South African Crime Quarterly 64

This edition addresses issues of governance in the policing, justice and service delivery sectors.

SACQ is published in partnership with the Centre for Criminology at the University of Cape Town. To access individual articles, refer to the table of contents below.

Given South African Crime Quarterly’s cross-disciplinary nature, and the fact that we accept article submissions on a rolling basis, we seldom have a collection of articles in a single issue that speaks clearly to a unifying theme. This edition is (happily) an exception. Each of the articles in the volume touches on questions of governance: by addressing how we use and assess evidence–based research aimed at improving policing practice; looking at the role and performance of the Western Cape Police Ombudsman; examining how and where protests focused on weak or absent governance take place; and unpacking the latest version of the Traditional Courts Bill, which is before Parliament (after two previous failed attempts) and which aims to regulate the customary justice environment.

Perhaps the serendipity is the result of the prevailing South African political winds. In the months since Jacob Zuma’s much-anticipated departure from the presidency, President Cyril Ramaphosa has raised concerns about the collapse of governance, arguing that the state’s institutions are failing to deliver, and have consequently lost credibility and the trust of South Africa’s people. Eskom’s virtual collapse, the impending revival of load shedding to stabilise the electricity supply grid, the Cape Town water crisis (and the crisis in governance that the water shortage has revealed), hospitals running short of medicine, books that are routinely not delivered at schools, junk ratings status, grounded SA Express flights, and haemorrhaging operating losses at South African Airways: there are certainly plenty of examples to support the president’s position.

Table of contents - SACQ 64

Editorial

Governance and justice - Southern edition
Kelley Moult

Research articles