Action Society, the former home of crime fighter Ian Cameron, who is now the Chair of the Portfolio Committee on Police in Parliament, is continuing its fight for justice for victims and their families. In this interview with spokesperson Juanita du Preez, she describes how former Police Minister Bheki Cele was an “obstacle” in the fight against crime. Discussing the official crime statistics for between April and June this year when 6 228 people were murdered, she says “…we often say that it’s a war zone or a bloodbath and we keep coming back to those. We are suffering to find new synonyms for that, but it is appropriate… I think the legacy of Cele, unfortunately, we will still see for quite a while.” However, the new Police Minister, Senzo Mchunu, “does seem like a better fit”. Du Preez lists the urgent reforms needed not just in law enforcement, but in the justice- and parole systems as well. Praising new Correctional Services Minister Pieter Groenewald for the measures he is taking, she says currently “40% of people out on parole just go out and re-offend…not just stealing an apple or something like that: serious crimes: murder, rape, sexual offenses…It’s just a pause before they can commit the next crime.” Meanwhile, she hails Cameron for bringing “urgency” to his new role.
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Extended transcript of the interview ___STEADY_PAYWALL___
Chris Steyn (00:03.306)
Repeated shootouts between police and suspects coupled with the latest official crime statistics paint a very grim picture of lawlessness in South Africa. We speak to Action Society’s Juanita Du Preez about the situation on the ground. Welcome, Juanita.
Juanita Du Preez (00:22.048)
Thank you for the opportunity.
Chris Steyn (00:25.324)
You’re welcome. How would you describe the official statistics? How would you encapsulate them? And how much of an accurate reflection is that of the situation on the ground in your experience?
Juanita Du Preez (00:44.174)
Well, we often say that it’s a war zone or a bloodbath and we keep coming back to those. We are suffering to find new synonyms for that, but it is appropriate because we had to wait six months for the latest crime stats and it was what we expected, shocking as usual, incline again, even though there are, if there’s an improvement of two less murders, then we don’t really see it as an improvement. I mean it’s still between 70 and 80 people being murdered every day. And if you look at sexual offenses and if you look at rape and all of the cases that we work with specifically, it’s just horrendous. So yes, we do describe it as horrible, as a bloodbath, as a war zone. I don’t think anybody in their right mind can actually disagree with us.
We would like to see better stats in the coming future. We do have high hopes that with Ian Cameron, who was a member of Action Society or spokesperson for Action Society, now at the helm of the Portfolio Committee for Police, that he would bring the urgency. And we’ve already seen good things, questions being asked, results being required by the Portfolio Committee, by his leadership.
And then the new Police Minister. It is difficult to say, he’s only had less than six months in his role, but it does seem like we have a better fit. Well, probably anything would be better than what we had previously. And I think the legacy of Cele, unfortunately, we will still see for quite a while.
Chris Steyn (02:53.132)
I mean, I often see people on X commenting and describing the former minister as an obstacle, that he was an obstacle in the fight against crime. Would you go that far?
Juanita Du Preez (03:05.132)
Yes, definitely. Because he was… We always laughed when we saw that one video of a guy who said he just turned up for functions and funerals. And it was as if it was about him and not about the people, the statistics, the people behind the statistics, the victims of crime. And there are so many links to corruption rumoured; so he was really an obstacle. It seemed like he had an answer for all the problems, but there was never real solutions. You can announce wonderful plans, but if it doesn’t bring real results, then it doesn’t mean anything. So yes, he was an obstacle.
Chris Steyn (03:58.306)
There has been visible, a visible difference between policing actions under his reign and under the reign of the new minister.
Juanita Du Preez (04:09.548)
Yes, definitely. I don’t know if it could be that they are just more vocal about saying what is happening. And then, we, for example…we get constant updates, we hear the right noises and so on. And weekend after weekend, we see so many people were arrested in connection with murder or whatever the crimes that was outstanding and they couldn’t find them before.
The problem is are they arrested and it goes the whole process, the full process until a conviction and they stay where they should be or is it just arrest to say that we are arresting and then you bring the arrest rate up. That is the problem that we see as well with the cases that we are involved with.
Chris Steyn (05:03.852)
Well, we’ve certainly seen an uptick in the number of suspects being killed by police in shootouts.
Juanita Du Preez (05:11.33)
Yes, Cele was one who said shoot first and then ask questions later. But that had legal implications.
Chris Steyn (05:23.34)
We didn’t see that, we didn’t really see that when he was Minister of Police, we’re seeing it now.
Juanita Du Preez (05:28.652)
Yes, maybe the idea only came through now. But we’re not sure how we feel about that because we do believe that you are not guilty until you’re proven guilty. So, to just shoot somebody to get them, to remove the obstacle isn’t necessarily the right option. But if people are in danger and police officers are in danger and these people aren’t backing down, then yes, they should take the most force that they can to stop the danger for the society, for the community. It’s always the innocent bystanders who also get hit by bullets and they die and so on. So there should be a fine balance, but yes, remove the danger. I agree with that, but not just go out and shoot everybody, of course.
But yes, it does look like, and I want to say the Afrikaans word, and it’s not, it might be a bit rude, but it seems that not only are South Africans gatvol, but the police is gatvol as well. And that is why we are seeing, but isn’t that what is necessary?
Chris Steyn (06:56.696)
Well, indeed, especially when it’s a shootout between police and suspects and when the suspects are actually armed with more sophisticated firearms or more deadly weapons than the police themselves.
Juanita Du Preez (07:11.118)
Yes, and that also sparks the question of where are they getting those firearms? It’s certainly not registered because some of them are not even allowed. So where are they getting those weapons? We are aware of how many weapons were stolen in the past, say, 10 years from police stations. How did they get them? That’s a question that needs to be answered and something that really needs to be investigated. And we need answers. How are they going to stop that? The inflow of weapons and then also the distribution of weapons to criminals.
Chris Steyn (07:57.316)
Now, as you mentioned, it’s all very well to arrest people, but now to get them through the courts and you at Action Society has a lot of experience in trying to drive cases through the courts where justice gets delayed and often denied. What is needed there very urgently to reinforce the law enforcement and to make law enforcement meaningful?
Juanita Du Preez (08:25.688)
Yes, it is such a big problem. It just goes in a loop. I was making notes to myself, but I don’t even have to make the note because we realise that crime is out of control. Then the police is under-resourced in time, in people who can do the work, who is experienced. They are overworked.
And then the court system is the other problem.
And then you get re-offenders and you get parole and all of that stuff. And it all just goes around and around and around.
If we can speak about the court systems that we are involved with every day. Now we do court wraps where we update our cases every second week and time, it’s ridiculous. We just add postponed, postponed. And it is not postponed for a new regional court date or for a high court date or for a next step in the court process, it is just postponed because they couldn’t get to it. So all of the families go there, they are excited because finally they’re going to move along in the process and then nothing happens. Time and time and time again we see that with our case- and I must assume that it is the same with other cases. We have cases that is on the roll for three and a half years. We have cases that has not even reached court and it is around three years. Cases that’s just being closed.
…it was just a while ago in the past month, we heard cases just being closed because there’s no activity. And the problem is, is it closed because there’s no activity because the investigation was not done properly? So there is no evidence because the police is overworked or was it closed because there was really no evidence, there was no people who saw the crime, there was nothing left behind.
I can’t believe that in a million cases that could be the reason – So,k and then we go to where if they go through the court process and they are convicted, then they get parole and they re-offend. In the Portfolio Committee on Police, we heard the question being asked.
Juanita Du Preez (10:47.246)
Why around parole conditions and so on and the one member said that in 40% of people out on parole just go out and re-offend serious crimes; not just stealing an apple or something like that: serious crimes: murder, rape, sexual offenses. It’s almost 50% so they are going to re-offend.
There should not be parole if that is the case because our Correctional Service, we say people go to jail to be rehabilitated, but it doesn’t seem like they’re being rehabilitated. It’s just a pause before they can commit the next crime.
Chris Steyn (11:35.192)
And apparently they have trouble keeping track of them. They actually don’t even know where they are. If I understood that correctly. Just tell us what came out with regards to that.
Juanita Du Preez (11:40.525)
Yes.
Juanita Du Preez (11:45.067)
Yes, we brought a PAIA application actually before that discussion, or we requested one and we finally received the answer. And they don’t track parolees. They’re not in the system. They don’t know; they can move around. Nobody knows in the community this person is out on parole. Nobody tracks where they are, if they are recommitting.
People just keep recommitting murder; they actually get away with murder.
Chris Steyn (12:44.688)
Well, Action Society has also been involved in cases where people have been given bail and then have gone on to commit more serious crimes than the ones they were arrested for in the first place.
Juanita Du Preez (12:56.076)
Yes, we have so many cases where this happens. We have so many cases…which is now it’s active still, but there’s nothing happening. In October, it will be two years since the incident. It was a big, it happened fast and the guy was in court.
Juanita Du Preez (13:24.45)
But there was not enough evidence to link him to that murder, but he was committed for another rape case of a nine-year-old girl previously. So he’s in jail now for that one, but not for….murder, kidnapping, rape, whatever else happened to her. Because it’s just ridiculous and nothing is happening further….because they said, okay, it doesn’t link to him. So too bad now.
Chris Steyn (13:57.826)
What do you think the most urgent steps that are needed now to get law enforcement and the justice system flowing in such a way that it becomes meaningful, that it’s not counterproductive.
Juanita Du Preez (14:20.908)
Yes, we definitely need, if you look at all three of those things that I mentioned previously, we need to work on all three of them.
I think in order for there to be less crime, criminals need to know there will be consequences and it will be dire. So it can be, it can stop them maybe from committing the crimes.
If they do commit the crime, then we need more specialised detectives, experienced people, people who can do the work, not just train new police recruits for three months, hand them a gun and say, there you go, you’re now a police officer, go and do the job. They don’t have mentorship, they don’t know how to do it. Whenever you walk into a new job, not just not an important job like police, you have a mentor who shows you the ropes and make sure that you know how to do it. We don’t see that in the police. So we need specialised units, we need experienced people. They need the resources to do the jobs that they need to do.
And then when we get to the court system, we need to, I don’t know, more courts, more magistrates. Also, there was also debate about their remuneration. Make sure that prosecutors and magistrates receive the money that they deserve for doing the job that they do so that they can move along, so that there can be more experienced people, skilled people doing their job and moving through the roles faster and making good decisions that will not further impact potential victims and that’s all all South Africans potential victims in the country.
Chris Steyn (16:10.708)
When it comes to Correctional Services, it seems that with the new minister, there may be the possibility of stricter parole conditions and some reforms there.
Juanita Du Preez (16:24.76)
Yes, we were very excited when we heard the announcement that Dr. Pieter Groenewald is going to be the new Minister of Correctional Services. There were many memes during the round, which were all appropriate. But I think everybody had the hope. You know, this person has come through the ranks; he was also a member, a long serving parliamentary member, but he was also serving on the Portfolio Committee for Police. He’s always asked the right questions and stood by his questions and wanted results. And now he is in a position to actually bring about real change. The changes that we’ve seen already, and there was this one case…He was a police officer. He killed his three children in front of his wife. And then he came up for parole. She wasn’t informed. It was granted, and he came and said, no, no, no, no, I’m gonna oversee this. And it was overturned because that man, he came and he said he will go and kill his wife. How can you put a person like that on parole? Even in individual cases, he’s got his finger on the pulse, but it’s also, we see that there are visits to police and there are raids, not police, jails, and there are raids in police, in the jails and they confiscate all the contraband and so on because we’ve all seen the videos where they have X-boxes and TVs and it’s a jolly time and they have food and so on but one person actually admitted that. So, so when you go to jail it’s supposed to be a punishment it is not supposed to be a free ride until you can commit your next crime so we are very excited about the new changes that we are seeing under his leadership
Chris Steyn (18:20.194)
Well, he certainly clamped down on cell phone usage because how many convicts didn’t run criminal operations from their prison cells on their cell phones. So I think that’s caused a bit of a disruption in the organised crime world.
Juanita Du Preez (18:29.738)
Exactly.
Juanita Du Preez (18:36.108)
I’m sure they are not excited about it.
Chris Steyn (18:40.736)
Lastly, Can you even tell me how many cases Action Society is handling at the moment? What are your priorities going forward now?
Juanita Du Preez (18:50.382)
Yes, we will continue with what we are doing and we offer support for victims of crime in the first place throughout the process to get justice and we try to get them swift justice. Unfortunately, we do have the systemic failure which prolongs cases. But then on the other hand, we are also putting pressure to improve the systemic failures, be it the court processes, the police resources, the crime statistics and so on, and any legislation around parole or legislation about the DNA or information about the DNA backlog or the backlog at the forensic laboratories. So we put pressure on that.
And then we also strengthen communities who already put up their hand and start doing something in their own communities, but they don’t have the resources or the know-how. We try to support them and make their hands strong so that they can multiply what they are doing in their communities to make the community safer. We all have to stand together and we all have to take hands and not just turn to the other side and say it’s somebody else’s problem.
Crime in South Africa. The whole of South Africa is the responsibility of the whole of South Africa. So we all have to stand together and make sure that change really does happen.
Chris Steyn (20:25.954)
Thank you. That was Juanita du Preez of Action Society, the civil rights organisation that brings justice for people who have no hope of getting it anywhere else. Thank you Juanita and I’m Chris Steyn
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