How the size of South Africa’s police force compares to other countries
The country has a growing shortage of detectives
Despite a much higher violent crime rate, South Africa has fewer police per 100,000 people than the US, UK, France, Italy and China. But we do have a higher police per person ratio than developing countries like Kenya, India and Nigeria. We also have more police per population than Canada and Japan, though they have extremely low violent crime rates.
Growing shortage of detectives
We have frequently reported on the police failing to live up to expectations. The number of police is a factor in reducing crime but perhaps much more important are the quality and qualifications of the police. A measure, albeit very imperfect, for the number of well-qualified, expert police officers is the number of detectives. The data we have shows that there is a growing shortage of detectives.
The number of budgeted detective posts in 2019/20 was just shy of 40,000. Just under 39,000 of these posts were filled, leaving a gap of about 940 unfilled posts. By 2024/25 the number of posts had grown to over 43,500 but the number of detectives had dropped to under 38,000 — a shortfall of about 5,700.
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