women and children
31 May 2006
This morning the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) in Pretoria hosted a
briefing session and discussion in collaboration with the South African Police
Service (SAPS) on the planned restructuring of the SAPS. The aim of the session
was to inform and get input from non-governmental organisations working in the
field of violence against women and children about the impact of the
restructuring on the policing of crimes against women and children, and in
particular, the Family Violence, Child Protection, and Sexual Offences Unit
(Family Violence, Child Abuse and Sexual Offences Unit (FCS) Unit).
Divisional Commissioner Manoko Nchwe (Career Management) provided an
overview of the motivation for the restructuring, citing the Constitution which
provides for only three levels of policing in the country. Currently the SAPS
have four levels of administration, namely station, area, province and
national. The planned restructuring will, in line with the Constitution, reduce
these to three levels by doing away with the area level. The key motivation,
from a policing perspective, is to strengthen police stations and improve
service delivery to the public at local level.
With regard to crimes against women and children, Commissioner Nchwe
emphasised that âthe intention is not to close the FCS Units but to multiply
them at station level where they are needed most for dealing with these
crimesâ. She stated that the long-term objective is to train each and every
police official to assist victims of women and child abuse in an emphatic and
sympathetic way, until a specialised detective arrives to further the
investigation. The SAPS recognises that there is a shortage of policing
capacity in the country, and in particular of trained detectives. In this
regard, 30% of the 11 000 new members the SAPS recruits annually will go to the
detective service.
Assistant Commissioner Thomas de Wit (Career Management) then described in
detail the management and operational implications of the restructuring. He
stressed that in-depth reviews over the past two years have indicated that
there are currently too many levels of authority in the police. This results in
among other things, a duplication of functions, the impeding of effective
command and control, and slow delivery.
Under the new arrangement, station commissioners will be empowered to take
âmaximum executive decisionsâ and to effectively manage their resources.
Stations will be well resourced to give effect to the additional authority they
will have. This will include the delegation of powers to station commissioners,
and the provision of more human and physical resources. In addition, police
stations will be clustered in groups of six stations. These clusters or zones
will deal with cross-station issues and crime problems, and will meet weekly
for planning meetings chaired by the most senior station commissioner in the
cluster. Additional support services (supply chain management (SCM), finance
and administration, human resources) will also be provided to the clusters. The
restructuring is intended to be complete by October 2007.
Among the key concerns raised by the participating non-governmental
organisation (NGOs) were the need to maintain specialised skills for policing
crimes against women and children, and the need for stations to be adequately
resourced to provide services for women and children (such as private
consultation rooms), particularly if the FCS units are going to be based at
police stations. SAPS reassured participants that the FCS Units will not be
closed down and that specialised skills will be retained and that the number of
personnel in these units will in fact be increased over time. In addition, SAPS
will avail the necessary equipment such as trauma rooms and other necessary
resources to the 'cluster' stations in order to boost capacity for responding
to these crimes.
Enquiries:
Selby Bokaba
South African Police Service
Tel: (012) 393 5439
Cell: 082 778 0245
Antoinette Louw
Institute for Security Studies
Tel: (012) 346 9500
Cell: 082 883 5012
Issued by: South African Police Service
31 May 2006
Source: South African Police Service (http//:www.saps.gov.za)
