Streamline law enforcement functions

| Tuesday October 19, 2010 00:00

Clarity about the specific roles of the various law enforcement agencies will also help 'suspects' to know exactly who they are dealing with. Take the recent case involving a University of Botswana lecturer who was accosted by two security officers. The poor man dared not run especially after realising that the men were armed.

It turned out that the men were members of military intelligence. They initially gave the impression of wanting to buy goats until he made out that they were actually military intelligence people who should otherwise, have been pursuing some national security matter!

The military is also deeply implicated in the ongoing John Kalafatis case is which about four military personnel have been charged with murdering the man.  At the time Kalafatis was killed, none of the several law enforcement agencies wanted to take ownership.  The police said they did not know who killed the man.  The military said it was the police while the Directorate of Security Intelligence (DIS) said the police would know better.  The police services house the Criminal Investigations Department (CID), Special Branch, and the Diamond and Narcotics Squad among others.

Currently, any member of the various law enforcement agencies can operate as if he belonged to anyone of them.  A fellow from the DIS can investigate and apprehend petty criminals when common sense dictates that he should remain undercover and call the department responsible for apprehending the petty thief.  In fact, a catalogue of law enforcement agencies in Botswana is but a duplicity of functions and apparent lack of focus among the policing agencies named above.  To whom do all these agencies report?  When any one agency fails or breaks the law, as in the Kalafatis case - and many other cases, which agency investigates?  Needless to say, the very fact that the agency is being investigated becomes a problem.  For example, immediately its men were charged for the murder of Kalafatis, the military brooded over them as would a chicken over its chicks, and even hired lawyers for them!  There is no doubt that there is immediately a clash of roles - where the military feels that its men were doing the right thing and the investigating authority, in this case the Botswana Police Service, feels it has a duty to investigate and apprehend law-breakers.  The duplicity also brings into focus issues of agency status and pride, where members of a given law enforcement agency feel that their agency is superior to the other.  This is a recipe for disorder.  We believe it is time that all the functions of the various agencies are consolidated into a unified system that will effectively and lawfully  deal with crime.  Surely, the duties of the various law enforcement agencies should be so streamlined as to leave no grey areas where there could be duplication of work or undue interference.  That will also help to identify those areas where there can be fruitful cooperation.

                                                             Today's thought

'The attempt to combine wisdom and power has only rarely been successful and then only for a short while.'

                                                        -  Albert Einstein