An evaluation of the challenges encountered by the South African police service with regard to the fourth industrial revolution

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to evaluate the challenges encountered by the South African Police services (SAPS) when dealing with 4IR. The study used a qualitative approach because the study wished to obtain practical answers to the problem, as well as the explanations provided by participants who are practitioners in the field and a total of forty (40) police officers were selected to participate in the study. The researcher followed purposive sampling. The reasoning for using purposive sampling is that it is based on the assumptions that the participants have in-depth knowledge in the chosen areas of the study.  The findings of the study are that the local police stations of SAPS Gauteng are where many victims of crimes emerging from 4IR get turned away by officials who do not understand the various cybercrimes, the applicable charges, or how to go about escalating the matter. The study further found that the Government policy seems to prioritize statistics, quotas, and the images they reflect as opposed to the true situation hence crimes emerging from 4IR are poorly understood, prevented, and investigated. The study recommends that IT capacity and resources within SAPS have to be developed in order to ensure that the SAPS in Gauteng province is able to investigate, combat and trace the sophisticated crimes caused by the criminals. The SAPS needs to allocate funds to buy IT equipment, software and headhunt personnel who have skills, knowledge, and capacity to curb, investigate and combat 4IR crimes.