Former police officers have been responding in droves to an opportunity to re-enlist, according to police management. Police spokesman Brigadier Vishnu Naidoo said yesterday that in the two months before the June15 deadline, 2800 applications had been received from former officers. Of these, about 1000 were detectives."This rare window of opportunity for former members is part of management's plan to capacitate the ranks of the police with highly experienced detectives and former members of visible policing units because we are striving to improve the service levels at the coalface," he said."The police intend to appoint former constables, sergeants, warrant officers and lieutenants to posts in the detective service and the visible policing divisions, the two environments in the police that need capacitation."One of the stipulations was that applicants should not have left the service while a disciplinary inquiry was pending against them.National police commissioner Riah Phiyega said: "Those with criminal records will not be considered. We will not compromise on quality for quantity. Only those with a commendable track record of good performance and a clean disciplinary record will be allowed to re-enlist."Naidoo said that former officers would be vetted and have their fingerprints checked against the criminal records database.Re-enlistment boards will be convened in the provinces to consider all applications and make final recommendations to the police's human resources committee.The intention is to finalise the selection process by the end of November.Naidoo said that, like other government departments, the police had lost a large number of employees as a result of confusion about pension benefits."Despite this, our attrition rate for 2014 was 3.5% of our workforce, well below the normal 4.5% to 5%," Naidoo said...