|
Media
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Latest Media releases |
03 October 2001 The Minister for Safety and Security Mr. Steve Tshwete tabled the 2000/2001 Annual Report of the ICD in Parliament on Friday, 28 September 2001. The ICD has been in operation for four years since it opened its doors to the public in April 1997. The investigative priorities of the ICD are as follows:
The additional mandate of the ICD is that of civilian oversight over members of the Municipal Police Services, thus the same mandate as we have over the SAPS. Further in terms of section 18(4)(a)(b) of the Domestic Violence Act, the ICD must monitor the implementation of this Act by the police. During the 2000/2001 financial year the ICD received a total of 5225 cases, of which 4538 were public complaints and 687 were notifications of deaths in police custody or as a result of police action. Compared to the financial year 1999/2000, the number of cases received was 4380, of which 681 were notifications of deaths in police custody or as a result of police action while public complaints numbered 3699. This represents an increase of 842 public complaints (16%) and 6 deaths in police custody or as a result of police action over the previous year. The breakdown of notifications of deaths in police custody during 1999/2000 is as follows:
The breakdown of notifications of deaths in police custody during 2000/2001 is as follows:
The largest number of cases in general was recorded in Gauteng (1437) followed by the Western Cape (742) and Northern Province (690). The province with the least number of complaints was the Northern Cape (287). With regard to the number of notifications of deaths in police custody or as a result of police action, Kwazulu Natal recorded the highest number (181) followed by Gauteng (131) with the Northern Cape recording the lowest number (15). The number of serious criminal offences committed by members of the SAPS such as assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm or attempted murder, corruption, theft, abuse of power, torture, malicious damage to property, etc was 554 during the financial year 2000/2001 compared with 764 in 1999/2000. This represents a decrease of 210 cases over the previous year. The Western Cape and Gauteng recorded the highest number of criminal offences with 134 and 103 respectively. The total number of cases of misconduct among members of the SAPS reported during the financial year 2000/2001 was 1707, compared to 1675 in 1999/2000 which represents a 2% increase. The majority of these public complaints are service-related, where people complain about the service provided by the SAPS members. As a result the police have been largely found to be negligent of their duties or performing their duties in an improper manner (1123) and failure to perform duties (313). In this category it was found that Gauteng (609), Western Cape (468), Eastern Cape (216) and Northern Cape (134) recorded the highest number of complaints of police misconduct while the North West (20), Kwazulu Natal (14) and Northern Province (44) recorded the lowest number. In 1786 cases we completed our investigations. The Executive Director, Adv. Karen McKenzie said: " We are still deeply concerned about the high number of deaths in police custody or as a result of police action. The figure is still unacceptably high, much can and has to be done to reduce the risk of these deaths. We will persevere to expose the rogue element within the SAPS. We commend those police members who go the extra mile in serving our community". Issued by Independent Complaints Directorate (ICD) ICD National Spokesperson |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
