147 police officers identified for domestic violence in just six months — SAPS report

The SAPS identified 147 of its own officers as alleged perpetrators of domestic violence in the six months between April and September 2021 — and 75 of them lost their service pistols as a result.

Another 73 police officers across 50 police stations were identified as victims of domestic violence during the same period.

This is revealed in the SA Police Service’s biannual report to parliament, which focuses on the implementation of the Domestic Violence Act by the police for the period April 1 2021, to September 30 2021.

The report was tabled by police minister Bheki Cele on January 13 and published by parliament on Sunday night.

It shows that the 147 alleged perpetrators are spread across 95 of the country’s police stations. More than half (76 or 51.7%) of them are in the Western Cape, with the Free State and Gauteng having 26 each.

The Western Cape’s alleged suspects are from 41 of the province’s stations.

The report shows that 77 firearms were seized from the affected members during the period under review.

A total of 75 firearms had been allocated to members on their personal equipment inventory and two additional private firearms were seized. Seventy-two members were not issued with police firearms.

According to the report, 59 complaints were laid against service police officers for alleged failure to comply with an obligation imposed in terms of the act.

The majority of the complaints (35) were for failure to complete SAPS 508 (a) and 508 (b) forms. The SAPS 508(a) is an incident form where all the incidents in respect of domestic violence are recorded and SAPS 508 (b) is a domestic violence register.

These registers and forms were designed and instituted to help with the accurate record keeping of domestic violence cases and incidents.

Fifteen of the complaints related to a failure to open a case while the rest had to do with failures to file or register a protection order, conduct a first level inspection and to render satisfactory service to victims. Again the Western Cape was the worst offender with 43 of the complaints from the province.

The report shows that in 29 of the 59 complaints, remedial steps were taken after the initial interview. The cases were not considered serious.

A verbal warning was issued in 14 cases, while written warnings were issued in five.

The department was investigating 11 cases and these were considered serious. 

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