Establishing police authority and civilian compliance in post-apartheid Johannesburg: an argument from the work of Egon Bittner

Abstract

Egon Bittner's seminal insight is that a precondition of democratic policing is a demand for it among the general population. What happens when that demand is absent? What happens, in other words, when the general population withdraws its consent to being policed? I explore this question in the context of post-apartheid Johannesburg, where compliance with police authority is patchy. I argue that there is a strong relationship between non-compliance and the density of public space, that patrols are animated by the avoidance of human density, and that when police cannot avoid density, the nature of police–civilian engagement is shaped by a sophisticated filigree of rules established by civilians. I ask why civilian compliance in contemporary Johannesburg is so patchy and find answers both in aspects of the city's apartheid history and in several policy errors made by South Africa's former liberation movement when it came to power in 1994. Looking beyond South Africa, I argue that in any urban context characterised by meagre security and endemic disorder the police ought to establish its authority by confining itself to two functions: effectively investigating violent crime and providing rapid and fair interventions whenever citizens call for help in emergencies. In South Africa and elsewhere, recent trends in police policy, inspired by professional criminology, have steered police in other directions.