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The South African Institute of Race Relations says respect for the chain of command in the SA Police Service needs to be reinstated.
This was one of the key recommendations of the Institute's second report on police involvement in criminal activity between April 2011 and January 2015.
The Institute's Mienke Mari Steytler says they found that there's a pattern of behaviour of some police members of planning and executing very serious crimes.
She says they're not talking about corruption but about armed robberies, rapes and murders.
"We also found that these incidents are not isolated. We see a pattern of behaviour. We also found that the public is afraid of the police and that is a massive problem. If you are driving your car at night and see blue lights behind you, you cannot be sure who is offering to help you" she said
To fix the situation the SA Institute of Race Relations has put forward six policy proposals, which they say are similar the proposals made after the release of their first report in 2011.
Mari Steytler says a key recommendation is that respect for the chain of command in the SA Police Service needs to be re-instilled.
She says their agenda is not a political one but their main objective is to keep the country safe from the few police officials who give the hard-working policemen and women a bad name.
"We also feel that we need to depoliticize the police service, obviously there are many police officers that do have pride in their work and who do work very hard and serve the country-but for those who are not doing so, we need a full policy behind it" she said
The Link to entire report is attached
Saps responded to the findings and issued the following statement:
Pretoria – The South Africa Police Service management wishes to make public the fact that the organisation distances itself from the South African Institute of Race Relations report entitled the “Broken Blue Line 2”.
The National Commissioner of Police, General Riah Phiyega, at her request, met with Mr Frans Cronje of the Institute of Race Relations and Mr Ian Cameron of Afriforum, which funded the report, on 23 January 2015. General Phiyega requested the meeting in order to gain insight into the contents of the report.
After making a presentation on the report and engaging on the research methodology and other matters, the two representatives were advised of the following:
The methodology used to conduct the research leading to the compilation of the report, in our opinion, is fundamentally flawed;
The South African Police Service (SAPS) was never engaged during the course of the research process, yet the report is about this organisation;
SAPS data bases were never used as a source of information and, as acknowledged by Mr Cronje during the meeting, case dockets were not studied and court reports/judgements were not sourced;
Mr Frans Cronje frequently acknowledged during the meeting that the report was based on assumptions and inferences and that the research was never stress-tested;
The above is not apparent in the presentation made available to the media;
The report contains dangerous generalisations, apparently mostly based on media reports, interviews with journalists and some form of engagement with IPID;
The report should have bee, but is not, based on statistical data, police case dockets or court judgments and therefore does not take into consideration that some accusations were subsequently proved to be false;
The South African Police Service is of the opinion that the content of the report, by way, inter alia, of the generalisations, is malicious;
The report, in its entirety, has not been submitted to the SAPS management;
The National Commissioner was never asked, nor did she grant, permission for her photograph to be used on the cover of the report.
“Therefore, as the accounting officer of the South African Police Service, I publicly disassociate the SAPS and myself from this report. We do not support it and feel that it was funded and released with malicious intent," said General Riah Phiyega.
“Furthermore, I feel aggrieved that my photograph is being used on a report which I consider to be malicious and that my request that it be removed was ignored," added General Phiyega.
