[imagesource: Felix Dlangamandla / Gallo Images]

If you’ve ever watched a Hollywood blockbuster about solving a murder, or one of those CSI shows, you may think that every investigation involves a team of forensics experts staring at a hologram of a DNA strand spinning in mid-air.

Someone taps on a screen, a database runs a scan and matches the DNA with some shady-looking Eastern European guy (their profiling, not mine), and you’re one step closer to catching the crook.

Sadly, that’s not exactly how things operate at SAPS, where investigative capabilities have been decreasing steadily over the past decade or so.

That’s not for a lack of trying on the investigators’ part, though. As Carte Blanche reports, even the basic boxes aren’t being ticked:

Stockouts of basic items like fingerprint kits and powders hamper the processing of crime scenes, while software licences for some digital forensic equipment have expired. Carte Blanche investigates the consequences when investigators are hampered in their daily tasks.

This really isn’t an easy watch, and gives you some sense of why criminals in this country operate so brazenly, without fear of being caught:

[source:carteblanche]