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‘This democracy is killing us’: perceptions of rights and democracy in the South African Police Service

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 August 2020

Heidi Brooks
Heidi Brooks*
Affiliation:
University of Johannesburg, P.O. Box 542, Auckland Park 2006, Johannesburg, South Africa; Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection (MISTRA)
*
Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

Police reform in South Africa has been a crucial component of democratic consolidation. Yet recent research presents a contrasting set of opinions, indicating low levels of public trust in the South African Police Service (SAPS), but continued belief in their right to enforce the law, and a strong sense of isolation amongst officers themselves. As police are constitutive of the officers who populate their ranks, attention should be given to how ‘democracy’ is perceived by those charged with its protection. Through a series of interviews, this article examines how SAPS officers understand and experience ‘democracy’. Situating officers in the broader society and communities in which they work, it shows that officers conceive of democracy predominantly through the lens of ‘rights’ and that their role in protecting rights is complicated by the transitional nature of South Africa's democracy. It also provides insight into a sense of disempowerment amongst officers, suggesting negative conceptions of the quality of democracy and of the balance of liberal constitutionalism with the democratic impetus of building safer communities.

Keywords

Democratic policingrightsdemocracypolicejustice
Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 58 , Issue 2 , June 2020 , pp. 165 - 187
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2020

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Footnotes

My thanks go to the South African Police Service and SAPS Division for Research for their support of the data gathering, and to the individual police officers who gave their time to be interviewed. I am grateful to the Centre for Social Change at the University of Johannesburg for ongoing support during the conduct and writing up of this research and to IIE MSA where some writing was undertaken. I also thank the two anonymous reviewers who provided valuable feedback on the article.

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Interviews

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