Incidents of police brutality have not declined since 1994 – the numbers have even risen
Khadija Magardie and Glenda Daniels
As South Africa reeled from the graphic Special Assignment footage of police using humans as bait in a dog-training exercise, human rights experts this week said the incident was only the tip of the iceberg. There appears to be little evidence that the police have left behind the culture of torture and abuse that characterised their modus operandi under apartheid. Some observers say the situation could have even grown worse since 1994. The Independent Complaints Directorate (ICD), set up in 1997 to investigate brutality, deaths as a result of police action and other allegations of police criminality or misconduct, says an average of more than 500 a year have been killed by members of the South African Police Service (SAPS) since 1997.
In the first 10 months of 1998, the ICD received 607 reports of deaths at the hands of police – the majority from Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal. Meanwhile, figures released by the SAPS show the number of murder charges against police leapt from 156 in 1994 to 256 in 1997.
The statistics reflect little change since before 1994. According to the Centre for the Study of Violence’s (CSVR) expert on police violence, David Bruce, the three years in which most people were killed by the police were 1985 (763), 1986 (712) and 1976 (653). Bruce says that according to ICD statistics about 1 550 people have been killed by the SAPS in the three years to March 2000 – a figure, he says, which is almost 60% of the number of 2 700 deaths attributed to the police by the truth commission between 1960 and 1994. The current rate of assaults and deaths at the hands of the police also shows little departure from the methods of the past. The rate of assaults has, in fact, increased. In 1994 875 charges or complaints related to police assault were received. By 1997 the figure had rocketed to 1 572.
Between January 1997 and May 1998 more than 5 000 complaints of assault were laid against policemen. There were 797 complaints of attempted murder during the same period.
Equally disturbing statistics are available relating to complaints and charges on a range of other offences, including rape, armed robbery, pointing a firearm and malicious damage to property.
Various human rights bodies, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, have expressed concern that the legacy of police complicity in acts of brutality and human-rights violations “does not appear to want to go away”.
This year’s annual report by Amnesty International found there were frequent reports of deaths in custody, some of which resulted from torture or ill-treatment of detainees and prisoners by police. Insiders say this is also aided by the fact that the government has delayed implementing amendments to Section 49 of the Criminal Procedure Act, which would have the effect of curtailing police discretion to use force when arresting criminal suspects.
Experts say rogue elements in the police force involved in such activities are damaging the SAPS’s attempts to restructure itself “from a security force dedicated to upholding apartheid, to a more accountable, community service oriented police force”.
Investigations against members of the SAPS have huge financial and resource implications. The context of an overburdened judiciary, prolonged pretrial detentions and lengthy trials may suggest that the ICD is a speedier route to resolving complaints and charges against the police. But the organisation, which has experienced severe budget cuts recently, and works with relatively few staff – about 45 investigators nationally to monitor a 128 000-strong police force – is also working amid severe constraints. The ICD estimates that an average of 75 hours are spent on each case, which, if one includes approximately 1 000km travelling in the course of investigations, amounts to approximately R7 050 a case.
If litigation is involved, where civilians choose to sue the SAPS through the Ministry of Safety and Security, the costs usually run into thousands, even millions of rands. According to the ICD, about R40-million was paid out to 1 562 claimants by the SAPS in the 1999/2000 financial year.
More than 14 000 police around South Africa are facing an assortment of criminal charges, including murder, rape and assault. Many of these cases, however, relate to less serious crimes, such as reckless driving.
The ICD told Parliament earlier this year that there had been a “notable increase” – over double since last year – in the number of complaints received against members of the SAPS. These figures include dockets taken over from the SAPS for investigation. Since 1994, the police have also been accused of various abuses relating to the use of lethal force against individuals who were not posing “a threat to life”, beatings during raids on homes, or after arrest, and the infliction of various injuries, including through indiscriminate use of police dogs, on arrested or fleeing suspects.
All of which takes place against the backdrop of constant evidence of the criminality of the police. In 1998 the Human Rights Committee published a report in which it said police members were three times more likely to commit crimes than ordinary members of the public. In the same year it emerged that the police had 1 500 members of its staff who had been convicted of a criminal offence in the previous 15 months.
l Ntuthuko Maphumulo reports that the policemen linked to the televised dog attack appeared at the Pretoria Magistrate’s Court on Thursday, where they were remanded in custody until November 17. The court ruled that the accused be held separately from one another in police cells until next week.