The South African Police Service (SAPS) is the national police force of the Republic of South Africa, operating over 1,000 police stations organised by province under a National Commissioner headquartered in Pretoria. SAPS traces its institutional lineage to colonial-era policing bodies including the Dutch Watch (1655) and the Cape Constabulary, through the South African Police (SAP) established after the 1910 Union of South Africa, into the post-apartheid SAPS formed in the mid-1990s under Minister of Safety and Security Sydney Mufamadi.
SAPS has been the subject of repeated documented criticism regarding brutality and human rights abuses. In 2013, Amnesty International expressed concern about South African police brutality, including allegations of torture and extrajudicial killings. Wits Law Clinic representative Peter Jordi stated that police torture was "spiralling out of control," and independent studies have documented SAPS use in suppressing peaceful demonstrations, including a 2009 incident involving unFreedom Day and an attack on elected leadership of a Durban shack settlement. In 2011, 630 police officers from Gauteng Province were arrested on charges including fraud, corruption, rape and murder.
Two specific incidents are documented as resulting in criminal convictions or charges. In February 2013, police in Daveyton, Gauteng, were filmed handcuffing Mozambican taxi driver Mido Macia to the back of a police van and dragging him through the streets; he later died of his injuries. Eight police officers were arrested and subsequently convicted of murder in connection with his death. Separately, three police officers were arrested over the shooting of Nathaniel Julies, a 16-year-old with Down syndrome, in Eldorado Park.
The most significant single incident documented is the Marikana massacre of 16 August 2012, in which police opened fire while breaking up a gathering of striking Lonmin mineworkers near Marikana, killing 34 miners and injuring 78. Reports indicated many victims were shot from behind or at a distance from police lines. The killings followed earlier violence beginning 11 August, during which leaders from the National Union of Mineworkers reportedly opened fire on striking members, killing two, and a further roughly eight people, including two police officers and two security guards, were killed between 12 and 14 August. Marikana is described as the deadliest police-civilian incident in South Africa since the 1960 Sharpeville massacre.
SAPS has also faced extensive documented corruption cases among senior officials, including the 2010 corruption conviction of former National Commissioner and Interpol president Jackie Selebi, the 2011 dismissal of Commissioner Bheki Cele over an unlawful lease agreement, and multiple arrests of senior officers between 2018 and 2020 on fraud, corruption, and money-laundering charges. Charges were also lodged in 2022 against a National Police Commissioner for failing to cooperate with an investigation into the murder of police intelligence officer Charl Kinnear. In 2025, a provincial police commissioner publicly accused senior officials and a government minister of aiding criminal syndicates, prompting the minister's suspension by the president.
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