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The new National Police Commissioner refused to label crime in South Africa as a crisis, telling the interviewer, when presented with the notion that South Africa is facing a "real crisis", "well, crisis, I'm not very sure about the word ‘crisis'." While the Commissioner did at least acknowledge some of the crime problems that we face during the interview, his obstinate refusal to see crime as one of the most serious issues facing South Africa harks back to Jackie Selebi's famous refrain: "What's all the fuss about crime?" Perhaps even more disturbingly, Cele - perhaps ‘Celebi' is more appropriate? - appears to be hopelessly ill-informed on even the most basic policing matters. When asked what South Africa's police-to-population ratio was, he replied that he did not know, but then made the staggering claim that South Africa is ranked third in the world in this category. His precise answer reads as follows: "Well I can't give the exact numbers, but we are number three in the world when it comes to achieving that. South Africa is number three in the world - police per capita, or ratio, so you're not bad if you think we're number three. [But] I can't give you exact figures." Commissioner Cele is simply talking nonsense. The majority of South Africa's provinces do not even meet the minimum international standard recommended by the United Nations of one police officer to every 400 citizens, and our nationwide ratio of 1:342*. South Africa is by absolutely no measure "third in the world" - or even close to it (see the attached list below that demonstrates 18 countries in the EU alone have better police-to-population ratios than South Africa). What's more, the police-to-population ratio is a deceptive statistic because it assumes that all countries face the same level of crime, and that all police forces are equally well trained - in both of these respects, South Africa lags behind globally, which compounds the fact that our Police Service is understaffed. Once again the Commissioner appears to make up the facts as he goes along. One recalls not too long ago that he claimed that there was evidence that criminals use crime statistics to assist in the planning of their crimes, and that Interpol research supported the prolonged delayed release of crime statistics. The DA is still waiting for the Commissioner to provide the hard facts that support these claims. Commissioner Cele appears to be completely out of touch with the experiences of ordinary South Africans and blissfully unaware of the hard facts about policing. The Selebi-like denial of the gravity of the crime situation, and perhaps more problematically, his apparent complete lack of policing knowledge, will be to the serious detriment of ongoing efforts to tackle crime in South Africa. What South Africa needs, is a serious, level-headed approach to crime based on correct and current information. Denial or ignorance certainly won't solve anything. The Democratic Alliance will continue to pressure government for the regular release of crime statistics and tailored approaches, such as specialised units, in order to bring crime under control. We will also continue to argue for ratcheting up the size of the police service to 250,000 well-trained officers, that would bring the police-to-population ratio under 1:250. * Note: The official South African Police Service Police-to-Population ratio is 1:332, however this figure combines policing data from 2009 with census data from 2007. Using the more accurate method of comparing policing data from mid-2009 with official StatsSA population data from mid-2009, the corrected ratio is 1:342.
1 Cyprus 5119 801600 156.593
2 Italy 324339 60088880 185.266
3 Spain 210419 45929476 218.276
4 Turkey 325738 71517100 219.554
5 Portugal 48082 10627250 221.023
6 Croatia 19790 4435056 224.106
7 Czech Republic 46032 10467542 227.397
8 Greece 48521 11257285 232.009
9 Malta 1755 413627 235.685
10 Latvia 9568 2257300 235.922
11 Slovenia 7857 2045249 260.309
12 France 241998 65073482 268.901
13 Belgium 38963 10754528 276.019
14 Lithuania 11301 3349872 296.423
15 Austria 26623 8355260 313.836
16 Germany 250284 82046000 327.812
17 Luxembourg 1447 493500 341.05
18 Ireland 12954 4422100 341.369
- South Africa 143835 49320000 342.89
19 Hungary 28636 10031208 350.301
20 Liechtenstein 96 35593 370.76
21 UK 165969 61634599 371.362
22 Slovakia 14361 5413548 376.962
23 Poland 99083 38100700 384.533
24 Estonia 3238 1340415 413.964
25 Iceland 688 319246 464.02
26 Switzerland 16649 7739100 464.839
27 Netherlands 35324 16535207 468.101
28 Romania 45219 21498616 475.433
29 Denmark 10759 5519441 513.007
30 Sweden 17423 9292359 533.339
31 Norway 8292 4834000 582.972
32 Finland 8312 5343608 642.879