In South Africa, over 5.3 million criminal cases have simply vanished from police records, leaving victims, families, and communities without any answers or justice.
This staggering number represents nearly half of the cases reported between 2003 and 2020.
These cases, ranging from serious crimes like murdєr and rape to armed robbery, are not just missing or closed—they have been erased from the system entirely.
The criminal justice system, once a symbol of law and order, now finds itself engulfed in a catastrophic crisis, one that threatens the very foundation of the country’s democracy and rule of law.
This story is not just about missing files; it’s about the lives of millions left in limbo, the deep-seated corruption that has infiltrated every level of the police service, and the political maneuvering that has made accountability nearly impossible.
As we explore this crisis, we’ll examine how it unfolded, the legal battles surrounding high-profile cases, and the personal toll on those fighting for justice.
But first, let’s ask ourselves a crucial question: If you were the victim of a crime in South Africa today, would you report it to the police? The answer to this question sheds light on the level of trust South Africans have in their justice system, a trust that’s been steadily eroding over the years.
The missing docket crisis began as a series of whispers in the corridors of power.
In 2019, when investigators from the Office of the Public Protector began digging into SAPS records, they uncovered a devastating reality.
Evidence had been mishandled, and countless case files had disappeared or been left unprocessed.
What they found wasn’t just negligence—it was a systematic collapse of the police service’s ability to handle basic criminal investigations.
The scale of this failure is unimaginable: Rape cases from 2003, armed robbery investigations from 2008, and murdєr files from 2012, all listed as open but with no traceable evidence or documentation to support their progress.
The records simply didn’t exist.
No files, no witness statements, no investigative notes.
Just ghost cases, where victims and their families were left wondering if their tragedies had ever mattered to anyone.
The official explanation from SAPS was insufficient at best.
They pointed to challenges with recordkeeping and problems during the migration to digital systems.
But when investigators visited police stations across the country, they found that these issues went far beyond digitalization problems.
In Johannesburg, officers discovered evidence rooms that hadn’t been organized properly since the early 2000s.
Cases were piled into boxes, with no labeling system, and the rooms themselves were in a state of disrepair.
In the Eastern Cape, a filing cabinet containing sєxual assault cases from 2006 to 2009 had simply vanished during renovations, never to be seen again.
Meanwhile, in Quasolunatal, police storage facilities were repeatedly burglarized, and entire boxes of case files went missing, likely stolen for resale.
This wasn’t an accidental oversight.
It was institutional negligence on a scale that borders on criminal.
But the crisis didn’t happen overnight.
In 2004, the Auditor General flagged serious concerns about SAPS’ evidence management.
A report by the Institute for Security Studies in 2009 showed that detectives were already overwhelmed, handling too many cases to give them the attention they deserved.
By 2012, internal audits revealed that the chain of custody for evidence was being broken in 30% of cases.
Yet, despite numerous reports highlighting these issues, nothing was done to fix them.
Over the years, SAPS leadership ignored the problem, relying on promises of digitalization and resource allocation that never materialized.
Criminals, on the other hand, began to understand the system’s weaknesses, taking advantage of the police’s inability to track and investigate crimes properly.
The turning point came when it was revealed that police officers themselves were implicated in these missing cases.
From 2015 to 2019, one police sergeant in Gaoangg was arrested for running a side business selling access to evidence rooms.
He would remove or contaminate evidence in criminal cases, and investigators believe he compromised more than 200 cases before he was caught.
Similar schemes have been uncovered in at least seven provinces, where police officers have helped criminal organizations by removing or destroying evidence.
While all this was happening, the political landscape in South Africa was also shifting.
In 2024, Lieutenant General Shadrach Sabia, the head of detectives in Gaoangg province, was placed under precautionary suspension due to allegations of misconduct and negligence.
Sabia was tasked with overseeing some of the most high-stakes investigations in the country, including cases involving organized crime and corruption.
His suspension wasn’t just a routine matter—it symbolized everything that was wrong with SAPS leadership.
The allegations against him suggested that he had failed to properly supervise investigations, allowed dockets to go missing under his watch, and created an environment where corruption could thrive unchecked.
Sabia’s defenders argued that he was being scapegoated for systemic problems beyond his control.
They claimed that his suspension was politically motivated and that he was being punished for things that weren’t directly within his responsibility.
His critics, however, pointed to the way he had allegedly tolerated a culture of dysfunction within SAPS, and how his leadership had failed to address the ongoing issues of missing evidence and unprocessed cases.
The court ruling to uphold his suspension only reinforced the fact that South Africa’s police force was in crisis.
The judiciary had ruled that Sabia’s continued presence in his position posed an unacceptable risk to the integrity of investigations, a decision that underscored how deeply the rot had infiltrated the system.
This case is just one part of a much larger pattern of dysfunction within SAPS.
Over the past decade, South Africa has seen multiple leadership changes in the police service, with each new commissioner promising reform and accountability, only to watch the problems persist.
Investigators are faced with an overwhelming caseload, a shortage of resources, and a lack of training.
Officers who stay in the force for too long leave for better pay and safer working conditions in private security firms, exacerbating the shortage of experienced detectives.
As a result, investigations stall, cases go cold, and criminals continue to operate with impunity.
The corruption within SAPS also plays a significant role in this crisis.
When the system is overwhelmed and underfunded, officers are more susceptible to bribery, intimidation, and even active involvement with criminal organizations.
Dockets go missing, evidence gets tampered with, and witnesses are intimidated or silenced.
In 2017, a police sergeant in Gaoangg was arrested for selling access to evidence rooms for bribes.
Investigators believe he compromised hundreds of cases, and he wasn’t the only one.
Similar schemes have been uncovered in at least seven provinces, showing that this isn’t an isolated problem—it’s a nationwide issue.
SAPS is supposed to be the institution that keeps South Africans safe, but when it’s operating with this level of dysfunction and corruption, it does more harm than good.
Ordinary citizens are left questioning whether they should even bother reporting crimes when they know that their cases might disappear without a trace.
The police service is supposed to be an institution that upholds justice and protects the public, but when corruption runs deep, it becomes part of the problem.
The public response to these revelations has been a mix of outrage and resignation.
Many South Africans are frustrated with the ongoing corruption scandals, while others have lost all faith in the ability of the police to do their jobs properly.
The failure of the justice system to deliver on its promises has caused a deep rift in South African society.
People are beginning to turn to alternative justice systems, like community policing forums, which have sometimes turned into vigilante operations.
These forums often devolve into mob justice when the police fail to act, further eroding trust in the formal justice system.
In response to the growing crisis, civil society organizations, journalists, and legal experts have begun calling for reforms within SAPS.
Some suggest implementing a case tracking system to ensure that every investigation is followed through, while others call for independent forensic audits of police evidence storage and case management systems.
The goal is to create a system that is transparent, accountable, and free from political interference, one where justice can be served for all.
South Africa’s struggle to fix its policing system is not just about the failures within SAPS.
It’s about the broader questions of institutional integrity and whether the country can rebuild a justice system that its citizens can trust.
If the problems within SAPS remain unaddressed, they risk undermining not only the police force but the entire political system in South Africa.
Rebuilding public trust will take years of effort, but it starts with acknowledging the depth of the crisis and implementing the necessary reforms.
The road ahead for South Africa’s criminal justice system is long and uncertain, but it’s clear that without significant changes, the missing docket crisis will continue to haunt the country.
The only question is whether the political will exists to confront these problems head-on and take meaningful action.
