By Dr Zizamele Cebekhulu-Makhaza, Chairman of the Safer South Africa Foundation
No community can be expected to live under fear while policing failures are dressed up as resource constraints. No country can speak seriously about public safety while the machinery of justice is allowed to misfire at the very point where citizens need it most.
While officers have no say in how the system protects the people, and while no support is provided from those above them, they are made to carry the unjust weight of honouring the Constitution’s promise that people should be protected, treated with dignity, and served under the law.
This is what our politicians swear to when they take office, and it is what our leaders in the criminal justice cluster (CJC) are meant to defend. But figureheads in leadership structures are failing our people in the times they need it most.
South Africa must take the sanctity of life serious
Every serious crime left unsolved cuts deep for families who have lost someone or something, and for communities already questioning the strength of the law. When this repeats, it weakens the authority of the state itself.
What South Africans are asking for are not unreasonable – they’re asking for common sense interventions that shouldn’t be hard to provide:
- a justice system that works;
- competent leaders;
- urgent action;
- police stations that are properly supported;
- command structures that understand local realities;
- investigations unimpeded by bureaucratic red tape; and
- leadership that doesn’t confuse accountability with political theatre.
Leadership must be held accountable for the systemic failures within the CJC, and reform can no longer remain an administrative exercise that never reaches officers on the street. The state must stop gambling with human life and begin restoring public trust that has fallen to its lowest level in two decades.
Seven urgent reforms must now drive this reset in the CJC:
- Professionalising police management
Police officers must be allowed to police. They cannot remain the dumping ground for every broken administrative system above them. Finance, human resources, planning, and other management functions belong in the hands of qualified civilian professionals whose job is to support the service, not force officers to carry administrative failure while fighting crime.
- Decentralising operational authority
Crime doesn’t happen in air-conditioned offices far from the blood, fear, and violence on the ground. Provincial commanders know where stations are collapsing and officers are asked to perform miracles with crumbs. Budgets and authority must move closer to the front line.
- Reforming the appointment of the National Commissioner
The appointment of the National Commissioner can no longer be treated as a favour, reward, or political comfort prize. This office carries the backbone of SAPS’ constitutional mandate, and the process deserves transparency and accountability, with appointees selected based on merit to lead with discipline, protect operational independence, and restore pride to a service that has been damaged by arrogance and weak leadership.
- Extending provincial commissioner tenures
Order cannot be attained while leadership is treated like a revolving door. Commissioners need time to understand crime patterns, resource pressure, station weaknesses, and the real conditions officers face.
- Restoring the civilian secretariat’s oversight role
The civilian secretariat was meant to be a shield for accountability and a reminder that policing exists to protect constitutional rights. Oversight must demand answers without becoming reckless interference in daily operations.
- Unifying fragmented policing structures
South Africa cannot protect its people through scattered structures that overlap, compete, and blur responsibility. The Constitution calls for one police service under a single national commissioner for a reason. Fragmentation weakens command, hides accountability, and sends a chilling message to communities that even the institutions meant to protect them are not moving with one disciplined mandate.
- Rebuild community policing capacity
Communities are the eyes, ears, memory, and warning system of the places where violence takes root. Community policing must be rebuilt as part of the country’s crime-fighting backbone, so officers are not cut off from the people they serve.
The dignity of our people cannot be negotiated as though it is a favour. Their safety cannot be postponed as though it is an administrative matter. Their constitutional rights cannot be left exposed while those with power explain failure in careful language.
South Africa cannot keep asking officers to carry a broken justice system on their backs, and the system