IRR report into police criminality - ‘The wolf guards the sheep'

The IRR, in conjunction with Afriforum, today released results of an investigation into the extent to which police officers in South Africa plan and execute serious and violent crimes such as murder, rape, and armed robbery. The report is part of the Broken Blue Line, a research project undertaken by the IRR since 2011 to track police involvement in criminality (see here - PDF). The report came to a number of findings including:

There is extensive evidence of police involvement in serious and violent crimes such as rape, murder, and armed robbery

These are not ‘isolated incidents' but a ‘pattern of behaviour'

Police management is attempting to deal with the problem, but with limited success

The police may now be heavily infiltrated by criminal elements

Officers exploit their official status and equipment to perpetrate crimes and rely on that status to escape arrest and prosecution

Violent crime levels in South Africa won't turn around while the ‘wolf guards the sheep'

It is often with good reason that the public fear the police, especially with regard to sexual violence and rape perpetrated by officers against vulnerable women - the most frightening finding of the report

It is likely that the poor and the middle class alike will increasingly bypass the police and look for other means of safeguarding themselves and their communities

The report also recommended a number of policy interventions to the police commissioner and related interested parties including:

Re-instilling respect for chain of command

Creating a university-educated officer corps

Increasing the resources of the Independent Police Investigative Directorate

Establishing a new investigative agency within the Department of Justice to hunt, arrest, and prosecute criminals within the police

Decentralising decision making on station leadership in favour of the communities served by police stations

Depoliticising and professionalising the appointment process within the police

IRR CEO Frans Cronje said that the project is one of the most disturbing ever undertaken by his organisation, "you would expect the police to safeguard society by infiltrating criminal elements. In our country there is much evidence that criminal elements have infiltrated the police". The report can be accessed here and the IRR said it hoped the findings would help build support for policy solutions to better protect the lives and livelihoods of all South Africans.

Statement issued by AfriForum and the Institute for Race Relations, January 28 2015

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