 8 of the DNA Act; develop a system solution to determine case docket links based on forensics-based leads, e.g. 1 suspect linked to 10 distributed dockets, improve the management of bail applications to improve performance; track and trace dismissed appeals; investigate the reintroduction of the uniform investigation capability to reduce the workload on Detectives; addressing / activating relevant stakeholders that detectives require within the investigation value chain ; and operationalise the Organised Crime Threat Analysis (OCTA).
The country has witnessed the unabated, heartless murder of police officers in various parts of South Africa; acts of criminality that have gone unabated on the men and women entrusted with the safety of all inhabitants of the Republic of South Africa. Speaking in September 2015 at the National Police Commemoration Day, President Jacob Zuma said that “The callous murder of your loved ones was an attack not only on them, but on the State itself. The police represent the authority of the State. They form the bulwark between order and anarchy”. An attack on a police officer is an attack on this democratic dispensation. Such anarchy should be cut short and not allowed to spread so as to endanger citizens of this country. The murder of police officers can, however, also be minimized by adherence to basic policing practices, which talk to the operational readiness of police officers and include the requirements that officers be briefed prior to their deployment, that they wear the bullet-resistant vests that have been issued to them and that they are in possession of the critical equipment that they require. The message to police officers is not ambiguous. When they are under attack in the course of executing their mandate it is expected that they function within the parameters of the laws of the country. They will apply proportional force to make irrelevant the perception that the police are brutal. This is not an impossible mission as the policing of the recent student protests have proven. In the midst of burned properties, acts of vandalism and anarchy that characterized some of the protests, police officers exercised maximum restraint and there were no casualties.
Interventions with police management in each of the nine provinces have been conducted to share the results of the analysis of performance, interrogate the areas of under-performance and the factors contributing to such and communicate the specific recovery plans, thereby contextualising the Back-to-Basics approach. These interventions have involved every level of management in each province, including provincial commissioners, cluster and station commanders and the commanders of the various specialised capabilities. The expectation of these managers is that they take the message back to their members to ensure that there is a common understanding of this approach among all members, but importantly, that they lead by example in the implementation of the Back-to-Basics approach.
It is important to emphasise that the essence of the Back-to-Basics of Policing approach requires that the public play a central role in changing the outlook of the police. This will ensure that we have a police service that is responsive to the safety and security needs of society, a police service that is known to be upholding a high standard of conduct and that is in sync with the constitutional imperative that is described in its mandate. The public should therefore not just be critical about the police’s faults or shortcomings, but also offer suggestions on how they can better serve the community.
Police management has adopted a simple slogan, encapsulating the intended outcome of the Back-to-Basic approach, namely: #CrimeMustFall. The Minister of Police and the Acting National Commissioner have stated that the fight against crime must become a reality that permeates every sector of South African society, led by the men and women in blue and supported by involved and informed communities.
