Information Management; Reporting Practices and Statistics

All but three of the respondents who disclosed information on the particular closed-ended question in the questionnaire claimed to report every incident of DV in the Domestic Violence Register (DVR) when confronted with a specific question on the topic. The cause of the different responses could merely be the result of the weaknesses involved in „open-ended‟

questions; or it could be that the police are confused as to what procedures they should follow at any given time. The two individuals that did not report every incident of DV in the DVR stated: “Sometimes people don‟t want cases; and just want advice and someone to listen” (No.

22) and “Victim and respondents under the influence of alcohol”.

In other words, some police officers fail to report cases if the respondents do not want to open up a case, and where the respondent or complainant is under the influence of alcohol.

Needless to say, according to the DVA every police officer is obliged to report every case of DV in the DVR; and if failing to do so, they would get „fired‟ (No. 29: 10).

It would be safe to say that the police have statistics on the occurrence and extent of DV, but that the particulars of such a register are for internal statistical purposes only; hence, this register is not open to the public. An important question arises as a result: If the SAPS have internal statistics on DV, why are these results not included in the official crime statistics published in the Annual Report? The DVR was, in fact, established to enhance the recording practices and statistics by the police. However, this record has yet to become available to public scrutiny; hence, part of the official crime statistics of the SAPS. Therefore, all statistics are kept hidden from the public, including those NGOs that are established to help victims and offenders of such crimes.

Reflecting on this, an even more alarming finding from the current research is perhaps the following statement given by one of the DV coordinators on why there are no official crime statistics on DV in SA: “Every week I'm doing that, every month; and now...you send it to the clusters, the clusters send it to…” (No 30:21). This statement suggests that the particular police officer did not seem to understand the difference between the official crime statistics presented in the Annual Report and those distributed by herself to higher authorities within the police („the cluster‟) by means of the weekly recordings in the internal DVR. This

confusion on what is regarded as official, and what as internal statistics was also the case with regard to another police officer who was interviewed on the same topic; “…it‟s reflecting, when its domestic violence it cannot be other crime… sometimes it‟s assault common and

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domestic violence… with domestic violence… even if, maybe; you see, you‟ll see maybe murder… then domestic violence in brackets, next to the main that was also domestic violence related… “(No 29:26).

When trying to explain to the officer that there are no „brackets‟ reflecting cases of DV in the official crime statistics, as presented in the Annual Report, but that the crimes are only sorted, according to various forms of „Contact Crime‟, such as „assault‟, „murder‟ and so on, the same officer stated; “Oh the public? Ohh ... I don‟t know about the one for the public, because the one that I am looking at is the one for the station (No 29:26).

In other words, the information management of the police in terms of reporting and statistics in SA could be said to share the same challenges as those experienced by Taylor-Browne in her study of the police response in Britain. This is, firstly, due to the fact that DV is not treated as a crime by the SAPS in their official crime statistics, but also to the fact that the police do not seem to comprehend what constitutes official, and what constitutes internal crime statistics.

Building on this, the question becomes: Who, then, is responsible for collecting the data on DV and developing a sole response to the problem? One of the experts in the field claimed:

“…as long as they have it, internal statistics… they are the responsible agent... and if they keep it secret from the public, they assume... they have the sole responsibility of planning a response... and actually, it's unacceptable... that it is not available... that information... (No.

33:18).

Another expert stated: “… I think you raise an interesting point about the definition of domestic violence as a crime, because in the law it is defined as a crime… but… I think that culturally, it is very difficult for people… within the police services … [to do so]” (No.

34:22).

Further linked to the topic of information management is the extent to which the police provide the victim and the offender with information on their rights and the services available in this regard. 4/28 claimed to always inform the complainant and the respondent of their rights and the services available to them. Three of the remaining respondents did not disclose any information on that particular question; whereas one of the respondents stated that he always informed the parties. He also claimed that: „…but sometimes the offender is too drunk

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or unreasonable if you try to explain their rights” (No. 28). Also he emphasised the challenge of dealing with cases where there has been alcohol consumption.

Another suitable topic to discuss here is the general distribution of information by the police in the community as a whole. In fact, 2/28 respondents claimed that one of the strengths at the station in terms of effectively managing DV was “Crime prevention to speak to the

community over DV” (No. 10). This is also mentioned as a type of action by the police in their effort to combat DV – despite the statements‟ somewhat confusing and incomplete nature – by one of the interviewed police officers: “[We are doing]… awareness

campaigns… [where we]… meet, speak about, most of them they don‟t

know…[we]…explain… So at least they are listening. They are coming… at least she [the victim] knows that I have the right to open a case, because what my husband is doing is not right (No 29:6-7). However, the same police officer claimed that there was a general lack of public participation in these meetings (No. 29:7), resulting in poor providing of information to the community.

Another element is the communication procedure within the SAPS in terms of their hierarchical structures. This is evident in the following statement:

“…we talk with the management of the station... but sometimes the management... from the station [the approval] must go to the trust fund, from the trust fund to the province, and like be approved, that is a long process... There are things supposed to be done if... take it as

emergency... don't wait for the province, don't wait for the cluster to open, the station can decide, and see what they can do... [But] it must be approved with someone who's not here, who's not... the areas are not the same...” (No. 30:5).

What is illustrated here is the long process involved in getting approval to do or change anything in terms of the services that are provided to the victims of DV. All approval must, in fact, come from the top management – who do not necessarily have the knowledge on the particular issue – down to the assigned police officers. The same officer stated: “…there are certain things I cannot do, it must be approved...” (No. 30:24). This was further a concern by one of the interviewed experts in the field of conflict management and mediation: “The question is why the local guys in this discussion feel that they don‟t have the access. Why is there a silence within the system that you can‟t push upwards with ideas...? (No. 33:30).

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The challenge of data management, recording practices and statistics, as suggested by Taylor-Browne also, to a large extent, exists in this particular local study of the SAPS.

The following section will discuss the level of police discretion and victim satisfaction.