What is the state of corruption in the South African Police Service (SAPS)? What measures have the SAPS and the South African government taken to counter police corruption? This paper from the Institute for Security Studies provides an overview of what is known about corruption in the SAPS and efforts to counter it. Since disbanding the Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) in 2002, the SAPS has struggled to implement an anti-corruption strategy. Indicators suggest a lack of will on the part of both the SAPS and government to counter corruption, causing loss of public faith in police institutions.
While international literature on the subject of police corruption is abundant, relatively little work has been conducted in the South African context. In South Africa, discourses around police corruption tend to over-simplify matters, reduce corruption to material gain and provide police with means to justify corrupt behaviour. With the imminent implementation of a new SAPS plan to fight corruption, civil society should take an active role in its monitoring and evaluation. This will lead to greater understanding of the topic and assist the SAPS in implementing anti-corruption measures.
The Corruption and Fraud Prevention Plan being developed by the SAPS will likely be based on principles outlined in the Corruption and Fraud Prevention Strategy. This strategy is based on four pillars:
- Prevention – this includes revising the SAPS Code of Ethics to link the fight with police corruption with clear and strict disciplinary measures. It also involves anti-corruption training, public education and integrity tests.
- Detection – this will be linked with a Risk Management Strategy (RMS). The RMS will be used to facilitate audits and evaluations of high risk police stations and develop an information framework on corruption and fraud.
- Investigation – this looks set to retain the same structure, with station level detectives investigating minor corruption and organised crime units investigating serious cases. Other options include greater inter-agency cooperation and corruption courts.
- Restoration – this refers to developing and regularly assessing fraud prevention control measures. Proposals include abandoning ineffectual measures, training ‘disciplinary officers’ in discipline management and prioritising backlogs in departmental cases.
While corruption is by nature difficult to research, research that clarified the issue of police corruption in South Africa would be useful. Possibilities for further research include:
- large-scale research focusing on corrupt station/clean station, rural/urban and pre-scandal and reform/post-scandal and reform dichotomies;
- provincial comparisons. Quantitative inter-provincial comparative data gathered through surveys with representative rural and urban samples would be useful;
- quantitative assessments involving integrity-testing and perception surveys. Data derived from these methods would enable researchers to identify subject stations for qualitative research;
- informed speculation on the impact of corruption on service delivery, based on interviews with SAPS members, community policing forums (CPFs) and gangs;
- an integrity-testing survey across a range of African states to identify patterns of success and failure; and
- studies clarifying the way in which police corruption is understood at administrative, managerial and street level in relation to the SAPS and other organisations.
