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 In his budget vote this year, Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula correctly argued that "crime, especially serious and violent crime, threatens our value system including the sanctity of life and all the freedoms that define our democratic order." He also promised that "our main thrust is going to be crime; to stop; in a manner of speaking, crime from happening."
Given the Minister's commitment, it is startling that the government has allowed a resource crisis to develop in many police stations across the country particularly in Gauteng and the Western Cape. There can never be any hope of effectively combating the scourge of crime without the SAPS having sufficient personnel and resources to tackle the problem head on. As the Inspecting Judge of Prisons, Hannes Fagan, argues, "it is the certainty of detection and punishment, not the severity of the punishment that is the real deterrent."
The alarming lack of capacity in the SAPS reduces the effectiveness of the police force and destroys the morale within the force itself as members often have to battle an insurmountable workload.
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