WELLBEING ISS TODAY
Thousands of new SA police recruits may yield little benefit The rush to hire won’t deliver the better quality officers and police leaders South Africa needs. 22 February 2022. By David Bruce, Independent Researcher on violence, policing and public security. This article forms part of the author’s policing and public violence work for the Institute for Security Studies (ISS). Republished from https://issafrica.org/iss-today/thousands-of-new-sa-police-recruits-may-yield-little-benefit.
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ver the past year, concerns have been raised about the decline in the number of police in South Africa. Due to budgetary restrictions, last year’s Treasury projections were that the number of South African Police Service (SAPS) personnel would drop by 13%, or 24,413 employees, to 162,945 by 2023-24. In response to these concerns, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced the hiring of 12,000 police officials in his 2022 State of the Nation Address. This is higher than the figure of 10,000 new members noted by
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Deputy Police Minister Cassel Mathale in November last year. According to the SAPS, the recruitment of 7,000 members has already started. But this approach reflects shortcomings in government thinking about how to strengthen policing. Rigorous standards are needed when bringing in and training new SAPS members, and the rush to hire suggests that lessons from our recent history haven’t been learnt. A massive recruitment drive between 2003 and 2012 resulted in 123,606 new police joining the organisation – an average of more than 12,300 a year. The
total number of personnel reached 199,345 in 2012. But rather than improving policing, there has since been a steady decline in the SAPS’ performance. Research shows that this deterioration can be linked to the fact that many who join the SAPS have little interest in policing as a vocation. Instead, it is often a last-ditch attempt at getting a job when other options fail.
En masse recruitment makes it more difficult for SAPS to hire only the most suitable candidates securityfocusafrica.com
