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.
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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
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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
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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
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The mother of a dead child has given Viewfinder access to the tapes of a disciplinary hearing of the police officer accused of killing her son. The officer was found not guilty, though the police watchdog had concluded he had a case of “murder” and “misconduct” to answer. The tapes reveal the inner workings of
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On a Friday evening in December 2013, at the start of the school holidays, 15-year-old Damian Ahrendse was shot and killed near his mother’s house in Wesbank, on the Cape Flats. Witnesses say that a police officer pulled the trigger. An autopsy report concluded that Damian had been shot in the back. Yet, the policeman
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Whenever a police officer is implicated in a crime, a disciplinary hearing is key to restoring accountability and integrity within the service. In May 2021, National Police Commissioner General Khehla Sitole admitted to Parliament that discipline management within the South African Police Service needed an overhaul. With police disciplinary hearings happening behind closed doors, could
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Policemen have been accused of nearly 1,000 rapes since 2012. Many of these suspects stand accused of abusing the authority of their positions to aid them in these crimes, a new investigation by Viewfinder has found. Yet, police management rarely disciplines or dismisses the officers involved. On the afternoon of 6 June 2014, 36-year-old Ermelo
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Daneel Knoetze delivering @viewfinderjourn’s workshop on accountability journalism in Cape Town this morning.
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