GENERAL
SA Crime Quarterly no. 15. March 2006.
Institute for Security Studies.
Getting into the city beat: challenges facing our metro police
Gareth Newham (pages 3-5).
This article explores the achievements and challenges confronting local Metro police.
View online >>>>
Crowd control: can our public order police still deliver?
Bilkis Omar (pages 7-12).
POP units are being transformed into Area Crime Combating Units (ACCUs) which will help to reduce crime, but will they be able to control volatile crowd situations? View online >>>>
Sex workers speak out: policing and the sex industry
Nicolé Fick (pages 13-18).
Sex workers have to deal with the dangers of their profession as well as abuse and harassment from the police. View online >>>>
Targeting foreigners: Xenophobia among Johannesburg's police
Themba Masuku (pages 19-24).
Tolerance for diversity and respect for human rights is needed to help combat police abuse of foreigners in South Africa. View online >>>>
South African Review of Sociology vol 36(2) 2005
A number of research articles in this issue focus on the issue of police accountability in South Africa.
- The introductory article by Monique Marks and Clifford Shearing "Reconceptualising reform practice in South African policing" provides an overview of articles in this issue and calls for the South African policing reform programme to ground itself "more explicitly and deliberately within an African and South African context."
- David Bruce in "Interpreting the body count: South African statistics on lethal police violence" looks at the incidence of lethal police violence in South Africa before and after 1994 and briefly considers the impact of the new legislation implemented in 2003 on the use of lethal force for arrest.
- Strengthening democratic policing in South Africa through internal systems for officer control is the title of an article by Gareth Newham. View online >>>>
- International assistance and local pressures in the reform of police: the case of the Eastern Cape by Elrena van der Spuy looks at foreign assistance and police reform.
- Janine Rauch examines "The South African Police and the Truth Commission" and concludes that the "TRC failed to impact on the process of police reform in South Africa; and that a key symbolic moment in the transformation of policing in South Africa was lost. Despite these failures, it remains to be seen whether the TRC will have longer-term, less-tangible effects on police reform, related to the notion of police accountability and to the future ethical climate within the police organisation."
Transforming the robocops: changing police in South Africa by Monique Marks.
University of Kwazulu-Natal Press. 2005
In this book, Monique Marks traces the evolution of the specialised Public Order Police (POP) - a unit that was designed to spearhead the apartheid assault in South Africa. This is an ethnographic account based on a three year journey with this unit. She examines the obstacles to police change and suggests ways of bringing about cultural, organisational and managerial change within police organisations.
INDEPENDENT COMPLAINTS DIRECTORATE
Independent Complaints Directorate Workshop on establishing a cordial relationship between the police, ICD and civil society: problems and prospects.
Independent Complaints Directorate. Proactive Research Unit 2006.
The Proactive Research Unit of the ICD presented a workshop which highlighted the problems and prospects of fostering a reciprocal relationship between the police, ICD and civil society. The workshop was held at Burgers Park Hotel, Pretoria on the 6th and 7th February, 2006.
View report online >>>>
Budget Vote Hearings: Vote 22 Independent Complaints Directorate
Safety and Security Portfolio Committee. 31 March 2006. Reported on the Parliamentary Monitoring Group website. www.pmg.org.za
Mr Xinwa (ICD: Acting Executive Director) briefed the Committee on the ICD's achievements and challenges during 2005/06. Issues raised were satellite offices, staff capacity, the proactive research unit, the roles of the ICD and the Secretariat for Safety and Security and service delivery. The ICD received an increase of a little over 31% of the budget for 2006/7 plus an additional R4 million to employ more investigators. View details >>>>
Budget Vote 22 Independent Complaints Directorate (ICD) 10 March 2006. ICD Information Services: Research. C. Silkstone. Available from the Parliamentary Monitoring Group. www.pmg.org.za
The expenditure figures for the total budget of the ICD for the financial year 2006/07 has increased from R46, 984 million in 2005/06 to R54, 791 million in 2006/07. "At least half of this expenditure is on compensation of employees. Over the MTEF, all the programmes are expected to grow strongly, particularly Investigation of Complaints and Information Management and Research. Additional allocations were made in the 2006 Budget of R4 million for 2006/07, R7 million for 2007/08 and R13 million for 2008/9. These will be used primarily to increase its internal capacity to handle a higher caseload."
The National Treasury commenting on the budget raised concern about the ICD's inability to fill vacancies and that "allocations for compensation of employees over the past years consistently reflected under expenditure and were used by the ICD to fund capital expenditure".
An investigation into factors that contribute to the backlog of cases at the Independent Complaints Directorate of South Africa.
The Proactive Research Unit. Independent Complaints Directorate. 2006.
www.icd.gov.za/reports/index.html
The paper shows that from the statistics obtained from the Independent Complaints Directorate (ICD), the ICD is experiencing a backlog of cases which are not finalised and this promotes an image of the organization as being inefficent. The 33-page document comes to the conclusion that from the data analyses many factors contribute to the backlog of cases at the ICD. Among these are the acute shortage of staff especially in Programmes 2 and 3. The shortage of investigators, monitoring and registry staff are also quite high. There is a need for the ICD to establish more satellite offices because of the large geographical area that the staff have to cover and to increase the number of staff in order to minimise the backlog of cases.
Complainants’ level of satisfaction report.
Independent Complaints Directorate. Research Unit. 2006. http://www.icd.gov.za/reports/index.html
This research aims to "ascertain the level of complainants satisfaction with the service provided by the ICD; to determine if the complainants have any recommendations or suggestions on how to improve the services given by the ICD; to identify possible obstacles that may hinder the ICD from rendering satisfactory services to the various complainants and finally, an attempt will also be made to find out the possible solutions to the identified problems above".
Independent Complaints Directorate Strategic Plan 2006-2009 (Draft)
View plan online >>>>
SOUTH AFRICAN POLICE SERVICE - Policy and Strategic Plans
South African Police Services and Secretariat for Safety and Security 2006/7 Budgets: Briefings. Safety and Security Portfolio Committee. 29/03/2006. Reported by the Parliamentary Monitoring Group www.pmg.org.za
The Police Services’ briefing dealt with outstanding matters raised by the Committee during its meeting with the SAPS last year, provided an overview of its 2005-2010 strategic plan and provided figures and facts on its Medium Term Expenditure Framework allocation.
View details >>>>
Strategic Plan for the SA Police 2005-2010
View plan online>>>>
Safety and Security Budget Vote Workshop Programme: Discussion
Safety and Security Portfolio Committee. www.pmg.org.za 22/03/2006.
The Committee held a workshop to gauge the progress made in the Budget Vote 24 by the Department of Safety and Security. View details >>>>
Impact of the state of the Nation Address (2006) on the Department of Safety and Security/ Information Services Research. N. Dollie. 8 February 2006. (Available from the Parliamentary Monitoring Group)
Focus areas identified in the President's State of the Nation Address in the area of safety and security that have implications for the police are:
- the need to improve conviction rates with more effective and efficient police investigations which will also influence the case load management in the courts;
- the need to increase the number of women and persons with disabilities in decision making postions;
- to meet the need to stamp out corruption in government departments and to prevent corruption among police officers, " the SAPS has developed a "Service Integrity Strategy" which focuses on addresing corruption within the police service. The effect of the disbandment of the Anti-Corruption Unit within the SAPS and the placement of this function at station level needs to be assessed." (Dollie, 2006:4)
|
