Preventing Police Killings Requires Improving Police Professionalism
Police brutality and the killing of police officials can both be solved by professionalising the South African Police Service.
Andrew Faull, Researcher, Criminal Justice Programme, ISS Pretoria Office
Over the past two weeks, news wires have buzzed with news about the killing of members of the South African Police Service (SAPS). According to media reports at least 36 police officials have been killed since January this year. In response, National Commissioner, General Bheki Cele, has called for mandatory minimum life sentences for those found guilty of murdering police officials, and warned that the police must defend themselves, and defend themselves decisively.
The killing of police in South Africa should be urgently addressed. However, the threat of harsh sanctions against perpetrators and an encouragement to police officials to forcefully defend themselves is unlikely to solve the problem. If SAPS leaders wish to improve the safety of police members, it is necessary to reflect on the organisation and its function in a holistic manner. Trends in police killings, like the related policing issues of integrity, efficiency, corruption and brutality, are heavily influenced by the prevailing culture of a police organisation, and how its members relate to the broader public.
Crime and policing are heavily politicised, so emotional responses to incidents of violent crime and police killings are understandable. However, emotional responses seldom result in long-term solutions. Internationally renowned policing scholar and author of “The Politics of the Police”, Robert Reiner, calls such responses “moral panics” that result in “orgies of punitiveness”. Indeed, Cele’s “fight fire with fire” approach to the killings of police officials may increase, rather than diminish police killings. Criminals who believe that they are more likely to be killed than arrested by the police will arm themselves more heavily in response and will be more willing to shoot at the police in a bid to escape arrest. Law abiding civilians who experience heavy handedness will increasingly become afraid of police and will be unlikely to cooperate with them or provide them with information about criminal activities.
At a recent seminar at the Institute for Security Studies titled “South African policing and the use of force: Challenges and solutions”, speakers provided evidence of a increasing levels of police brutality, presented insights into how police culture operates and offered solutions that would improve the safety of both police officials and civilians. In a surprising response, a SAPS spokesperson publicly attacked the seminar speakers, saying that talking about police brutality “…could be interpreted by criminals as a show of support to them thus inciting them to continue with the killing of our officers!” This unfortunate display of defensiveness does little to help the development of a professional, accountable and fair police service in South Africa. Rather it entrenches an ‘us’ versus ‘them’ mindset that sets the police in opposition to citizens.
Ultimately creating a fair police organisation may be one of the most important goals the SAPS could strive for. Research conducted internationally and in South Africa points to the fact that perceptions of police fairness contribute more to their legitimacy amongst the public than do perceptions of effectiveness in reducing crime. Likewise, police officials who are perceived as unreasonably aggressive are more likely to become victims of violent backlashes by a fearful public.
In fact, it is widely recognised that police have a relatively limited impact on crime. This is because crime is a manifestation of the fractures and inequalities in society, more than it is a result of an absence of tough policing. Reiner explains how poor policing can further aggravate criminality. He explains that, “growing social divisions fuel rising crime, which in turn generates control strategies that accentuate social exclusion [so that] crime and reactions to crime exacerbate the social divisions that generated them.” Indeed, there is evidence that has demonstrated that random arrests of young males can promote criminal activity, fuelling more crime in an area than would exist were there no police there at all.
The SAPS regularly conducts operations focused on petty violations (known as “B crimes” by the police), such as loitering, aggressive begging and urinating in public. Ultimately such operations result in mass arrests of the poor and vulnerable, regardless of whether they are found to have committed a serious offence or not. Police station cells are filled with vagrants and the impoverished so that police quota’s can be achieved, a consequence that leaves hundreds of thousands of people left feeling brutalised and alienated from the police. The 2009/10 SAPS Annual Report revealed that a total of 703 831 people were arrested in that year for crimes considered less serious than shoplifting. A majority of arrests each year are for petty offences. Police officials involved in such operations are told they have succeeded in “pushing back the frontiers of evil.” The real outcome is that arbitrary and punitive policing is normalised. This does little to curb crime or improve officer safety.
During 1993, the last year of brutal apartheid policing, 280 police officials were killed. Last year 107 members were killed on duty. Considering that the SAPS almost doubled in size since then, this represents a significant reduction in both the total number and proportion of police officials killed. The situation has clearly improved since the end of apartheid. However, many of the organisational shortcomings that were identified by a multi-disciplinary committee established in 1999 to look into the factors contributing to police killings, such as poor command and control, poor training, and incorrect application of police procedure in the SAPS, still remain. Sort these problems out and both police and public safety, along with police service delivery is bound to improve.
