A sense of being in a dead-end job and of having little prospect of promotion while dealing with the stress brought on by piles of case dockets is driving South Africa’s shortage of detectives, and it is affecting the fight against crime.
The detective deficit that police minister Bheki Cele revealed in parliament recently can be seen across nearly all provinces, and the numbers are staggering. The worst-affected province is the North West, with a 32% shortage of detectives. This is followed by the Northern Cape, with 25.94%, the Western Cape (24.34%), the Free State (23.76%), KwaZulu-Natal (23.31%), the Eastern Cape (10.61%) and Gauteng (5.26%).
The detective shortage is not new, say experts. It goes back at least two decades; but the recent crime surge means the ratio of detectives to the number of cases is widening. It has reached a point where some detectives need to deal with 200-300 dockets, says independent crime researcher Johan Burger. “It is an impossible caseload, even for dedicated detectives.”
Besides there being a heavy workload, career prospects are limited in the detective services, says Burger. “For many, to advance they need to apply [for positions] outside the detective services.” Also a problem is that after a while detectives “become fed up and feel as if they are working harder than [police officers] in other branches.”
We have seen back-to-basics programmes and other initiatives ... for years, but it is being made difficult by leadership challenges
— Lizette Lancaster
Other issues affect working conditions as well. There is the legacy of structural changes brought in by police generals that were not in the best interests of the detective service, says Burger. “The Hawks were damaged by [former boss] Berning Ntlemeza. He needed loyalty, and this forced many detectives out. It left a very damaging legacy, which the current Hawks head, Lt-Gen Godfrey Lebeya, is still faced with,” says Burger.
As the police’s sleuthing arm finds itself burdened with investigating more crimes, detection rates have fallen, dropping drastically over the past decade. According to the Institute for Security Studies’ crime hub website, the number of murder cases that were solved fell from 31.1% to 19.3% between 2012 and 2020. The detection rate for robbery in the same period dropped from 22.2% to 16.9%, and that of contact crimes from 60.7% to 49.1%.
“We have seen back-to-basics programmes and other initiatives, meant to capacitate detectives, for years, but it is being made difficult by leadership challenges. Also, crime intelligence needs to do its job properly,” says Lizette Lancaster, an analyst at the institute.
Lancaster and Burger believe detectives could be encouraged to stay in the service if their working conditions were improved. This would include reducing the number of dockets assigned to a detective to about 50 or 60. More experienced detectives could be enticed to stay by making promotion within the service more attractive.
Burger says improving the effectiveness of the detective branch can be done in two ways.
One would be to increase the number of detectives, with some academics suggesting that they should make up at least 25% of the police force.
“Something else that can be looked at is the reintroduction of the uniformed inquiry and investigating unit. This unit was responsible for investigating less serious offences, such as motor vehicle accidents and ordinary assault.
“This would release detectives from a huge number of case dockets.”
The South African Policing Union, too, has voiced its concern about the shortage of detectives and the high volumes of dockets they have to manage, suggesting the addition of more manpower and re-establishing specialised units. “This would bring a relief to general detectives, as ... there would be those who specialise in specific crimes, which would be intelligence driven as well. It will improve the quality of investigations and the outcomes.”
The union says the promotion policy in the police is causing detectives to leave. “Another solution is re-enlistment that focuses on detectives with skills and doing away with employing some detectives on contract; they could be permanently appointed for continuity of investigations.”
Police did not respond to questions, but in a recent statement it said it was embarking on a re-enlistment process that would target 400 former members.
“This is to capacitate the detective services ... even those members who were employed in different environments will, on re-enlistment, undergo detective training for deployment,” the statement read.
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