Criminologist Dr Guy Lamb has expressed concern over a critical shortage of detectives within the South African Police Service (Saps).
Last week, national police commissioner Fannie Masemola revealed police had lost 8,400 detectives since 2017.
The Saps currently has 17,600 detectives countrywide – a far off figure from 26,000 detectives six years ago.
Lamb said the shortage of police detectives spelled serious trouble for the country.
“Both the numbers of murders, and the murder rate has been increasing steadily over the past 10 years. And in order to stem violent crimes, one needs to have an effective criminal justice system and we need to ensure higher conviction rates of those who perpetrate violent crimes.”
Lamb added that the only way to stem the murder rate is through proper police detective investigations.
“The problem is if there’s less detectives to investigate that crime, there’s less evidence that can be used and less evidence presented in court.”
Police claim they are on a drive to capacitate detective services but have yet to respond to queries from the publication.
-EWN
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