Dear Portfolio Committee on Justice and Constitutional Development,

Your attention is drawn to the article in the Mail & Guardian, pages 4 & 5, on 30th August 2024.
I have spent many years trying to get SAPS:
1. To compare fingerprints to the Home Affairs database (if they cannot be matched on their own database), to no avail. Home Affairs has prints of everyone legally in our country, whilst SAPS's database is limited to criminals or suspects. Despite their insistence that they ARE using all databases available to them, we have absolute proof that they are not. Therefore, first-time criminals, or those who have yet to be apprehended, are not being identified. The implications of this failure to use a critical resource that has been available to them for 14 years, are obvious.
2. Our K9 Unit has an international reputation for excellence, and yet in 26 years, during which time the organisation I worked for assisted over 10,000 rape cases, they have NEVER been called to the scene of the crime, even when the assailant ran away from the home on foot. This failure has even been raised by the K9 Unit themselves.
3. SAPS's Standing Instructions stress that in cases of rape, there are two crime scenes: the body of the victim and the place where the assault occurred. In my experience, it is extremely rare for the scene of the crime to be secured; similarly, the Forensics Unit is very rarely called, and the K9 Unit never.
Copious letters verifying these challenges are available should the Committee require them.
Over the past 2 years we have sent over 100 emails raising these concerns, including to the Office of the President, the Dept. of Women, the Justice Department, the Presidential Hotline, IPID, the SAHRC and the CPS. In the majority of cases, our emails were totally ignored - despite frequent follow-ups. Those that did respond, declined to get involved and instead "passed the buck".
Currently it is estimated that less than 4% of reported cases of rape end up in court, and thousands of rape victims are forced to live in fear for years, waiting for DNA analysis that may or may not identify her assailant. If SAPS had used the resources available to them, in many cases this could have been reduced to hours.
In view of the above, we have reached the conclusion that the denials and refusal to take appropriate action is deliberate as those in power realise that the prisons could not cope with the massive increase in arrests, should SAPS conform to their mandate and use the resources available to them.
Your urgent attention to these critical failures is anticipated, as is a response to this email.