South Africa: Enhancing Police Accountability
In this section
Background
South African state institutions have undergone a profound transformation since the end of the apartheid era, nowhere more so than in the field of criminal justice. The South African government has expended much effort in changing state agencies from enforcers of apartheid to public servants. For the South African Police Service (SAPS), the change has been particularly wrenching.
In 1994, the first year of democratic government, a group of visionary reformers revamped South African policing policy drawing upon best practices from other settings. Policies were developed that emphasized crime prevention and civilian control of the police. Police reforms implemented in South Africa since 1994 have created multiple accountability mechanisms at different levels of government and at the level of local communities.
Unfortunately, coincident with the socioeconomic and political transition since apartheid ended, violent crime has increased considerably. Over the past decade, growing public fear of criminality has diminished confidence in the effectiveness of the SAPS. As crime and public insecurity have become more pronounced, the human rights emphasis of the initial post-1994 policing strategy has given way to increasingly hard-line law enforcement.
Today, South Africa has a number of state agencies formally responsible for policing oversight and accountability. These include the Independent Complaints Directorate (ICD), the national and provincial Secretariats for Safety and Security, and the parliamentary Portfolio Committee for Safety and Security. In practice, the actual impact of this institutional framework of police accountability is increasingly challenged, by serious police abuse as well as the urgent need to improve police services and efficiency. In addition, “community policing forums” established in the post-1994 era to facilitate community oversight of policing have had very limited success.
Civil society organizations seeking to reinforce accountability mechanisms have experienced increased police resistance to external scrutiny. With inadequate access to relevant data about police conduct, many NGOs and researchers are confronting strategic choices about the appropriate balance between critical monitoring versus collaborative support. Despite these challenges, the building and consolidation of effective and accountable state law enforcement capacity remain priorities for civil society groups.
Objectives
The project aims to strengthen state mechanisms of police oversight while at the same time bolstering civil society’s ability to monitor and affect police conduct. An overarching goal is to enhance police accountability in South Africa by building on the transformation and structural reform of public security policy underway since the 1994 transition.
Activities
With a vibrant civil society sector and an array of police oversight agencies, South Africa nonetheless has experienced limited results from a series of international donor projects focused on police reform over the last decade. This complex reality dictates an approach based on thorough consultation to establish locally-identified needs and priorities. In order ultimately to strengthen police accountability, it is crucial to initiate a process that will have the necessary commitment from all parties: civil society, key state oversight bodies, and the police themselves.
Accordingly, during the first half of 2003, the Justice Initiative and its partners undertook consultations with a broad range of civil society organizations working on policing and public security issues, and with civilian police oversight bodies at the national, provincial and local levels. This project phase included a review of developments in the field of policing oversight, an analysis of the key challenges facing the oversight agencies, and a pooling of knowledge among practitioners, academics and NGOs with experience in monitoring police behavior in South Africa.
Assessing monitoring capacity
The first meeting of non-governmental organizations took place in Kempton Park, Gauteng, in February 2003. In June 2003, the Justice Initiative and the Open Society Foundation for South Africa hosted a mini-conference with NGOs and representatives of the major policing oversight agencies—at the national, provincial and local level—in South Africa. This participative approach has helped to define the nature and scope of further activities to be undertaken and to identify specific project objectives. The two meetings have resulted in:
- A “scan” of civil society organizations working on police oversight issues, which has mapped existing capacity for independent monitoring of police conduct. Together with the meetings, the scan has helped identify ways to improve monitoring capacity.
- A report on the performance of current oversight structures and bodies, identifying needs and strategic points of intervention for strengthening South Africa’s accountability regime. .
Policy Research
The second phase of the project, to run from October 2003 to April 2004, focuses on policy research. In order to deepen the engagement of civil society and increase understanding of the actual and desirable functioning of police oversight mechanisms in South Africa, a Call for Proposals was issued inviting organizations to conduct research and develop indicators on the following themes:
- The functioning of the Provincial Secretariats for Safety and Security and their relationship with the National Secretariat;
- Development and piloting of a monitoring tool for the Community Policing Forums, aimed at helping them fulfil their mandate;
- Development and piloting of a capacity-building strategy and monitoring tool for local council oversight of municipal police forces;
- Development of indicators for civil society monitoring of "Democratic Policing”.
These research projects will analyze the development and functioning of the various oversight bodies, including their achievements, weaknesses and inter-relationships, with a view to identifying how they can be strengthened. The following common elements will also be taken into account:
- The existence of indicators to evaluate police and policing, and the ease of access to this information;
- Police treatment of vulnerable groups, including women, children and migrants;
- Coordination and cooperation between agencies or bodies with different police oversight responsibilities; and
- Coordination and relations with the SAPS—in particular, regarding access to information and the implementation of recommendations.
One result of this research will be to produce toolkits to support more systematic and coordinated monitoring of the police by different bodies with oversight responsibilities.
Technical Assistance
The third phase of the project will build on these activities by providing technical assistance and training to pilot the new methodologies. Project partners will pursue various forms of advocacy to take the research recommendations forward into policy and practice.
By the project’s finish, the following will have been produced:
- Two reports on the state of civilian oversight of policing in South Africa nearly ten years after the transition and a national conference to present the research findings.
- A dynamic web-based resource on civilian oversight of policing in South Africa that can provide ongoing support to civil society and community groups on police accountability.
- A set of “toolkits” or model indicators (and methodologies) for the evaluation of policing:
§ General toolkits for civil society monitoring of “Democratic Policing”.
§ A toolkit for community evaluation of local police services.
§ A toolkit for municipal oversight of local police forces. - A “roll-out” or implementation process to provide the toolkits to selected oversight agencies or pilot initiatives, together with training and support.
- Advocacy activities in support of the project’s findings and recommendations.
- Ongoing work and support for civil society initiatives on police accountability from the Open Society Foundation-South Africa.
Partners
Open Society Foundation—South Africa
Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation, South Africa
Institute for Security Studies, South Africa
Institute of Criminology, University of Cape Town
UMAC (U Managing Conflict), South Africa