Policing in Bloemfontein - Sarah Poolman

Despite Ezanne's concerted efforts over the last few months to organise 2 days at the main police station in Bloem for me, my vocational visit didn't exactly go to plan with the police in Bloem cancelling 15 minutes before i was due to arrive on Thursday morning! They had obviously heard about me before my arrival!


Undeterred by this setback, Ezanne and Alan used other sources to sneak me into a more suburban police station and i ended up taking up a few hours of Superintendent Bennie Van Den Heever's (Station Commander - a very busy man) day at Bayswater Police Station. This actually turned out to be very useful and provided me with an insight into SAPS at a more strategic level. Bennie commanded his own police station of about 100 officers and staff in a very nice part of Bloem, but one that is a target for burglars and autocrime offenders. He is accountable directly to the Provincial Commissioner and is one of 109 Station Commanders throughout the Free State. We discussed the hierarchy and the freedom with which he was allowed to manage his police station. The systems in place for managing crime and priorities mirror those in UK, with a daily management meeting at a local level, before catching up with the other police stations in the vicinity to share intelligence etc. We also discussed openly other more controversial subject matters such as access to firearms, the alleged shoot to kill policy and affirmative action in the police service.

Coming from only one of the 43 police forces in England and Wales, it was quite incredible to gain an insight and some understanding of how the South African Police Service, a national police service covering a hugely diverse area both geographically and culturally, functions and delivers at local, regional and national levels. As this may be the future of the police service in the UK, it was interesting to witness this first hand. My thanks go out to Bennie and Alan for arranging this for me.

On Friday, I was taken to meet Insp Annel Pretorius who works at the One Stop Centre for Children in Conflict with the Law. This centre brings together under one roof all of the different agencies involved with children who come in to contact with the judicial system - police, social workers, probation, attorneys, magistrates. The purpose of this centre is to protect children's rights and to reduce reoffending amongst juveniles by exploring diversionary activities, rather than convicting them and leaving them with a criminal record. All arrested juveniles are taken immediately to this centre, where they are then initially screened by social workers to establish the root cause of their offending, their personal circumstances and any mitigating factors that the magistrate may want to take into account when deciding whether the individual is suitable for diversionary activities(only where they have taken responsibility for their acts) , or whether the case needs to be referred to a criminal court or a children's court (similar to a family court) if it is a question of welfare/neglect or issues over appropriate guardianship.

Last year, this centre was recognised by the United Nations for its work in safeguarding children's rights, something that the centre is quite rightly very proud of. I met the resident attorney, clerk, prosecution, probation officer and the magistrate himself, a Louw Schoeman. He gave me the lowdown on the judicial system in South Africa and how he had played a part in the creation of this One Stop Centre in 1996. There are only two such centres in the whole of South Africa (the other is in Port Elizabeth) and the government here has decided to roll out this pilot all over the country as of April 2010 as part of the Children's Justice Bill. Louw has promised to send me more information on the work at the centre - which i will be glad to receive if i can ever get my email to work!!

Everyone I spoke to at the One Stop Centre was so positive about the work they were doing there and Marga, the attorney, stated that she would never leave to work elsewhere. It was clear that they were all dedicated to working together and improving the situation that many of the very poor children find themselves in. It really was partnership working at its very best ... refreshing and enlightening!

So, despite the initial problems with my vocational days, thanks to the work of Alan i was able to make the best of my time in Bloem and actually learnt a great deal in the areas of command, strategy and partnership working, some of which i will take back to the UK.