Someone once joked that due to the high unemployment in this country we have more educated thieves than educated police officials. He further emphasized that the sophistication and level of technical excellence in the crimes committed of late require forensic and organized crime units than they require the skills hosted by ordinary officers.
Is 24 months training really enough? In the line of duty police officials are faced with different scenarios from opening and investigating petty crimes. To opening very sensitive cases like in the case of rape, the police officials have proven to be inadequately trained to deal with cases of such a nature. This has in the process left the victims in a devastating state, and because of the inadequacy a lot of cases are never pursued to prosecution.
The devastating effects of this are felt more by the victims, and the right questions should be asked. Are the police officials trained well enough? If they will be dealing with devastated victims aren’t they supposed to be skilled with basic trauma counseling? If you can’t trust your life with an under-qualified doctor how can you trust your safety with officials who were trained for a mere 24 months? Let me break it down for you: a basic degree or diploma at university takes about 3 years to complete, to add to that graduates still partake in internships and graduate in-training programmes before they can be trusted to do the job efficiently and effectively.
Someone once asked why a matric certificate and driver’s license are the only pre-requisite for applying into the SAPS training academy? I really do think the training should be revised, and it won’t hurt us to be pro-active rather than reactive? But how can we do that if our officers where only trained to write affidavits and chase criminals, failing to collect enough evidence or unknowingly tempering with the evidence in the process.
Crime is on the rise and the nature of the crimes and the criminals themselves have gotten somewhat a little or even a whole lot complex; it is for that reason that we also need to buff up on the quality of police officials that are being put out on the streets to protect us.
Article By Dimo Wa Moraswi Sekele
