Mail & Guardian reporters
The South African Police Service (SAPS) has 1 500 policemen on its staff who were convicted of criminal offences in the past 17 months.
More than 50 serving policemen have been convicted of assault in the first half of this year. And the SAPS believes attempted sodomy by one of its own is more serious a crime than a policeman having sexual intercourse with a minor.
These are some of the highlights of statistics released by the police this week to the Mail & Guardian about charged and convicted policemen.
The table, left, provides a breakdown of the extraordinary number of criminal charges laid against policemen from January 1 last year to May 26 this year.
Police battled to provide a breakdown of the 1 212 convictions of serving officers in 1997 despite writing a special computer programme to answer the M&G’s query. However, they provided an analysis of the more than 400 convictions of policemen during the first half of 1998.
During this period, eight policemen were convicted of murder, 20 of negligent use of a firearm, 82 of reckless driving, 42 of assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm and 16 of corruption.
The SAPS’s categorisation of crimes committed by their own – “minor” or “serious” – is as intriguing as the statistics themselves.
The culprits include some of South Africa’s highest-ranking officers. KwaZulu-Natal’s Provincial Commissioner Chris Serfontein faces pressure from violence monitors and police unions to resign. In 1966 Serfontein was convicted of culpable homicide and assault.
Secretary general of the Black Officers’ Forum, Jack Magatho, said internal disciplinary measures did not work and claimed that convicted officers often enjoyed promotion.
The figures suggest that policemen are three times more likely to commit a crime than the average civilian.