Data produced by South Africa’s Human Sciences Research Council, a government-funded think tank, shows that public confidence in the South African police has collapsed over the three decades of South Africa’s democracy.

According to the council data, in the mid- to late-1990s just under 50% of South Africans said they had confidence in the police. That number fell to the low 40s by 2010 and then fell to the low 30s by 2020. The number has since collapsed to just over 20%.

The latest data points were recorded before the explosive hearings before both Parliament and a second judicial hearing that have exposed the extent of corruption and criminal infiltration of the police. Evidence led before those hearings revealed how several of South Africa’s most senior police generals have worked directly with violent criminal syndicates.