PRE-CONSTITUTIONAL ERA POLICING : MYTHS AND FALLACIES I often encounter critiques of policing on the Cape Flats which, without any substantial proof or fact-born argument, make sweeping claims that policing was more effective under Apartheid and that the Constituion protects the rights of criminals. Lets look at the facts in terms of actual operational output of the South African Police Service (SAPS) and the criminal justice system as a whole purely in terms of comparative sentenced prisoner statistics. At the COSATU City Wide Conference on Crime, the Provincial Head of the Department of Correctional Services publicly reported that as of lock-up in Western Cape prisons on Wednesday 20 August 2014 the population of sentenced prisoners incarcerated was 27 300 of which 3076 are serving a sentence of 15 years and more and 844 are serving life imprisonment in this province alone. Now if we compare that with the pre-Constitutional era the reality is even more myth-breaking. In 1994 there were only 1000 prisoners serving life in the country as a whole compared to 844 lifers in only Western Cape prisons now. The pre-Constitutional situation in 1994 therefore pales in comparison with the operational output of the Criminal Justice system of today. How did all these people land up in Western Cape Prisons!? Was it a case of voluntary surrender or them handing over the evidence used to convict them!? They were caught by members of the South African Police Service and sentenced in South African courts. However, imprisonment and formal policing does not address the root causes of crime but only its symptoms. Given this reality, I think that we should be more concerned about these alarming rates of incarceration in the abscence of constructively addressing the root socio-economic determinants of crime and its supporting material conditions in which criminals are created and thrive.
Posted on: Mon, 25 Aug 2014 04:24:58 +0000
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