- Yes. SAPS have, for example, measures in place to handle all persons in custody of the Service. The aforesaid is governed by various Standing Orders instructing the elimination of any type of prejudice towards all the categories of persons in police custody, including undocumented foreign nationals. Standing Order (G) 341 deals with the arrest and the treatment of an arrested person until such person is handed to the Community Service Centre Commander. The handling of persons in custody of the service from their arrival at the police station is outlined by Standing Order (G) 361 including that undocumented foreign Nationals are not allowed to be detained in the same cell with other persons in custody who committed other crimes.
- A booklet namely “Immigration and Policing Volume 4” was compiled and produced during 2011 by the SAPS Communication and Liaison Services and Division Visible Policing to sensitize and capacitate police officers regarding various contexts when police officers may interact with foreign nationals.
Senior management of SAPS has already received the booklets and will ensure the distribution thereof to all the members in due course.
3. The Division Visible Policing has engaged with the Lawyers for Human Rights in order to capacitate the police officers in the policing of foreign nationals. It envisaged piloting the training and education to police officers in the problematic provinces first before rolling it out to the rest of the country.