One of the recommendations the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) has proposed to the new Government of National Unity (GNU) to strengthen the SAPS is to reduce the high murder rate by addressing firearm crime and violence.
Gareth Newham, head of the Justice and Violence Prevention Programme at the ISS, was speaking at a seminar on Thursday aimed at helping the government to make practical changes in five areas of policing that could set South Africa on a positive safety trajectory.
Newham said the recommendations, which include the strengthening of police capabilities to investigate crime; reducing police corruption and criminality; 21st Century policing with a modernised, digitised and skilled SAPS and a clear direction with effective management structures, are what should and could be done at an institutional level with the current staff.
“It’s not about the people in it, there are plenty of highly skilled, highly experienced men and women in the SAPS,” he said.
He said if the GNU prioritises and puts its mind to improving, strengthening and supporting policing, the ISS believes that an “imagined South Africa with a highly professional and effective police service will be a reality in the next five years”.
“We believe that South Africa has the necessary skills and resources both in the police and outside of the police. We need our political leaders to utilise those resources,” said Newham.
He said murder is the most accurate indicator of violence in South Africa and it has gone up almost every year for the last 12 years. The number of murders is 77% higher than it was in 2012.
“What we’ve seen is increasingly, firearms are driving up the murder rate and more people are being shot dead and injured by firearms.”
He noted that this is also linked to organised crime where firearms are used to fight over territory and capture markets.
Last year ‘’The Mercury’’ reported that crime experts identified the proliferation of illegal guns as one of the possible reasons for the increase in mass murders in KwaZulu-Natal.
Earlier this month the province was rocked by three cash-in-transit heists in the same week.
National police commissioner, General Fannie Masemola, welcomed the recommendations.
Masemola said while police are not doing as much as they would like to, the realities of the country need to be accepted.
“We are policing a very dynamic and complex contemporary South Africa but as SAPS we accept we are not on par with the dynamics of what is happening now because of new people, new challenges, new crime challenges that come to our shore.
“Let us together as South Africans engage in a discussion. Let’s chart a way forward as to what type of police we want in this country and we are quite open and optimistic to move together in that regard,” he said.
The Mercury