Recent parliamentary testimony—reported by Business Day—has revived allegations that the South African Police Service (SAPS) was “captured by the criminal underworld” during Jackie Selebi’s tenure as national commissioner. The hearings sit within a wider inquiry into alleged corruption and interference across the criminal justice system. NSI research provides a framework for reading these claims beyond personalities: it asks how and why policing drifts away from community safety and towards the protection of political interests.

What has been put on the record

In current hearings before Parliament’s ad hoc committee, forensic investigator Paul O’Sullivan has given evidence about political interference and misconduct in policing structures, including claims linked to Jackie Selebi’s period as national commissioner. Media reporting on the hearings includes allegations that SAPS became vulnerable to underworld influence during that period.

Selebi was convicted of corruption in 2010 and sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment. While the committee process is ongoing, the testimony has already surfaced a familiar set of governance questions: who exercises authority over the police, through what mechanisms, and to what ends.

What NSI research adds: function, not only failure

NSI co-founder Ivor Chipkin’s The Function of the Police – Crime, Social Emergencies and Disorder (2023) argues that policing cannot be assessed only through performance metrics or leadership changes; it must be assessed against the function the police are effectively serving.

The report distinguishes between crime, social emergencies, and disorder, and argues that policing tends to focus on crime and community emergencies only when police institutions treat them as sources of disorder. This matters because political and organised crimes—such as corruption networks—may be destigmatised or treated as “non-disorders” under politicised leadership, reducing investigative urgency.

Politicisation and “high policing”

Chipkin’s report locates Jackie Selebi’s appointment in 2000 as a turning point in a broader drift: from a short post-1994 period oriented towards civilian control and responsiveness, to a politicised model where the police increasingly served internal political contestation. In one formulation, the question becomes whether the police serve citizens’ safety and emergencies—or whether they serve to protect government and the ruling party (“high policing”).

What this looks like in the institution

The report links shifts in purpose to “morphological” changes—how resources and personnel are distributed across functions. Between 2015 and 2021, the report notes declines in personnel in Visible Policing, Detective Services and Crime Intelligence, alongside the relative growth of Protection and Security Services (PSS), the programme that provides bodyguards for politicians.
Strategic implications for reform and oversight If the hearings continue to expose patterns of political interference and criminal collusion, the policy problem is not only disciplinary or forensic. It is institutional: how to rebuild autonomy, investigative capacity, and public trust.

Chipkin argues that a first step is depoliticising the police, beginning with reconsidering appointment processes for senior leadership—given that South Africa’s president has sole discretion in appointing the national commissioner. He points to alternative models in other jurisdictions that constrain unilateral political discretion and introduce structured, multi-stakeholder selection processes.

Further reading (NSI)
The Function of the Police – Crime, Social Emergencies and Disorder (Ivor Chipkin)