Criminals free due to shoddy investigations

Shoddy police work and the virtual collapse of crime intelligence units in Gauteng, including Pretoria, see hundreds of suspects and crime syndicate members being freed from custody every month, the DA said this week.

At least 1 450 SA Police Service (SAPS) dockets in the province had been closed as a result of flawed investigation in the past financial year, Democratic Alliance provincial leader John Moodey said.

This came to light in a departmental response to questions regarding the auditing of 1 450 dockets during 2013/14.

“The SAPS provincial leadership also conducted their own audit and found many similar faults as well as poor data integrity,” Moodey said, adding that it was also admitted that the province’s crime intelligence was in complete and utter shambles.

The DA now believed that a special task team, consisting of seasoned detectives and senior prosecutors be established to review and re-investigate these dockets.

“The fact is that the investigation of the cases can be corrected and charges reinstated against suspects,” Moodley said.

He told Rekord that in recent years, over 1 000 experienced detectives had left the police service because they had been worried about the security of their pensions, resulting in the police service being in a mess.

Moodley said his party had for long been advocating for improved crime intelligence to combat increasing crime levels.

“Should crime intelligence be significantly beefed up, not only will we be able to disrupt and prevent crime but the 1 450 victims of the closed dockets will not be denied the justice they deserve,” he said.

While the law dictates that cases currently under investigation cannot be reviewed, hundreds of closed dockets which were undetected, withdrawn or had been thrown out by prosecutors as not being prosecutable, were audited.

The findings on these dockets indicated serious investigative flaws including one or more of

the following:

– Poor performance and monitoring by senior and line management;

– Non-compliance with relevant standing orders and instructions;

– Poor inspection by unit commanders;

– Poor or total lack of informer networks – an internationally recognized necessity for any detective to solve crime; and

– A minimal attempt to link suspects with other crimes committed.

The community safety department’s annual report for 2013/14 also showed that community-police

relations were at an all-time low.

According to DA spokesman on community safety, Michele Clarke, the department had failed to meet several key targets in this regard such as none of the 550 targeted Community Policing Forums (CPF) were capacitated, community patrollers in none of the 100 targeted precincts had been capacitated, only 800 of 3 600 resourced patrollers were deployed to identified schools and only 539 of 2 000 patrollers were trained as safety agents.

“This is despite the MEC for community safety in Gauteng Sizakele Malobane consistently emphasising

the importance of CPFs and the involvement of the community in the fight against crime,” Clarke said.

“Not only were these targets not met but reasons given were simply the failure to identify a proper service provider – which is unacceptable.

“The MEC cannot expect CPFs and the community to actively participate in crime-fighting if the department does not equip them with the necessary training and equipment,” Clarke said.

For more news and interesting articles, like Rekord on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.