How SAPS killed its detective service - and let crime run wild: Fanie Bouwer

Key topics:

• SA crime worsens as detective service collapses.

• Weak policing fuels mafias, gang wars, and murders.

• Restoring detectives’ focus is key to fighting crime.

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By Brigadier Fanie Bouwer

South Africa’s crime wave is not just about criminals. It’s about a police force that dismantled its most important weapon: the detective service.

As a young police officer, I once asked my colleagues what the best way was to fight crime? After much debate, one asked me for my own view. My answer was blunt: “Just catch the criminals.”

What I meant was this: investigate cases properly, arrest the culprits quickly, and make sure they’re convicted. Once behind bars, they can’t keep offending. That is the most effective form of crime prevention.

But today, South Africa’s detective service is in ruins. And because of that collapse, criminals are running wild.

Runaway crime -  runaway costs

Few South Africans connect the dots between weak detective work and economic damage in the country. But the link is clear:

• * Construction mafias that evolved into extortion syndicates.

• * Zama zamas and illegal mining.

• * Hundreds of kilometres of stolen railway lines.

• * Taxi violence and over 170 bus attacks along the N2.

• * Political assassinations.

• & Cape Flats gang wars.

And above all: a murder detection rate of just 10–12%.

If criminals know they won’t be caught, they won’t stop.

Where it all went wrong

The rot began in the early 2000s with former commissioner Jackie Selebi’s “restructuring” of the SAPS. It was unnecessary, destructive, and dismantled one of the most feared detective services in Africa.

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Before then, detectives operated as a separate division,  with their own command chain - from branch level to district, divisional, and ultimately the national head of detectives in Pretoria. Specialised units reported along the same line.

This structure worked. Detectives had focus, authority, and pride. Criminals feared them.

The making of a detective

Back then, detectives weren’t just appointed to make up numbers. They were carefully chosen from the uniform branch, tested for investigative instinct, and then trained by seasoned officers in intensive two- to three-month courses.

A real detective isn’t made by a policy decision. It’s a calling. Today’s SAPS ignores this truth,   and pays the price.

Today’s broken system

Now, detectives fall under the authority of station commissioners already drowning in other responsibilities. The chain of command bypasses the provincial head of detectives, leaving the branch leaderless and weak.

The results are visible everywhere:

• * Detectives with no official phones, airtime, laptops, or vehicles.

• * Officers forced to use their own cars and fuel — or walk to investigations and court.

• * Caseloads of 300 dockets per detective, making proper investigations impossible. Why is this even allowed to happen? This is not policing. It’s survival.

The way back

South Africa doesn’t need to reinvent the wheel. It needs to rebuild the detective service as a separate, specialised arm of the SAPS,  with its own ethos, leadership, and professional pride.

Do that, and the tide can turn. Leave things as they are, and criminals will keep smiling - while South Africans keep bleeding.