The structure of South African police: Towards a single police service

Abstract

The South African crime statistics released by the police minister for the first three months of 2021 reaffirmed the alarming crime problems in the country. Although, the statistics as released by the minister seemingly opined that certain crimes such as contact related crimes, property-related crimes to be declining. Other crimes such as, Truck hijacking, commercial crime, attempted murder, murder, robbery at residential premises, carjacking, robbery at non-residential premises, bank robbery and others are on the increase. This article argues that the high rate of crime in South Africa cannot be severed from the disjointed functions given to public law enforcement establishments in the country. It is argued the public policing agencies in South Africa, such as the Municipal police, Traffic police and the SAPS have the common objective of crime control against law breakers. The central argument is that the alarming rate of crime in the country is essentially because the efforts of these law enforcement agencies are not properly coordinated into a central command structure with uniform strategy and tactics. The main objective of this article is to propose a centralisation of police agencies (Municipal, Traffic and South African Police Services) which will be effective in dealing with crime in the South African communities. This article adopted qualitative research methodology. Twenty participants were purposefully selected. The article makes recommendations, emanating from the research findings.