Viewfinder’s Police Accountability Tracker is an interface to the Independent Police Investigative Directorate's (IPID) database of more than 47,000 complaints registered against the police between April 2012 and March 2020. Users can use the filters to home in on any police station for an overview of cases registered there. Users can also locate any individual case for a "progress report", as at March 2020. The data demonstrates that police officers implicated in violent crimes routinely escape accountability.
Featured Content
A tiny grave in the Klip Road Cemetery in Grassy Park outside Cape Town marks the failure of a system that was set up with the express purpose of detecting and preventing child abuse. So, has the country’s early warning system for child abuse broken down? In a powerful and in-depth investigation by journalism watchdog
Read more
This month marks 10 years since the massacre at Marikana, where police shot and killed 34 striking miners. Despite the findings of an independent inquiry, no one within the police has been held accountable. Yet, evidence suggests police abuses didn’t end on the day of the shooting. In the weeks after the massacre, scores of
Read more
Are you a mid-career journalist who wants to take your reporting on topical, public interest issues in South Africa to new heights? Viewfinder is offering a fellowship for reporters to investigate and then produce impact-driven journalism on accountability failures in the country. We are particularly interested in exposing abuses of power or inexcusable failures by
Read moreLatest from this investigation
On average, police in South Africa kill someone every day. Viewfinder has now published the police watchdog’s database on these killings, along with other complaints of police brutality and corruption: more than 47,000 such cases registered between 2012 and 2020. A new Police Accountability Tracker dashboard, which houses this data, allows anyone in South Africa
Read More
In 2014, Glebelands block committee chairman Zinakile Fica died in police custody in Umlazi, KwaZulu-Natal. A forensic pathologist concluded that an old apartheid-era asphyxiation method called “tubing” was likely the cause of the heart attack he had suffered. To what extent do police still use this terrifying torture tactic today? A Viewfinder and Carte Blanche
Read More
Police arrest a protester at the Siqalo informal settlement near Mitchells Plain, Cape Town. (Photo: Ashraf Hendricks / GroundUp) Police commanders will be empowered to overrule watchdog findings against their colleagues when a new agreement between the South African Police Service (SAPS) and the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID) takes effect. The draft agreement was
Read More
A South African Police Service (SAPS) no entry ribbon. (Photo: Ashraf Hendricks) People killed while fleeing, while brandishing knives or when officers fire “warning” shots – these are some of the circumstances of killings by police examined in a new study on the use of lethal force by the South African Police Service (SAPS). International
Read More
Great @mediahackza overview of why data journalism is important, featuring key speakers at #AIJC2022 @viewfinder @adamoxford @Athi_Saba https://twitter.com/alastairotter/status/1591905294480801793
More than 35 African countries took part in #AIJC2022, the biggest gathering of African Investigative journalists. We spoke to participants: https://inside.mediahack.co.za/digging-data-at-the-2022-african-investigative-journalism-conference-2e99327d8e42
What goes on inside @SAPoliceService disciplinary proceedings for brutality & murder cases?
In 2021, GIJN member @viewfinderjourn accessed tapes from a proceeding & uncovered the secret workings of South African Police Services' disciplinary hearings. https://buff.ly/2VTeby5