One thousand cops have been arrested for crime since 2010.
The arrests were made between September 2010 and April this year, he said at a New Age breakfast on government's drug clean-up campaign.
With a police station comprising about 300 officials, this meant three stations had in effect been closed down.
Petros said this would not deter police management from its drive to clean up the service.
"It takes two years to train a police official. Even if we are left with 10, or one police official, that is how far we are going to take the campaign," he said.
Apart from cop arrests, the South African Police Service has faced criticism for incidents of police brutality this year. Notably, the death of Emidio Macia, a Mozambican taxi-driver. Macia was filmed being tied to the back of a police van and dragged along a street in Daveyton on February 26. Macia was found dead in the local police station's holding cells several hours later. Nine police officers have been implicated in his death.
The Mail & Guardian has reported that there were approximately 5 090 civil claims against the SAPS in the 2011/12 financial year at a cost of over R13-million to the state attorney's office. – Sapa