Francois Beukman, Executive Director, Independent Complaints Directorate (ICD), South Africa; Cheryl Frank, Director, Pretoria Office, Institute for Security Studies (ISS); and Sean Tait, Coordinator, African Policing Civilian Oversight Forum (APCOF) welcomed the participants.
In their opening remarks they stated that, with funding support from the United Kingdom (UK) Department for International Development (DFID), their three organisations aimed, through the opportunity presented by this workshop, to generate debate on police oversight, to share and compare experiences and to discuss how best to collaborate in order to strengthen police oversight.
The workshop brought together the statutory police, civilian oversight institutions and civil society to consider police oversight in the region with a view to charting a way forward and recommending ways to share knowledge and expertise that will build capacity and promote effective policing oversight in the region. In their opening address, the speakers acknowledged the concern for public safety in many southern African countries and especially in the cities, and stated that solutions required holistic strategies, but warned that without effective and accountable policing the situation was likely to deteriorate.
Unfortunately, policing in many countries across the region is still seen as politically partisan, corrupt, abusive and ineffective. Too often, the police are used in the service of particular governments or regimes and this, combined with the extensive record of police abuse and corruption, has contributed to the poor standing of most police agencies among their citizens. As long as poor policing remains the norm, the respect for rights and democratic, economic and social developments will be handicapped rather than enhanced. It is here that the oversight community has a vital role to play. Oversight of the police that clearly shows that complaints are taken seriously and errant officers disciplined is recognised as one of the more effective ways of building confidence in the police.1
Police accountability is not only a normative requirement of the broader policing reform project. It is also a significant strategy for improving the effectiveness of policing. Public cooperation is critical across a range of situations that the police can be called upon to respond to, such as winning the fight against crime, successfully policing an election or addressing the threat of insurgency or terrorist activities. This vital trust will be lost if policing is experienced as biased, brutal and ineffective. Without public trust, cooperation is lost. Furthermore, there are many examples of how vigilantism and other illegal means of ‘doing justice’ fill the void left by bad policing and reduce government control of public security – one of the most basic functions of any state.
Building police accountability is no easy task. Just as policing itself is multifaceted and challenging, so is policing accountability. Creating more and stronger policing oversight will need sustained expert support. Such support must be sensitive to local dynamics, and to continental and international political agendas, and appropriate to the capacity and constraints of local situations.
Effective policing oversight operates on three levels: state and government control; social or civilian control, and internal control.2 Each of these spheres of oversight is important and together they are able to provide for a comprehensive system of accountability.
The workshop brings together practitioners from these spheres and across the continent to discuss the status of police oversight in Southern Africa and to learn from useful and good practices on the continent.
Specifically, the workshop aims to:
As such, the workshop is an important opportunity to examine the challenges facing police oversight in the Southern African region and to identify strategies on how to strengthen oversight mechanisms.
