African Police Research Articles

Policing and citizen trust in Kenya: How community policing shapes local trust-building and collaboration

Abstract In contexts of high insecurity and mistrust in the police, how and why do local residents still choose to collaborate with the police, and what is the role of community policing in such considerations? Research on policing in Africa has emphasized the structural and macropolitical barriers to effective police reform, including institutionalized cultures of impunity and corruption. Less attention, however, has been paid to the contextual and relational dynamics that shape police-community collaboration. We argue that a relational perspective, which centres local residents’ interactions with police and community policing structures, provides novel insights into the challenges of policing reforms. This perspective also demonstrates how contingent and incremental trust can be built in very challenging circumstances. We study these dynamics in Karagita and Kaptembwo, two low-income urban settlements in Nakuru County, Kenya, that have experienced violent crime and repeated electoral violence. Despite considerable challenges of crime, police misconduct, and political interference in these settlements, our findings point to how positive everyday interaction and community policing structures can contribute to incremental improvements in police-community relationships. In contrast to existing work on African policing that primarily highlights the challenges of police reform, this study offers insights into when reform has the potential to be effective.

Policework in a racist context: A qualitative study of retired African American police officers

The law enforcement community has faced great scrutiny in policing tactics and their interactions with marginalized communities and experiences of systemic racism. Moreover, increases in awareness have elicited alarms for reforming and defunding the police. To date, a plethora of literature exists in examining policing, systemic racism, and best practices for reform. However, few studies have explored the perspectives and experiences of racialized practices experienced by African American police officers. This qualitative study explored intradepartmental discrimination, police reform, and alternative policing practices. Findings demonstrate retired police officers’ perceptions of racial bias in policing, how these practices changed over time, and how they may influence decision-making in law enforcement.

Cannabis policing in mid-twentieth century South Africa

From 1922, cannabis was policed in South Africa as a "dangerous drug". At mid-century, the United Nations recorded South African cannabis seizures as accounting for more than half of the world's annual recorded totals. This article outlines some main trends in South African cannabis policing between the late 1920s and 1970. It uses quantitative data derived from historical police records to document the impact of a shift in policing strategy - from a focus on possession to a directed targeting of supply - following recommendations made in a 1952 governmental report. Analysis demonstrates how this policy change, along with other factors, impacted arrests and amounts of cannabis seized, by division and district. We situate statistical findings within South Africa's political landscape.

Social unrest and the Highway Beautification Act of 1965

ABSTRACTThe recent series of very senseless shootings of both African American males and police officers are chilling visual demonstrations of the current degree of racial tension and social unrest in the United States. Stricter gun control laws are critically important but only part of the issue. Basic human and civil rights are at the heart of the issue. We must move toward a society in which individuals from varied backgrounds are valued, respected, and included. We must all accept the fact that we are all human beings and very much alike. This will require a national effort very similar to the Highway Beautification Act of 1965. We must adopt and implement policies that will specifically address multiple issues (discrimination, racism, marginalization, exclusion, implicit bias, and the lack of economic mobility) serving as drivers of our current social state. A key component should be increased investment in the educational system (starting in primary school) resulting in an increased college graduation rate and the development of curricula on race and racism and supporting cultural sensitivity and implicit bias training from kindergarten through professional schools.

Apartheid’s wolves: political animals and animal politics

This paper explores the particular complexity of thinking about nature and animals in post-liberation South Africa through focusing on one group of animals, the wolves housed in the Tsitsikamma Wolf Sanctuary. Wolves are not indigenous to South Africa and the presence of the sanctuary raises questions about the place of alien species in the symbolic configuration of the emerging South African nation. Although the Wolf Sanctuary is anomalous in the wider discourse of environmental management in South Africa, the wolves provide an interesting focus for thinking about the production of nature both within the South African nation and within contemporary global culture. These South African wolves are very clearly products of history, imported from North America to satisfy a particular political purpose – the breeding of wolf-dogs for use by the South African military and police during the 1970s and 1980s. Drawing on Truth and Reconciliation Commissions transcripts of Hearings on Chemical and Biological Warfare, two self-published border war memoirs, and newspaper reports, this paper investigates how wildness was configured under apartheid particularly in the crucible of the border war. Finally, the paper discusses how as material animals the wolves leave their own traces on the actual and conceptual landscape surrounding wild predators and their place in South Africa.

Using Input from University Students to Enrich Dialogue Between African Americans and Police: A Special Issue Essay

Using Input from University Students to Enrich Dialogue Between African Americans and Police: A Special Issue Essay

‘The Greatest State Scandal’: Personality, Power and the South African Republic Police, 1886–1896

The discovery of gold on the Witwatersrand in 1886 led to the rapid industrialisation of the South African Republic's agrarian based economy. Focusing on the attempts made at reforming the South African Republic Police during the period 1886 to 1896, this article examines the contested character of the state. Marred by internal power struggles and bureaucratic constraints, the police force was synonymous with ‘rottenness’. Attempts to reform the police force were a battle in a broader political war over power between the conservative and progressive factions within the South African Republic government. Greater focus needs to be given to the contested interplay of state power and bureaucratic struggles within the institutions of this modernising state. This invites a more nuanced understanding of the Republic's character.

African Police and Soldiers in Colonial Zimbabwe 1923-80

African Police and Soldiers in Colonial Zimbabwe 1923-80

TIMOTHY STAPLETON, African Police and Soldiers in Colonial Zimbabwe 1923–80. Rochester NY: University of Rochester Press (hb $90 – 978 1 58046 380 5). 2011, 313 pp.

TIMOTHY STAPLETON, African Police and Soldiers in Colonial Zimbabwe 1923–80. Rochester NY: University of Rochester Press (hb $90 – 978 1 58046 380 5). 2011, 313 pp.

African Police and Soldiers in Colonial Zimbabwe, 1923–80 by Timothy Stapleton (review)

African Police and Soldiers in Colonial Zimbabwe, 1923–80 by Timothy Stapleton (review)

African Police and Soldiers in Colonial Zimbabwe 1923-80 by Timothy Stapleton

African Police and Soldiers in Colonial Zimbabwe 1923-80 by Timothy Stapleton

African police and soldiers in colonial Zimbabwe, 1923-80

Making use of archival documents, period newspapers, and oral interviews, 'African Police and Soldiers in Colonial Zimbabwe, 1923-80' examines the ambiguous experience of black security personnel, police, and soldiers in white-ruled Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) from 1923 through independence and majority rule in 1980. Across the continent, European colonial rule could not have been maintained without African participation in the police and army. In Southern Rhodesia, lack of white manpower meant that despite fear of mutiny, blacks played an increasingly prominent role in law enforcement and military operations and from World War II constituted a strong majority within the regular security forces. Despite danger, Africans volunteered for the police and army during colonial rule for a variety of reasons, including the prestige of wearing a uniform, the possibility of excitement, family traditions, material considerations, and patriotism. As black police and soldiers were called upon to perform more specialized tasks, they acquired greater education and some - particularly African police - became part of the emerging westernized African middle class. After retirement, career African police and soldiers often continued to work in the security field, some becoming prominent entrepreneurs or commercial farmers, and generally composed a conservative, loyalist element in African society that the government eventually mobilized to counter the growth of African nationalism. Tim Stapleton here mines rich archival sources to clarify the complicated dynamic and legacy of black military personal who served during colonial rule in present-day Zimbabwe. Timothy Stapleton is Professor of history at Trent University in Ontario.

EXTRA-TERRITORIAL AFRICAN POLICE AND SOLDIERS IN SOUTHERN RHODESIA (ZIMBABWE) 1897–1965

During the early and mid-twentieth century, the security forces of colonialSouthern Rhodesia were dominated by African men from neighbouring territoriessuch as Nyasaland, Northern Rhodesia and Portuguese East Africa who had enteredthe regional migrant labour system. This included many with previous militaryexperience. As the British South Africa Police (BSAP) evolved from a paramilitaryoccupation force into a professional law enforcement organisation, extra-territorialrecruits were phased out in favour of local men fluent in local languages withwestern-style education. Despite this, African police from other territoriescontinued to have a disproportionate impact on the force as many became longservingand accomplished members, who dominated the paramilitary African PolicePlatoon and served as drill instructors for all recruits. During the First World War,most African soldiers in the Rhodesia Native Regiment (RNR) were migrantworkers recruited directly from Southern Rhodesia’s mines. During the SecondWorld War, just under half of the Rhodesian African Rifles (RAR) originated fromother territories. The recruiting of extra-territorial African soldiers declined furtherin the 1950s and early 1960s as military conditions of service in their respectivehomes improved, the Masvingo-Gutu area became a dependable source of localrecruits and eventually newly independent black-ruled states came into conflict withwhite-ruled Rhodesia.

Policing Africa: Internal security and the limits of liberalization

Much has changed since the 1960s, but the institutional pillars of the post-colonial state remain recognizable. This is particularly noticeable in internal security, where there is evidence of both change and continuity. There was a shift in regime understanding of security after independence, but styles of policing in the intervening years suggest a significant degree of continuity. Based on the premise that police development mirrors state development, this paper suggests that the simplest models provide the clearest insight into the linkage between policing, political order, and institutional capacity. For they show that wars, liberalization, and international aid have left most police systems fundamentally unchanged; the nature and purpose of policing remains the same. The first major milestone in African policing was passed when politics moved from the colonial to the post-colonial state, but the second, marking a liberalization of institutional capacity, has yet to be reached.

Ernest Cole and the South African Security Police

Ernest Cole is one of the most important photographers to emerge from South Africa during the apartheid period. His book, House of Bondage, which he went into to exile to publish, provided a powerf...

The politics of law enforcement in Nigeria: lessons from the war on drugs

ABSTRACTThis article examines the institutional politics of law enforcement in Nigeria by focusing on illegal drug control since the mid 1980s. It assesses the available academic research on law enforcement governance, and contrasts it with an in-depth case study of drug law enforcement. The case study confirms views of the politicised nature of law enforcement. However, it goes beyond the patron–client centred approach to politics prevalent in the literature on African policing. The article adds an institutional dimension to the study of law enforcement governance, highlighting processes of centralisation, exclusion and shifting bureaucratic interests that have been central to the development of Nigerian drug law enforcement. It is based on previously inaccessible data from inside Nigerian drug law enforcement.

African American police executive careers: influences of human capital, social capital, and racial discrimination

The study focused on the relationships between human capital, social capital, and perceptions of racial discrimination on the careers of a representative sample of 224 male African American police executives, the first such statistical study in the literature. In‐depth interviews were conducted with six executives. The vast majority had strong mentors. Nearly all indicated that they had experienced racism and most indicated that racism had influenced their careers. Executives in command positions tended to be more highly educated and trained and had stronger mentors than those not in command positions. Police departments should develop on‐the‐job training (OJT) programs that cultivate minority police executives.

The African post-conflict policing agenda in Sierra Leone

This article examines policing in Sierra Leone four years after the civil war. It evaluates the achievements in the area of policing against the major policing challenges in African post-conflict societies. These are recruitment and (re)training of a civilian force; establishing an organizational culture that is accountable and responsive to citizen concerns; organizational rebuilding and re-equipment; utilizing the resources of commercial and community organized policing; and establishing a sustainable basis. The research finds that for all the positive achievements, the fact remains that the government of Sierra Leone still does not exert effective control over, nor is it able to deliver state policing services to, significant parts of its own territory. The 7,000 active police officers are too small in number and too limited in resources to provide all Sierra Leone's citizens with a service that protects them from crime and investigates crime. Its fundamental weaknesses mean that post-conflict internal security programmes may have to look again at others who currently authorize and provide policing. It may be that some community led policing groups can be harnessed and if necessary reformed to assist the police in establishing the rule of law.

United States Restrictions on Exports to South Africa

Since 1964 the United States has restricted military exports to the Republic of South Africa and to Namibia in compliance with a voluntary arms embargo established by the United Nations. In 1977 the United Nations, with United States support, made this ban mandatory. Shortly thereafter, the Department of Commerce significantly broadened U.S. export restrictions by prohibiting all exports—not merely arms and other military equipment—that the exporter knows or has reason to know are destined for use by the South African military or police.