Quo Vadis the Detective Service?

The elections of 1994 marked a milestone in South Africa’s rather unique transition to democracy — unique because, while democratisation is as old as colonisation and white minority rule and the resistance this provoked, it was shaped not by force of arms but by negotiation. Also, it was not about surrender and withdrawal but about negotiated democratisation, and the negotiations were influenced by powerful forces of continuity.

The development of policing policy and practice is heavily influenced by its history, as well as the twin forces of change and continuity. On the one hand, building a democracy requires a CJS that is able both to deal with crime and establish a respect for the law that has hitherto been absent. This has required retaining existing processes and personnel. On the other, the CJS, being illegitimate, even hated, and ill-prepared for dealing with South Africa’s crime problem also had to change; a failure to do so would surely have resulted in its collapse.

Implementing change in the police was also affected by a need for continuity, not merely in the sense that the continued functioning of policing is a crucial component of democracy but also because, in 1994, the potential for the security forces to undermine constitutional democracy could not be anticipated. For this reason, change was shaped by the need to ensure that the security forces would ‘buy into’ democracy, and that its members would not see this as a threat to their personal interests. Thus, while there was a large measure of symbolic change, and some measure of leadership change, the police as a whole were not subjected to mass purges. Without wishing to make a virtue out of that necessity, it is hard to believe that the police service would have been anywhere near as effective as it is now if a different approach had been adopted.

However, while a large measure of continuity was required, change was also needed, because the CJS could never be improved while it remained hated and illegitimate — hence the change in leadership, the adoption of internal policies aimed at redressing past imbalances and improving policing in especially neglected areas, and the adoption of community policing as a guiding philosophy. These changes — aimed both at changing the nature of policing as well as creating legitimacy — have had a profound effect on policing and the experience of the police organisation by both its members and by the public.

Policing, like all service industries, relies heavily on its personnel and how they approach their work. Hence change in policing can happen in two ways: the relative prioritisation of geographic areas, strategic approaches and types of criminal activity can change; or the services delivered by individual police officers can change. Of course, both in theory and in practice, these two possibilities can occur in different combinations.

Changes in some of the services delivered by the SAPS include:

the development of new processes of community consultation and accountability, intended to give effect to the need for the community to be active participants in the provision of safety and security;



changes in the treatment of some victims of some crimes (such as children in areas in which specialised child protection units are operating);



less aggressive or assertive visible policing and patrol work;



the virtual elimination of tactics used to suppress political unrest, and a new approach to managing protest actions; and



less coercion and intimidation in the course of investigating crime.

These changes notwithstanding, the strategies and tactics used for crime prevention (including patrol, high-density policing, stop-and-search operations, etc) and investigative work have not changed too dramatically. Thus, whatever changes have occurred have been in the area of reprioritisation.

Three elements have driven the reprioritisation of resource allocation among policing areas, police strategies and crime problems:

democratisation and the consequent need to develop equity both within the police and in providing services to the public;



the adoption of community policing as an organisational philosophy; and



the rise in crime, and the political contest over prioritising different forms of criminality.

These factors did not, and do not, have a predetermined effect on the relative prioritisation of investigative and preventive work. They could have been interpreted to mean that ‘reactive’ work would be emphasised at the expense of ‘proactive’ work. However, in the view of detectives, the approach taken in giving effect to the philosophy of community policing, as well as the common political and social demand for ‘more bobbies on the beat’, has meant that the transformation of policing has prioritised crime prevention over investigation. Thus, while in theory many of the features of the transformation are not directly related to the prioritisation of prevention or investigation, in practice the implementation of these processes — such as the consolidation of the command of the CID and uniform branches under the station commissioner — has tended to reinforce an actual and perceived deprioritisation of investigative work.

The decline in the perceived importance of investigative work and the status of detectives has had important consequences for the morale, productivity and efficacy of the detective service. Detectives, old and young, had expectations about the nature of their careers and the status and resourcing of their work. The apparent decline in importance attached to investigative work, as well as the perceived and real decline in the resources committed to investigations, appears to have generated a degree of frustration and, indeed, anger among grass-roots detectives and middle management alike.

Frustration and anger during a process of transformation comes as no surprise. It would be a rare and/or ineffective transformation that did not intrude on the processes, expectations and comfort zones of the organisation concerned. Therefore, the existence of anger and frustration is not in itself a reason to condemn the transformation of policing, nor a basis for declaring that transformation has failed. At the same time, frustration and anger do not necessarily reflect resistance in an overtly political sense. While there are detectives who regard the transformation process as some kind of conspiracy against them, most are simply concerned about the fact that they are unable to do the work they enjoy in the way they want to do it, or have the sorts of careers that they had expected.

But the anger is directly related to a separate but vitally important issue: the relationship between the police organisation, police culture, and the identity of police officers.

Police officers are fond of saying that policing is not a job, but a vocation or calling. They see themselves and their jobs as coincident in a way that other professions do not. No doubt this has something to do with the general social and cultural validation of the fight against evil, the pursuit of justice and the like.1 But it is both more and less than this. The shared identity of police officers is not constituted solely around issues of right and wrong, justice and injustice. They also form a community in its own right, with rules governing entry and exit, social hierarchies, and acceptable and unacceptable behaviour. Thus the commitment to policing is not just a commitment to meting out justice but also a commitment to a community, a shared culture and an identity. And changes to the foundations and structures of that community and culture are as unwelcome as they would be in any other community.

This is not to say that policing and police culture should not change — indeed, the success of our fragile democracy probably depends on it. Rather, it is to caution that police officers, when faced with changes to their fragile cultural formations, are likely to find the process disturbing and distressing. And in any industry — perhaps most of all in policing — distressing and traumatic change is likely to result in lower morale and productivity. The question is whether the organisation can recover from the transformative shocks it has experienced.

For obvious reasons, this is a question vital to the health and longevity of our democracy. Without an effective investigative service — to say nothing of the police service as a whole — the state will probably not be able to fulfil its key and defining functions. Thus the long-term health of the police is vital to our future.

Regarding this, three points need to be made:

The decision to transform the police was not a whim of some politician or bureaucrat. There is no way in which the police could have moved into the future without being fundamentally reformed. Historical and political factors meant that the role of the police, the basket of skills and services possessed and provided, and the self-conception of its members — to say nothing of its internal problems — would not fit into our nascent democracy. Transformation is not just a political necessity but also an objective, operational requirement.



Policing has improved vastly in three areas. One of these is the approach to crime prevention. Even more important is the acceptance that all South Africans need policing services. Policing is no longer viewed as the protection of the white community from the dangerous, black masses. The degree to which there is consensus that policing must take place with the consent of, and in consultation with, the entire community has also improved dramatically. Thirdly, the management of crowds, especially aggressive protesters, has improved beyond all recognition. Internal management, especially of diversity, is clearly improving, though some problems continue.



The transformation, focused as it has been on changing the services delivered, seems to have neglected the crucial question of the reproduction of the organisation.

Successful organisations cannot just produce and deliver services in the here and now. In order to sustain themselves and continue to produce those services, they need to recreate the conditions under which they do so. In business, this means that companies must make enough money not just to pay workers, shareholders and suppliers but also to replace used capital, train and retrain workers, and replace lost staff, all the while adapting to new market conditions. The larger the enterprise, the more challenging the task.

In South Africa, the reproduction of the police’s ability to investigate crimes virtually coincides with the ability of the organisation to reproduce efficient detectives. While this process has never been wholly satisfactory — especially in relation to the ability of detectives to complete their cases successfully within the confines of the rights enjoyed by suspects and accused persons — it appears that the transformation has had a marked effect on the ability of the SAPS to produce detectives.2 Indeed, most detectives interviewed felt that the organisation’s ability to do this had declined quite sharply over the past five years. The reasons for this are numerous. Among the most important are:

the lack of experience in the completion of cases within a legal regime framed by a justiciable bill of rights;



the loss of experienced personnel;



the decline in morale and commitment associated with the process of democratisation, the change in government, and the perceived threat to police identity; and



the perception that detectives have lost status and resources during the transformation.

The reproduction of detectives is not a simple business. It requires leadership with experience, commitment and ability. It demands time, energy and resources. Most of all, it requires a degree of organisational stability, consistency and predictability. None of these is in abundant supply. The extent to which they can be developed, however, may set the parameters within which South Africans can expect successes in the fight against crime.

This monograph has sought to describe some of the challenges facing the detective service four years after the advent of democracy in South Africa. It has argued that the process of democratisation, and others associated with it, have impacted significantly on the experiences and expectations of detectives. On the whole, detectives approach their work as a profession, and seek to perform their tasks effectively and efficiently. At the same time, many are unhappy and uncertain about the trajectory of the detective service. These factors have led to, and are allied with, the loss of skills and decline in morale and productivity in the service.

Dealing with this state of affairs will be difficult. On the one hand, it remains true that change is required. On the other, it appears that detectives are not amenable to change. It is not at all clear how best to deal with this, but it is worth reiterating that whatever changes are made, planners must recognise that investigations require investigators. Like it or not, the needs, expectations and convictions of investigators need to be taken on board if the SAPS is to retain their services and ensure that they reproduce themselves and their organisation.

Endnotes