EXTRACT FROM SOUTH AFRICAN POLICE SERVICE: ANNUAL REPORT 2005/06

PROGRAMME PERFORMANCE_

10.5.3 Sexual and violent crimes against children and adults

The Family Violence, Child Protection and Sexual Offences (FCS) units of the SAPS are responsible for investigating crimes such as assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm, attempted murder, rape, incest, indecent assault, common assault, kidnapping, abduction, the sexual exploitation of children and adults in terms. of the Sexual Offences Act, 1957 (Act No 23 of 1957, as amended), relevant crimes in terms of the Prevention of Family Violence Act, 1993 (Act No 133 of 1993), the Domestic Violence Act, 1998 (Act No 116 of 1998) and the Films and Publication Act, 1996 (Act No 65 of 1996, as amended).

The role of the FCS units in preventing these crimes is very limited, because they occur mostly within a specific social environment (such as the family) to which the police do not have ready access. However, the FCS units play an important role in educating the public. The FCS units use meetings, articles in the media al1d talks to create an awareness of this issue at schools, universities, youth and church organizations. Between April 2005 and March 2006, FCS members presented 1 464 lectures to children and adults to alert the community to the combating of sexual and violent crimes.

In the past financial year, 230 SAPS members attended the Family Violence, Child Protection and Sexual Offences Investigators Course (3 weeks), while 62 members in the Western Cape attended the in-service Policing of Child Pornography training workshop (2 days).

Since April 2002 an effort had been made to strengthen the capacity of the FCS units. The number of members allocated to these units in Greased from 1 024 to 1 475 between April 2002 to March 2006 and 21 new FCS units were established, bringing the total number of FCS units to 66. The number of vehicles allocated to FCS units increased from 429 to 682 for the past four financial years.

Since April 2002 the FCS units had dealt with 201336 cases (comprising 19 314 enquiries and 182 022 dockets), which led to 92 781 arrests (between April 2002 to March 2006 the number of cases received for investigation increased from 32 077 to 61 251 cases).

During the period under review, the FCS units dealt with 61 251 cases (comprising 5 139 enquiries and 56 112 dockets), which led to 28 616 arrests. Table 32 provides an overview of the cases that had been concluded in court since April 2002.

It must be noted that the FCS units investigate crimes of a sexual and violent nature pertaining to all adults and children (although these type of cases are also investigated by the general detectives. The investigative process regarding specific 'crimes relating to women and children has been described in par 10.4.1.