South Africa urged to set up crime council to curb criminal infiltration
An international policing expert has urged South Africa to create an organised crime council as a fast-response measure to block criminal networks from seepi...
An international policing expert has urged South Africa to create an organised crime council as a fast-response measure to block criminal networks from seeping into the justice system. Dr Mark Shaw made the proposal on Wednesday while appearing before the Madlanga commission of inquiry.
The commission is probing allegations of criminality, political interference and corruption inside the criminal justice system. Shaw, who has spent three decades researching and analysing organised crime and illicit markets, told the panel that South Africa needs both short- and long-term fixes if it wants to push back against the problem.
Pressure on the system
Shaw said South Africa sits among the 10 countries most affected by organised crime out of 195 nations. That, he argued, makes the threat urgent rather than theoretical. The concern is not only street-level violence or trafficking, but infiltration — the kind that can bend policing, weaken prosecutions and erode public trust.
His proposed council would be set up by the police minister and would help determine national policing policy in response to organised crime and criminal infiltration. The aim, according to his evidence, is to give the state a sharper, more coordinated way to respond before criminal groups dig deeper into institutions.
The idea lands at a sensitive moment for South Africa’s law enforcement architecture. The Madlanga commission is already testing how far corruption and political meddling may have reached, and Shaw’s recommendation suggests the country may need a standing mechanism rather than ad hoc crackdowns. A council, in his view, could give the police minister a central place to steer policy and coordinate action.
Why the warning matters
Organised crime rarely stays in one lane. It moves through borders, markets and institutions, adapting when governments react slowly or in pieces. That wider pattern gives Shaw’s warning global weight, even as his evidence focused on South Africa.
For countries facing similar pressures, the lesson is blunt: corruption inside the system can be as damaging as the crimes outside it. Once trust in investigators, prosecutors or police command structures slips, every later reform becomes harder. And more expensive.
Shaw did not stop at diagnosis. He pressed for the police minister to establish the council through a ministerial process, framing it as an immediate step while longer-term measures are worked out. The commission is expected to keep examining how legislation, policy and institutional design can be used to keep criminal networks from gaining a foothold.
South Africa ranks in the top 10 globally on Shaw’s measure, and that alone, he told the commission, should sharpen the response. “Set up an organised crime council,” he said, a line that cut through the hearing room with little room for ambiguity.
