The Minister of Police, Nathi Mthethwa today commended and conveyed his support for an initiative undertaken by the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) aimed at promoting professional policing.
“This initiative is important in encouraging South African to recognise and support good police officers and isolating rotten apples who misuse their position in the police. To this end we not only support the initiative but pledge to work closely with the initiative in ensuring that the processes set up by the ISS are able to have the desired effect. Over the next few weeks the Civilian Secretariat for Police will engage with both SAPS and ISS to ensure that people using the processes set up by ISS, are able to effectively encourage hard-working officers.”
“Our primary focus on our transformation agenda in the SAPS should be about human resource development, from recruitment to retirement. We must ensure that we are able to recruit the right kind of people and then to train and develop these people into the kind of police officer we want to see and that our country deserves. This approach to transformation must talk to the type of police service we want to create,” he added.
“As part of this transformation process we must constantly emphasis the need to entrench the development of community-orientated police officers and feel that feedback from communities is an important means of assists us in evaluating what is working and what work still needs to be done.”
In 2010 the Minister, through the Civilian Secretariat for Police, established a partnership unit. Through this unit, work is under way to strengthen and where appropriate, formalise relationships with various stakeholders, with a view of tapping into the diverse skills which may not necessarily be available within SAPS. This effort involves partnerships with communities, civil society, business and other government departments.
In addition, over the last two years there has been a concerted drive to reach out to communities through community participation programmes to hear what communities are saying, receive feedback and identify both positive and negative experiences community members have with regard to the police.
“We believe that the initiative taken by the ISS will enhance these different processes and provide members of the public with a platform to engage regarding their experiences by not just in reporting misconduct but also in reporting recognise and support those police officers who show a commitment to their work and serving the communities they police,” stated the Minister.
“Understandably members of the public often take the time to report complaints and negative experiences they have of the police and we take these complaints and experiences very seriously. However if we want to build the type of police officer who is professional and service-orientated we also need to reward excellence and promote certain positive behaviour.”
Police officers who display such behaviour need to be reaffirmed and recognised. To this end we would like to encourage member of the public to take time to also report and acknowledge police officers who excel and show commitment to their work. The police are tasked with creating a safe and secure South Africa. But they cannot do this without greater numbers of South Africans becoming involved.
The Minister therefore encourages South Africans to recognise and support those police officers who do their work with honesty, dignity and respect. This will strengthen their position in both the SAPS and in the communities and assist in isolating those officers who are involved in corruption and misconduct.
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Minister Mthethwa commends ISS promotion of professional policing: reward a cop, report a cop
