Fixing policing and security isn’t that hard — and a 10-year-old plan is already on the table

This is the seventh in a series of columns on “What 10 words best describe our South Africa?” Today’s word is Security. Read the first six parts of the series here, here, here, here, here and here.

In the heady 1990s we glowed in the freedoms of the New South Africa, though conscious of encroaching violence. A friend remarked that of the 300 or so folk she could name, by then 30 had experienced personal violence — theft, burglary, rape, murder. Like one in 10. When I next looked in the mirror at my morning stubble, I had to ask: you next? Well a few failed muggings aside, I am still homo intacto. Ah, security, that Geist that we live and die for.  

Security was irrelevant on Friday, 19 April, when 16-year-old Zamawushe Momoti was killed in crossfire outside Belgravia High School in Athlone on the Cape Flats. The news convulsed me, as I know something of Belgravia High, through working with her science and maths teachers in the early nineties.

Most recently my foster daughter was a Grade 8 learner there, the same school that her mom had attended in the crazy 1980s. Belgravia High has a cherished history, becoming a Dinaledi maths and science school two decades ago, and continues to provide upward mobility for its matriculants. What does such violence do to the spirit of a school?

There it is — two more for the 2024 body count, in this, the worst year of carnage on the Cape Flats. One learner and a suspected 18-year-old gang member was killed in the shooting; another was shot in the guts. 

Bless them, the SAPS couldn’t even report the address of the crime scene correctly. Commissioner, it was Veld Road, not Vlei Road. Maybe SAPS should be renamed “Sheltered Appointment for Pals Service?” They may as well withdraw from communities and deploy as escorts for Bafana, the Bokke, VIPs and the elections, something they do well and with pride. 

What is real is that there is something rotten in the state of policing, with fruitless billions spent on training and development. It is in the numbers, with just 14% of reported murders resulting in conviction. You can kill and get away with it.

Read more in Daily Maverick: Creativity is one of SA’s critical watchwords, let’s cut right through the red tape

What needs to change in the approach to policing? How well are SAPS’ operational processes articulated, or do they make them up as they go along? Are these processes transparent to the public to access and interrogate? What motivates/demotivates officers in driving the evidence chain? If corruption is as deeply embedded as surveys indicate, how to turn this around? Will the new government have the stomach to prioritise safety and security?

There are ways to reduce police corruption — polygraph from the top ranks down; rotate officers every two or three years so they cannot develop patronage networks; deploy newly trained or upgraded staff in groups of four to protect their new skills and attitudes; speed up all processes so that justice may be served.

Easy to state, but the syndicates and unions will be the first line of opposition.

We sit at a saddle point, shaped like a Pringle chip. We fell into that state from the Mbeki high to the Zuma-Ramaphosa low, and rest fearfully as we try to find a way up, aware of the risk of falling down to the ethnic right or proto-fascist left.