Hawks Could Benefit as SA Police Ask Former Cops to Come Back
The South African Police Service has invited former members of the force to reenlist, including for posts in the hugely overwhelmed and understaffed Hawks, whose work includes state capture cases. The SAPS will also be creating new units to deal with taxi violence, cold cases and gangs, among other things. In a statement put out […]
The South African Police Service has invited former members of the force to reenlist, including for posts in the hugely overwhelmed and understaffed Hawks, whose work includes state capture cases. The SAPS will also be creating new units to deal with taxi violence, cold cases and gangs, among other things.
In a statement put out by the SAPS, it said it was looking for constables, sergeants and warrant offices, and successful candidates would be deployed in the operational environment at station level and in specialised environments, as well as within the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (Hawks) and the Division: Human Resource Development. Salaries ranged from R186,000 to R295,500. The closing date for applications is 31 July.
In October 2019 the Institute of Security Studies reported that the Hawks only had 1700 investigators handling 19,000 cases, and to effectively investigate organised crime and corruption, they needed another 2,500.
All candidates have to fulfill a raft of qualifications – language, nationality, education – and cannot have any criminal record or be involved with a business that would be a conflict of interest. The SAPS will not consider anyone who has left dishonourably or is under investigation, left with a severance package, or left more than 10 years ago.
“The focus of the re-enlistment process will be on the capacitation of the following prioritized environments in all Provinces and Operational Divisions as well as the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation:
“Newly established units include:
- anti-gang unit
- taxi violence unit
- cold case investigation
- murder and robbery
- public order policing
- tactical response teams
- K9
- mounted unit
- family, child and sexual offences unit
- stock theft units
- vehicle crime investigation unit
- anti-corruption unit
