Johannesburg - The South African Police Service (SAPS) said on Monday it was now focusing on going back to basic policing working towards going targeting crime, bringing the perpetrators of crime to justice, and making South Africa safer for all its citizens.
The South African Minister of Police Nkosinathi Nhleko,and the acting National Commissioner, Johannes Khomotso Phahlane, recently concluded a thorough analysis of the past and recent performance of the SAPS, drawing a number of conclusions in their “Back to Basics Towards a Safer Tomorrow” report.
Their analysis determined that urgent, focused action was required to turn the SAPS performance around to ensure that it was an organisation every South African can be proud of.
Critical deficiencies and key challenges were identified during the in-depth analysis.
The majority of the deficiencies and challenges identified relate to the tried and tested, fundamental principles of policing, which have been neglected for a long period of time.
In addition, there are specific areas of under-performance within the police’s annual performance plan that are linked to the three fundamental functions of policing: crime prevention, crime investigation and crime intelligence.
This analysis has necessitated the introduction of a “Back-to Basics” approach to policing, which focuses on every police officer doing the basics of policing properly and consistently.
This approach is centred around a few critical organisational concerns that will be rigorously addressed going forward.
These issues include: Discipline, and the manner in which police officers conduct themselves, as a distinctive characteristic of policing.
Enhanced police visibility, which implies more police officers in uniform, thereby minimising opportunities to commit crime; and
The targeted, informed deployment of operational resources to ensure the optimal utilisation of the limited resources that the Police have at their disposal, ensuring that they are applied for maximum effect.
In addition, those areas of chronic under-performance must be corrected through specific recovery plans targeting the visible policing and detective service capabilities in SAPS, thereby linking the recovery plans to the crime prevention and investigation of crime imperatives.
The recovery plans are not only focussed on ensuring the improvement of performance and the achievement of annual targets, but are also driving the Back-to-Basics approach.
The performance analysis conducted by SAPS’ senior management also included the identification of the worst performing police stations in terms of both the reported incidence of serious crime as well as the detection of crime.
This enabled the targeting of these under-performing stations for the immediate implementation of the visible policing and detective service recovery plans.
The Visible Policing Recovery Plan focuses on a number of crime prevention and station management priorities.
These include ensuring crime advice and awareness; improving police visibility to address the “opportunities to commit crimes”; the conducting of special police action operations to prevent crime.
They also include the conducting of social crime prevention operations (including partnership policing) to address the “desires to commit crime”.
“It is important to emphasise that the essence of the Back-to-Basics of Policing approach requires that the public play a central role in changing the outlook of the police,” stated the police report.
“This will ensure that we have a police service that is responsive to the safety and security needs of society, a police service that is known to be upholding a high standard of conduct and that is in sync with the constitutional imperative that is described in its mandate.”
African News Agency
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