Today the Institute of Security Studies (ISS) presented their research findings on the restructuring of the SAPS and in particular, the disbanding of the specialised units to the Police Portfolio Committee in Parliament. The results show that the disbanding of the specialised units has had a severely negative impact on the fight against crime. The Democratic Alliance (DA) opposed the disbanding of these units at the time and has long been calling for their reinstatement as they are an essential element in the fight against crime.

In less than a decade, drug related crimes have soared by 87% from 62 689 in 2003/04 when the Anti-Narcotics Bureau Unit was shut down, to 117 172 in 2009. The street level drug trade has been neglected and there is an increase in cocaine and ecstasy evident. We learned today that the Anti Corruption unit was closed because "investigations had identified suspects linked to senior national police officials".  The closure of this Unit has lead to massive corruption within the SAPS with no information available on the full extent of the problem.  The closure of the Crime Combating or Public Order Police Units was shown to be a failure during the 2008 xenophobic violence when the military had to be brought in as the SAPS no longer had the expertise to cope. In 2007, the DA published the findings if its own survey demonstrating that shutting down the Family Violence, Child Protection and Sexual Offences Unit has had a profoundly negative impact on the victims of these categories of crime. A RAPCAN study released in March last year, and which was discussed in today's meeting, vindicated the DA's position and found that shutting down FCS units had been a failure and that "crimes against women and children cannot be addressed under the new structure."

The good news is that Police Minister Mthethwa is now in the process of re-establishing the FCS units which he says will be fully operational by March 2011. The process of getting these units back up and running has been slow, nevertheless we applaud the Minister for recognising that they are essential to tackling crimes against women and children. The DA also welcomes the fact that a timetable for the Unit's re-implementation is on the table.

The DA hopes that this additional research from the ISS, will provide the impetus for the Minister to consider the re-establishment of the other specialised units that were shut down by former Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi. I will be forwarding this information to the Minister along with a letter urging him to re-establish all specialised units.  

Statement issued by Dianne Kohler Barnard, MP, Democratic Alliance shadow minister of police, June 1 2010

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