Trust in police in Africa’s economic powerhouse is near the lowest on the continent, a researcher said on Friday.
Experts at a seminar on crime and public perception said the lack of trust resulted from a failure of leadership and communication in the police force, coupled with a spike in some crimes last year — despite overall decreases.
Police National Commissioner Jackie Selebi’s spokesperson, Selby Bokaba, said there was no leadership crisis at the top level.
However, he said there was a lack of skills at the station level and that a number of changes to the lower leadership levels had already seen improvements. He added that Selebi had made housebreaking a priority.
”Our people have to feel safe in their homes and the South African Police Service is committed to making sure they do,” Bokaba said in an interview.
South Africa has gained notoriety as the crime capital of the world, although rates are falling. There were 18 545 murders in 2005, down from 21 405 in 2001; and 20 553 attempted murders in 2005, down from 31 293 in 2001, according to police statistics.
A spate of violent high-profile slayings, dramatic shopping mall shoot-outs and robberies of armed trucks carrying cash last year fuelled negative headlines and added to concerns that South Africa would not be safe for visitors expected for the 2010 Soccer World Cup.
Professor Robert Mattes, director of the Centre for Social Science Research at the University of Cape Town, said in Africa, trust in police was highest in Tanzania and worst in Nigeria, while ease of working with police was highest in Botswana and lowest in Benin, with Zimbabweans saying it is easier to work with police than South Africans. He cited a series of comparative studies done on the continent last year.
Mattes said South Africa was doing better than some countries, but despite the greater amount of resources, ”many far poorer, less developed countries do better.”
”Something is missing in the relation between police and the public,” Mattes said at the seminar.
Antoinette Louw, senior research fellow at the Pretoria-based, independent Institute for Security Studies, said at the seminar that the total number of crimes in South Africa has increased by 7% over the past 12 years with a peak around 2002/03.
However, since then there has been ”encouraging” decreases with murder down 41%, she said.
”Trends over past 12 years have seen a lot of good news,” she said, but added that police attempts to communicate this with the annual release of crime statistics in September failed.
”It came after eight months of some very serious and nasty crimes and it just didn’t fly. It made the public more sceptical and alarmed,” she said.
Louw also said that despite the overall decline, insurance industry and other government figures showed increases in certain crimes such as car theft and hijackings.
Louw said the result of this, coupled with a response by police and political leadership, had a negative impact on public perceptions.
”The leadership crisis … was exposed in the face of the spike in crime. The leadership crisis is not new and has been brewing for sometime,” she said.
Last year a close friend of Selebi was arrested in connection with the murder of mining magnate Brett Kebble, causing a massive public outcry and calls for Selebi to resign.
”At the time when South Africa most needed very clear and strong leadership on this seeming crime wave, we heard little from Selebi.
When we did hear from the commissioner it was him defending himself rather than on what the police were doing about crime,” Louw said.
Comments from ministers accusing whites of ”whinging” about crime and an interview by President Thabo Mbeki in which he said there was no evidence that people thought crime was spinning out of control only added to public anger.
”Crime,” she said, ”is too an emotional issue to be treated in this way.” — Sapa-AP