Hello Alan,
My comments about your article (Could it be that 543 785 people were wrongfully arrested?) on the release of the latest crime statistics are as follows:
The hopelessly outdated figures are meaningless for analysis of today’s crime situation. Anyway the accuracy of the figures has always been suspect.
The amount of media coverage was not deserved because of this information being outdated.
I have for many years been of the opinion that it’s been a knee-jerk tactic by the police and metro police to arrest people, who are later released without charging them, particularly after any crime is highlighted in the media.
Thus your point about the possible wrongful arrests is very relevant.
Most of those half a million arrested persons should have consulted a lawyer to ascertain if they can submit unlawful arrest and detention claims. Unfortunately probably most of them did not realise they can do this and meekly accept the treatment.
So many unnecessary arrrests are made when there are other means of getting someone to appear in court.
A good recent example of this is the truck driver who is blamed for the horrific traffic accident in Natal. On top of arresting him for no good reason they changed the charge at this early stage of the investigation from “culpable homicide” to “murder”. This also in effect prevents the accused getting bail immediately and he has to now apply through the legal process for bail while sitting in gaol. Why? Innocent until proven guilty has lost its way in this country.
Denying bail is not a punishment; it is to ensure the accused turns up at his next court date and in some cases does not interfere with state witnesses, etc. This driver should not have been arrested in the first place, but treated like any other accused in a traffic accident case. Once investigations are finalised summons him to court. At this stage it would seem that the brakes of the vehicle were faulty which is the responsibility of the owner and those who service the vehicle. How does the driver determine what the roadworthy state of his truck is until he becomes aware of something is wrong while driving which is usually too late if it is the brakes.
Our prisons and police cells are already so overcrowded and all these arrests contribute unnecessarily to it.
The case against the Fidentia boss Arthur Brown is another typical example. The amount of time he had to spend in gaol was not warranted. His case really made the media and prosecuting guys look silly.
Regards
Mike Boyley
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