The Tattooed “Tend To Be Gangsters”: Why The South African Police Service Recruitment Policy Won’t Hire Candidates With Tattoos
By Sidra Lackey
"It is one of the standard operations of the police that when you have tattoos, you don't join the police," says South African Police Minister Bheki Cele. The South African Police Service (SAPS) recruitment policy states that members of SAPS should "not have a tattoo which will be visible if the person wears a uniform." Minister Cele has been criticized for commenting, "When you have a tattoo, we don't hire you because you have a tendency of being a gangster.” Minister Cele made the blunt and unapologetic comment about tattoos during a visit to Soweto (after a recent mass shooting where 16 people were killed in a tavern in Orlando East. Cele was trying to assure residents police visibility in the area would be improved).
Minister Cele was a guest on The Clement Manyathela Show on Radio 702 after his harsh tattoo take, and was pressed by the host about his comment. When asked directly did Cele believe people with tattoos tended to be gangsters, this time Cele seemed to change his tune saying, "I said you don't join. That kind of policy came from that understanding. I was repeating what has been said time and again. If you ask me personally, I have my own thinking on that, but there (in Soweto), I was announcing why you can't join when you have tattoos."
In 2012, SAPS introduced a new tattoo policy for police officers which bans all visible tattoos, distinctly when in uniform. In 2018, a South African female police officer constable Sanele Sophazi, posted a photo of herself on Instagram in her SAPS uniform, which showed off a tattoo on her body. Provincial police spokesperson Colonel Thembeka Mbele explained at the time, before SAPS members are recruited they are informed of the strict tattoo policy. “There are police orders as well as a dress code and one of the policies in the police service is that if anyone is applying as a recruit it is stated clearly that you must not have a visible tattoo,” said Mbele. An internal investigation was done on the tattooed officer and it was determined she supposedly got her tattoo after she was already a SAPS member.
What if a no tattoo policy was the inflexible policy for police officers in the United States? That you could not join a police force if you had any tattoos and couldn’t get any tattoos while being an officer. Most US police forces allow you to have tattoos as long as they are not visible in your uniform, while some let officers show them off with certain restrictions. Having tattoos should not deter a potential police officer from getting the job just because of tattoos. And a tattooed officer should not feel like the criminal they are trying to catch because of tattoos.
Will South Africa loosen its uncompromising police recruitment policy on tattoos in the future? This tattoo policy could potentially be turning away many men and women who could be great at the job of being a police officer, if not for them having tattoos. Police Minister Bheki Cele also said on the The Clement Manyathela Show on Radio 702, that he couldn’t decide if the policy was “sensible” and it “would need to be looked at.” So, perhaps there is hope for the SAPS recruitment policy on tattoos.