Marianne Merten
The policeman’s traditional brandy and coke remains a widely acceptable way of combating stress and anxiety, as alcohol misuse is kept hush-hush in a service struggling to transform itself and deal with high levels of violent crime.
“It seems to be a socially acceptable norm to drink in the police. It is part of the police culture. If you don’t join this culture you get pushed aside,” says Henk de Jager, a Technikon Southern Africa lecturer on policing management leadership. “Many police officers regard alcohol as the easiest way to deal with work-related stress and frustration. It is easily accessible and cheaply available at many canteens.”
And the police’s in-house social, psychological and spiritual services struggle to break through a barrier of stigma attached to admitting to alcohol misuse.
“They come with other symptoms like domestic violence, absenteeism from work and marriage problems,” says Lucille Pietersen, Western Cape head of social services for the South African Police Service (SAPS).
Other possible symptoms include depression and anxiety. More often than not it is the policeman’s wife who seeks help, or a policewoman.
Past experience has shown that training and awareness projects around alcohol misuse fail as officers do not attend. Instead the courses focus on life-skills training and health education like Project Care, launched among managers in one of Cape Town’s policing sectors in November.
“You struggle to get through. People don’t want to recognise it. Their attitude is: don’t preach to me, I know how to handle drink,” says police chaplain Reverend James Biehl.
Another complicating factor is that police medical aid Polmed is now only paying for a one-time rehabilitation programme, worth R3E000. If an officer relapses, he or she has to seek private help.
The police’s social support services claim the SAPS is no different from other organisations where alcoholism is concerned. “The SAPS is not unique. We reflect what is going on in South Africa,” Biehl says.
But although police management is adamant alcohol abuse is not tolerated, responses to various cases of boozing officers vary from ignoring it to allowing the payment of admission of guilt fines to suspension.
De Jager says a key difficulty in the SAPS is a lack of able managers. Police managers have not been trained to deal with personnel problems and are struggling with their new role as human resource heads rather than simply giving orders.
There are exceptions. One recent case of tough official action was that of Cape Town’s East Metropole Area Commissioner, Niel van Heerden, who two weeks ago became the most senior officer in the province to be suspended for drunk driving.
It was his third alcohol-related incident, followed each time by a period of sick leave for depression, in seven months. Van Heerden had only returned to work in November after being booked off sick for three months after another booze-induced incident.
In another case, a Mitchells Plain sergeant last year dodged disciplinary action for drunk driving twice until he killed an eight-months-pregnant woman in August. He was driving a police vehicle under the influence with his son in the passenger seat.
Earlier last year he paid an admission of guilt fine for a separate drunk driving conviction. At the time of the fatal accident he was facing trial on charges of another count of drunk driving, using a vehicle without the owner’s permission and escaping from custody. The sergeant was released after paying R1 000 and suspended.
The SAPS tied itself in knots trying to answer questions from the Mail & Guardian about how many of its members have been busted for drunk driving and what internal disciplinary actions had been taken.
A survey of several provincial police head offices and Pretoria headquarters showed no such figures are readily accessible as documentation is scattered between various administrative units, and offences are often only recorded in individual officers’ files to be checked before a promotion.
None of the provinces seems to compile separate statistics, although KwaZulu-Natal police said records are kept for suicides, attacks on police, and corruption charges.
Only Mpumalanga police representative Senior Superintendent Theo du Bruyn could confirm “a number of police members” had been caught driving under the influence, leading to criminal convictions and/or internal steps.
Up until the mid-Nineties police could be charged for being drunk off duty even at their homes. Currently they can be charged with misconduct.
Independent Complaints Directorate Western Cape regional head Riaaz Saloojee says its investigators visiting police stations frequently found officers drunk on duty. In 1997 the directorate contemplated surprise visits to stations with the surgeon general to test blood for alcohol levels. This never came about because of a lack of staff.
But the directorate continues to receive allegations that police have been drunk during dealings with the public and other officers.
Police psychologists and social workers also depend on station commissioners and commanders to identify problems. Frequent absence from work and abusive behaviour at work are triggers for referral to the support services by a commander. A pro- active intervention project is under way to detect difficulties earlier.
“We cannot intervene in private lives. If it is work related then the organisation has a right to intervene,” says police psychologist Elize Jacobs, Western Cape head of SAPS psychological services.
Like their counterparts in private practice, there is a strict ethical code and confidentiality agreement. In the past year the 11-strong provincial department has consulted with about 700 officers and their relatives.