“If this was apartheid police we’d riot.”
So tweeted social activist Zackie Achmat on February 28 in reference to recent episodes of police brutality in South Africa that have focused public scrutiny and ire on the much-maligned establishment. The latest outcry results from a recently-released video showing taxi driver Mido Macia being tied to the back of a police van and dragged through the street in the town of Daveyton, near Johannesburg. The police account of the event claims that the 27-year-old Mozambican assaulted an officer after being asked to move his vehicle; however, the footage suggests that Macia’s actions were peaceful. Nine officers have been arrested, charged with murder, and denied bail.
Then, on March 15, a police officer was charged with attempted murder after he dragged a court interpreter with his car for about 100 meters. The man was apparently talking to a boy who had just been harassed by the officer. This past July, a female constable shut her car window on 20-year-old Kleinbooi Matthews and began to drive, killing him in the process.
The bloodiest incident, though, occurred on August 13, when police opened fire on striking mineworkers at the Lonmin mine in the town of Marikana, killing 34 and injuring 78. Two-fifths of those dead were found far from the main site of the clash, and officers have testified that they placed weapons at the side of the dead (presumably, to suggest that both sides exchanged gunfire).
It may hence seem at first glance as though police brutality has become brazen and widespread almost overnight in the country. However, the truth is that the problem has been increasing steadily for years. According to Justice Malala of The Guardian:
The Institute for Security Studies in Pretoria has reported that the number of people shot dead by police doubled in the four years to 2010. Deaths in police custody or resulting from police action numbered 860 in 2009-2010, disturbingly higher than the period 2003-2008, when they averaged 695 a year.
The police, of course, claim they are the victims, pointing to killings of police. This has been the narrative put forward to defend their dubiously “tough” stance against citizens.
Yet figures for police murders have dropped since 1994, when 265 officers were killed. The figure declined to 178 in 2000. Only 92 police officers were killed in the 12 months to March 2012. However, the government continues to paint a picture of a police service under siege, with [then National Police Commissioner General Bheki] Cele saying in 2011: “A policeman should not die with his gun in his hand.”
Synchronicity II
Thus, there are multiple sides to this problem. Firstly, there is the increasingly hostile attitude of the police force, which, beginning with the election of president Jacob Zuma in 2009 and a new manifesto by the ruling African National Congress (ANC) party, began to adopt a policy of “tough policing”. According to David Bruce, this strategy may have been a response to a recent rise in armed gang robberies that concerned the Minister of Safety and Security, Nathi Mthethwa. In addition, a perceived lack of respect added to the apparent need to re-militarize the force, thereby producing a police culture that can only be described as—well, tough.
Secondly, crime is a real problem in South Africa. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, the intentional homicide rate in 2011 was 31.8 per 100,000, or a murder count of 15,940. Although the statistics for other countries in the report have not been updated since 2008, we can arguably place South Africa among some of the poorest-performing countries in the region (and the world), on par with (or worse than) such nations as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Central African Republic, and Sudan. Violent crime is rampant, and rape stands out as the most prevalent violent crime: in a 2010 survey, one in three South African men in the province of Gauteng said he had raped at least one woman in their life, and one in four women said she had been raped.
Furthermore, as a result of widespread crime, the populace lacks faith in the police. Guns and security walls are everywhere, and there are over 400,000 registered active private security guards (and 9,000 companies)—twice as many guards as publicly employed police officers. The most striking example of this privatization of security is the recent Oscar Pistorius case. His story of believing his girlfriend to be an intruder is considered convincing; he was able to shoot her with his own gun; and his first call for help was not the police, but rather his home security guards. All three of these facts point to general paranoia over crime as well as distrust of the police.
Finally, the South African police force is notably corrupt. General Cele, the national police commissioner, was sacked in June 2012 over allegations of graft. Jackie Selebi, the former chief, was also fired for corruption and sentenced to prison. Richard Mduli, the head of the police crime intelligence unit, was suspended over allegations of murder and fraud. A Transparency International report showed that 68% of urban South Africans perceived the police as “extremely corrupt”, and more than 50% of drivers reported policemen asking for a bribe in the past year. Charges against policemen have ranged from attempted murder to burglary to car hijacking.
Appetite for Destruction
All of these ingredients combine and mix in the nasty soup that is the South African police force. A shift in policy towards tougher policing—intended to deal with an abysmal crime rate—backfired as corrupt police themselves committed crimes, seemingly with impunity. Imagine how many police crimes go unreported or undiscovered, and it’s clear to see why South Africans have ceased to have any trust in the police force (which, in turn, causes a greater shift to “tough policing”, creating a violent, vicious cycle).
A report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies sums up the problem of policing in Africa: larger problems with tax-collecting and federal budgets lead to sickly departments; there has been little domestic or international pressure to undergo police reform (instead, the focus has been centered on military strength); and policing has not been made into a skilled, respected profession. If South Africa hopes to fix the problem of police brutality and corruption, it will have to face these issues. Its general infrastructure and governance must improve (and that, in itself, is a complicated and demanding problem), and more energy should be devoted to judicial and civil service reforms. Finally, there must be a shift in the training, screening, punishment, and payment procedures for police officers to ensure that they are a neutral, professional, and uncorrupt force. The problem, in essence, is that officers feel that they can (and should) break the law and act with impunity. Change the perceived desirability of doing so, and hopefully brutality will diminish.
Photo Credit: theSouthAfrican.com
