Focus on problems of policing

Saddled with a reputation for being incompetent, brutal and politically partisan, police in Southern Africa have a long way to go to win the battle against escalating crime, and the trust of the communities they are supposed to serve. Communities with a "generations-old mistrust of the police; high numbers of children and youth, many of whom are already or are in danger of becoming AIDS orphans; a general increase in the levels of crime internationally; a proliferation of arms; legacies of colonial policing and poor training; and high illiteracy levels are all just some of the many challenges facing policing and crime prevention in the SADC [Southern Africa Development Community] region," noted a report by the Montreal-based Canadian International Crime Prevention Centre. "Arbitrary arrest and illegal detention are abuses common to almost the whole region," Amnesty International said in a 2002 survey of police practices. ABUSE RATHER THAN INVESTIGATION "Police often arrest people before they have built up any evidence. They evade obligations under national laws to bring detainees before a court of law within a specified period of time. They may conceal the whereabouts of a detainee from family and lawyers. The arrested suspect is then at risk of a 'confession-orientated' investigation, in which the police simply seek the information they need, sometimes simply in order to conclude their 'investigation' and often by torturing the suspects," Amnesty said. "Compounding the problem is the weakness of police procedures, including proper record-keeping at police stations, to guard against these abuses," the report added. Constable John Tafanana (not his real name), based in the Zimbabwean capital, Harare, told IRIN it was common practice to torture suspects, but said part of the problem was the pressure put on police by their senior officers. "Our chefs [superiors] are to a large extent to blame, because they put a lot of pressure on us, insisting that there is overwhelming evidence against the suspects. As a result, we have to resort to beatings so that they [the suspects] confess," he said. "Certain forms of torture are associated with certain countries," the Amnesty report noted. "Suffocation with the inner tube of a tyre or a plastic bag has been reported in Lesotho, South Africa, Swaziland and, less frequently, Botswana. It is hard to detect medically in survivors. In Zambia, kampelwaor the 'swing' is reportedly a common torture method. Victims have their hands tied or handcuffed behind their back and their feet tied together. They are then suspended from a metal bar by their bound hands and feet, and beaten as they 'swing'. "A similar method of torture, referred to as the 'helicopter', was once notorious among members of the former Security Branch in apartheid South Africa and has also been reported in Swaziland. This similarity of methods across different countries raises the troubling issue of how police officers learn torture techniques," Amnesty said. Because prosecution systems are heavily reliant on confessions, skills of detection and crime prevention across the region are neglected, stressed the Canadian report, 'The Future for Policing and Crime Prevention in SADC'. This unsophisticated and outdated approach has left countries ill equipped to deal with the new challenges of organised and increasingly global crime. Police urgently need to be provided with "the necessary knowledge, skills and attitudes to be able to undertake thorough research in order to analyse crime trends, generate profiles of victims and offenders, and identify other key information that allows for the effective combating of crime through appropriate and relevant criminal policies and crime prevention programmes," the report said. HISTORY OF OPPRESSION The role of police in Southern Africa historically was to maintain colonial, or white minority rule. Few resources were allocated for local policing and crime prevention, which took a back seat to "law and order", preserved by often paramilitary-style police tactics. Apartheid South African police were notorious for their repression, as were the pre-independence Namibian and Zimbabwean police forces. In Mozambique and Angola, "policing and crime prevention were situated in the context of a civil war", the Canadian report noted. While the "transformation of the police is on the agenda of many of these countries, in real terms little has been done to democratise the institutions internally". Political manipulation of the police subverts the rule of law and undermines the professionalism of officers, Amnesty warned. Across the SADC region, governments are "misusing the police to suppress public meetings, demonstrations or campaigning by opposition parties and government critics. In the majority of countries in the region, police harass, disrupt or discourage the activities of opposition leaders, trade union officials, youth activists, human rights monitors and journalists", the report said. The Royal Swaziland Police Force, as its name suggests, exists primarily to protect and serve the royal family. "Swaziland is a police state, and the police's main job is to enforce the ban on political opposition parties, and protect the royal family," alleged Ntombi Nkhosi, chairwoman of the women's branch of the outlawed political party, the Ngwane National Liberatory Congress. In Zimbabwe, as in much of the rest of the region, the police are often regarded as serving the interests of the government rather than the public. "The Zimbabwean police see themselves as a body outside of the community. They are based in barracks and are very militarised, and do not mix with civilians, to remain detached and 'uncorrupted'. It's a very different mindset," said Ted Leggett, a researcher with the Pretoria-based Institute for Strategic Studies. Escalating crime rates are often associated with social change, for example the wave of democratisation that occurred in the 1990s. "High and rising crime levels are common for governments in transition, and this is certainly true in the SADC region where countries face the added handicap of being part of the developing world, as well as being situated in a region which has very porous borders and high levels of organised and cross-border crime," the Canadian study pointed out. Under such conditions, "there is an increasing pressure from the population on politicians and the police to do something about crime. This means that police leadership are responding instinctively, by going back to what they know best, and what they regard as having worked in the past: reactive and often repressive policing tactics." For communities that regard themselves as under siege from criminals there can be "nostalgia" and a "level of tolerance" for a more authoritarian approach. According to Leggett, research in Johannesburg's inner-city district of Hillbrow found that 75 percent of residents said they would be willing to have their homes searched once a month if that would reduce crime levels. "The public are very willing to put up with violations of their rights and, also, there is not a lot of knowledge of their rights," Leggett told IRIN. "Judges are also very willing to make allowances on behalf of the police, who can get away with a lot." THE NEED FOR REFORM In the absence of effective policing, vigilantism has stepped in to fill the vacuum in a number of communities across the SADC region, as has the expansion of private security firms for the wealthy. The police themselves are also a target of rising violent crime, with 185 officers killed in South Africa in 2001. "The police do not have enough resources, such as vehicles, and the public and the media only look at the faults and not the good things we are doing as police officers. These are very serious challenges, which we will deal with," Malawi's police deputy public relations officer, Kelvin Maigwa, told IRIN. Better training, including human rights awareness, has long been on the agenda for police forces in Southern Africa. But in an environment of limited resources, there is an "opportunity cost", in which "greater expenditure in one aspect of the criminal justice system invariably requires a reduction ... somewhere else", the Canadian study observed. Resistance to changing the "organisational culture" represented by the old guard of senior officers has also been well-documented. "Training alone will not achieve policing based on human rights principles. It must be linked to the changes in the environment in which police officers work," Amnesty pointed out. "Training should be reflected in police standing orders and in the day-to-day instructions received from supervisors", including law reform. The Southern African Police Chief's Cooperation Organisation, which encourages regional policing initiatives, backs a transition to community policing with a focus on problem-solving and social crime prevention. The key is to improve the relationship between the police and local citizens. The Malawi police "have been undergoing reforms for over six years now. The reform programmes have helped quite a lot," said Maigwa. "We changed the system of interrogating suspects -previously we used to beat suspects so that they revealed the information we wanted, but these days we use different techniques." Botswana, Malawi and South Africa are among the countries that have adopted community-policing approaches. "Through the police reform programme, the communities have formed neighbourhood watches as one way of helping us curb crime," Maigwa said. Other methods can include victim support projects. "Where local police have been reformed and have established a reputation for respecting the rights of communities, police officers have built the public confidence and civil cooperation necessary to prevent and detect crime," Amnesty commented. However, the foundations are fragile. "Unfortunately, such partnerships can be, and in some cases have been, undermined by the use of the police for political repression." Community policing alone will not reduce crime if the factors that give rise to crime are not addressed. The study by the Canadian International Crime Prevention Centre stressed that the challenge was for the police to adopt a more community-orientated approach, while "at the same time effectively impacting on levels of crime and violence". Deepening poverty, community frustration, decades of human rights violations, police impunity and a lack of confidence in the criminal justice system has made the process of reform that much harder. For the Amnesty International report: http://web.amnesty.org/