Service Delivery Protest, Crowd
Management and Policing
in
South Africa
Binyam Yitay1
UPDATES - SERVICE DELIVERY PROTEST IN SOUTH AFRICA
Figures
Recent Findings on
Service Delivery Protest in South Africa According to a recent
research conducted by the
University of Johannesburg (UJ) service delivery protest has been
increasing since 2004. The protests
spiked at 470 in 2012 – more than a protest a day. They dropped to
287 2013.Since 2009,
more of the protests turned villent.A total of 50 people reportedly
killed by police between 2004-2014
(Beginning of February). However, these statistics do not tell the
whole story, said researcher
Trevor Ngwane.
The link between
service delivery protest and political factionalism is minimal.High
unemployment rate remains as the
primary cause of community protest. Since unemployed people have very
few choices about how
toexpress their frustration. The media itself could has a negative
impact on escalating service
delivery protest. Media coverage of dramatic protests can also fuel
further protests, by causing
long-neglected communities to realise that violence can bring
attention to their plight.
According to the
recommendation render by Professor Peter Alexander,the research chair
in social change at UJ
“Repression is not the answer. It merely intensifies people's
bitterness and alienation. The rising levels of
protests are a warning that the problems of poor people need to be
addressed.There is a ticking
time bomb in South Africa,”
Success As Cause of Protest
At governmental
level, Zuma has given the credit of success in service delivery
during his state of the nation address
(2014). On the other hand, Gauteng province,one of the very spot for
service delivery protest,
Premier Nomvula Mokonyane has established a high-level task team to
probe the violent service
delivery protests. In the same track North West Premier Thandi Modise
placed the embattled Madibeng
municipality under administration following several service delivery
protests in Mothotlung,
Majakaneng and Hebron
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1.Introduction
.......................................................................................................
2. Civil Riots
….......................................................................................................
3. Crowd
Management
….....................................................................................
- Theories of Crowd Management …..................................................................A. De-individuation Theory …...........................................................................
B. The Madison Method
…...................................................................................
- Principles of Crowd Management …...................................................
- Intelligence ........................................................
- Facilitation ….....................................................
- Communication …..............................................
- Recognition …......................................................
- Training ...........................................................
4. Crowd Control
…........................................................................
- Principles of Crowd Control ….................................................(a) Self control …......................................................................(b) Alertness …...........................................................................(c) Team Sprite …......................................................................(d) Community Spport …............................................................(e) Humour …............................................................................
5. Police Brutality
…..........................................................................
- Theories of Police Brutality : In Brief ….........................................I. Situational Theory …..................................................................ii. Organisational Theory …............................................................iii. Individual Factor Theory ….........................................................
- How Police Brutality be Reduced? …...............................................
- Consequences of Police Bruality …......................................................
- Police Brutality and Service Delivery Protest in South Africa …........6. Municipal Protests ...............................................................
- Municipalities in South Africa.........................................................
- Municipal Protest and the Police.....................................................
- Causes of Service Delivery Protest at Municipal Level …...............
- Conclusions and Recommendations ........................................
- Bibliography …..............................................................................
1.
INTRODUCTION
This research work
discern the criteria in which police responded to a service delivery
protesters in an ideal muncipality
in South Africa.
The research is more
qualitative and it explores the methods of the police used in crowd
control and management during
municipal service delivery protest.
Subsequent to this,
the author makes an attempt to reveal the causes of service delivery
protest and the resultatnt
violence, looting and destroying of public and private infrastructure
and properties.
Furthermore, since
the study revloves around municipal service delivery protest, the
overview of municipalities
function , importance, challenge and suggested way outs are
pinpoints.
At last tentative
recommendations have made to the improvemnts of service delivery and
the handling of the
crowd that staged in the street to protest against local
municipalities.
NB. This Research
work is not static. It updated at least a monthly basis.
Key Words: Civil
Riot, Crowd Management, Crowd Control, Municipal Protests, , Police
Brutality, Police
strategy, Service Delivery Protest, South Africa
2.
Civil Riots
Civil riot is a form
of civil disorder characterised often by what is thought of as
disorganised groups lashing out in a
sudden and intense rash of violence against authority, people and
property. Civil riots are thought to
be typically chaotic and accompany with violent behaviour. Civil
riots usually generated by civil
unrest that trace back due to socio-economic or political in
stability of a country. Sociologists believe
that there is a growing evidence that suggest civil riots are not
irrational, herd like behaviour, but
follow inverted social norms.
Civil riot is a
crowd that takes violent, illegitimate actions reaching out of fear
or anger. The crowd takes a mob
mentality. This implies that the people making up the “mob” do
things they normally would not do because
the crowd makes them anonymous; this anonymity combined with the
actions of the rest of the
crowd makes them feel like they can smash, burn or beat whatever and
whomever they want. Some
civil rioters have become quite difficult t deal because they have
the understanding of tactics used by
police in such situation.
Civil riot is not
immediate result rather it builds up over time, the reasons can be
years of racial prejudice, unfair
treatment of the poor or antagonism between company and a union. The
spreading of a civil riot is
very quick; in many cases an actual incident isn't even required just
a rumour can spread through a
group and turn deep seeded anger in to a violent outburst.
Concerning to the
consequence, civil riots have devastating effect in the socio
economic set up of acountry.
France, for
instance, compel to good damage of:
➢ 10,000
vehicles,
➢ the burning
of 300 building that cost the country 200 million pound,
➢ 2, 800
arrestee and
➢ The injury
of 126 police forces leave a black spot in the social arena.
As worst
consequence, civil riots lead to the toppling of government as
witness in the recent
Middle East and
North Africa during the Arab Spring. Yet, some civil riots is easily
controlled. In this case, the
rioters made a slogan chant, call for the respect of their deny
rights and they will disperse in
themselves once they transmit their message to the concerned organ.
The reason is that certain minorities
believe that they have no the muscle to got further or their concern
may ignore or unattentive in the
eyes of the majority.
3 .
Crowd
Management
crowd management
refers to a police department's pre planned, practised , and
rehearsed response to a small or large
disturbance within a specific jurisdiction. There is no, perhaps,
great challenge for the police than
managing a crowd. The reason is that there are competing interests
and rights such as maintaining
order, freedom of assembly and freedom of speech meet. While the
police calculating the
crowd managemnt paths there are numerous challenges a head that
includes:
➢ How to
effectively manage police resources to deal large number of
protestors who demand their
constitutional rights or other privileges such as the provision of
basic municipal services,
➢ How to
work with the community who are not involved in the protest but who
have an
expectation that the police will protect them and their property from
unlawful or destructive behavior.
Crowd management
must take into account all the elements of an event especially the
type,characterstics, size
and demeanor of the crowd, methods of communication with the the
crowd and crowd control. In
addition, as a management, it must include:
➢ planning,
➢
organizing,
➢ staffing,
➢ directing
and
➢
evaluating.
Particularly what is
important tot crowd management is defining roles of parties involved
in the protest, the quality
of the advance intelligence and the effectiveness of the planning
process. It can be argued that
effective practice, when guided by the general principles of crowd
facilitation and systematic analysis,
will increase positive interaction and reduce tension between crowd
member and police. This
outcome requires an accurate understanding of how crowds behave, It
also demands recognition
of the social dynamics and environmental feature that influence
individual motivation in large
gatherings.
This involves the
evaluation of crowd management theories. The most notable ones are:
A.De-individuation
Theory
It states that
member's of a crowd became “submerged' in the mass that is are not readily identifiable as
individual, lose their feelings of uniqueness and awareness of their
personal standard.
Moreover, the theory
reveals that usual concern for societal nomrs nad self conceience are minimized which
causes the release of normally restrained behavior. This implies that
lack of identifiablity
within a group , focusing on the group as a whole in stead of on its
individual member activities centred
on outside events are such factors for the difficulty of managing a
crowd.
Further, the
presence of public figure individuals in the crowd will ease the
pressure to think as a group not as an
indiviudal that entitles with self awareness causes de individuation.
However, the anti
social behavior and escalation of the intergroup conflcit can be
countred when group members are
made individually accountable for their actions and when the party
that asks them to account for
their behavior sets an appropriate or anti violent norm.
B. The Madison
Method
This theory evolves
from a philosophy of public order policing dating in 1970s. This
approach begins with defining
the mission and safeguarding the fundamental rights of people to
gather and speak out legally.
The philosophy should reflect the agency's core values in viewing
citizens ascustomers. This
focus is not situational; it can not be turned on and off depending
on the social crisis.
Further, this
Madison method calls fro the multiple aspects that must be considered
and addressed in managing the
crowd. These aspects include:
➢ Knowledge
of the legal standards applicable to constitutional rights,
➢ Proper
use of force, and
➢ effective
gathering of information before the crowd intend to protest.
Hence, crowd
management is a fundamental police function in all societies. This
task is complex and demanding.
Police must address safety concerns in highly diverse environment and
among heterogeneous
collections of crowd participants, while adapting to dynamic and
sometimes volatile situation with
existing police resources and limited information. Police must also
accomplish seemingly
conflicting goals when managing crowds.
A failure to
properly manage crowds has produced disastrous consequences, but it
has also created the opportunity to
reform and change. Effective crowd management requires much planning,
early and continuous
analysis of risk, and cooperative interactions between police and the
crowd. These activities help
police develop and implement interventions that reduce the
potentially for violence. Force, however,
should not be used as a rountine strategy to gain compliance or
resolve conflict.
Forceful police
tactics may be counter productive and arouse aggressiveness in
crowds. Researches demonstrate that
police can improve crowd relations and encourage peaceful events by
reducing forceful appearance
and conduct.
Yet, police must
occasionally intervene to maintain or regain control in the crowd.
When police must use force to
achieve this objective, they should act in ways that assure force is
kept to a minimum, is directed
precisely, and is perceived by crowd members as being necessary and appropriate.
Principles of Crowd
Management
The following key
principles should be considered during the planning, briefing and
deployment stages of any
policing operation involving the management of crowds:
A. Intelligence
Prior to any event,
the police should identify groups who might be involved their
intentions, tactics, notions of
acceptable behavior and views of other groups. Intelligence also may
indicate the proportion of
activists within the crowd and homogeneous that crowd might be in its
intention, or the balance of those
prone to violence and those who are peaceful.
B. Facilitation
This is a principle
that give the crowd a discretion to policing themselves. Facilitation
is supporting and encouraging
demonstrators to reach legitimate goals with the aim to prevent
conflict and to achieve self
policing. The police should seek to facilitate any lawful and
legitimate behavior of the crowd who are presnt
especially when conflict starts. The aim should be to identify those
lawful will illegal
protestors.
C. Communication
the police should
communicate with the crowd how they seek to facilitate their
legitimate aim and the police also told
crowd how the illegitimate action of some in crowd may serve to
impede their aims.
Communication should
be made with persons who respected by the crowd.
Dialogue Policing is
the other approach of communication where the ultimate goal is to
facilitate freedom of speech
and the right to demonstarte. Its fulfillment will contribute to
another important objective to
decrease confrontations between crowds and police, and between
opposing groups of demonstrators.
The expected result
is less violence aginst the police, less force used by the police,
less destruction of property, and
less villence between demonstrators. If effective, fewer members of
crowds, as well as police officers,
will be injured by acts of aggression and police use of force.
D. Recognition
The police should
aware that there are peaceful protestors and illegitimate ones among
the crowd.
Generally,the police
should identify these two groups of crowds. Further, police must be
aware of the various types of
behaviors associated with the crowds that may result in a law
enforcement response. These
crowd behaviors can vary from lawful assembly to individual criminal
acts to civil dis obedience to
rioting. Law enforcement officials should indentify and
isolateunlawful behavior, if feasible.
E. Training
It is important to
prepare for incidents through recurring training and simulation
exercises. In policing there are
two kinds of personnels:
➢ Command
Personnel: are staffs that do the day to day activities of the police
by sitting in the office. Command
personnels are expected to understand resources, strategies,
capacity, force option, limitation of field
forces, the law and policies.
➢
Operational personnel are the actual police force that confront with
the crowd in the field. These officers are
expected to understand the law, policy, tactics and mission
objectives in order to able to manage the crowd.
Police discipline
and restraint is an essential component in successfully managing
crowds. Training
has playing its role
in shaping the the discipline of the police. Training should be
render an ongoing process that entitle
the police force with new tactics and strategies for handling or
managing the crowd. Training may
include:
➢ policies
and procedures of the police department,
➢ The
national constitutional,
➢ crowd
dynamics,
➢ media
relations,
➢ less
lethal ammunitions,
➢ Arrest
and control techniques,
➢
intervention strategies
➢ Mass
arrest.
Crowds may be:
➢
Anarchists,
➢ labour
disputes,
➢ service
delivery protests,
➢ social
agenda driven events such as abortion, environmental concerns,
➢ sporting
events.
As a democratic
nation, South Africans have the right of free speech and assembly as
guaranteed by the 1996
Constitution of the Republic. A fundamental role of the law
enforcement agencies including police is
the protection of the rights of all people to have exercising
peaceful assemble, demonstrate, protest
or rally.
On the other hand,
law enforcement agencies also has the responsibility to ensure public
safety and to protect lives and
property of all South Africans. The sometimes competing goals of maintaining order while
protecting the freedoms of speech and assembly stand as one of the
law enforcement 's greatest challenge.
This research work
will assist law enforcement officers in addressing the many
challenges and broad range of
issues surrounding a response to incidents of crowd management. The
research work will also help in
improving established responsibility and accountablity of law
enforcement officers at all levels:
national, provincial or municipal levels of governances.
In general, crowd
management needs the collection of information prior to, during and
after crowd management events.
Gathering and analysing information about the crowd can dramatically increase the
effectiveness of an agency's planning and response to incidents
involving crowd mangement.
Furthermore, crowd
management also requires police personnels to hold responsiblities.
The officers, first,
need to know their responsibility to achieve peace and order the area
they deploy.
Second, they have to
the responsibility to respect the rights and freedoms of the
protesting crowd. Besides, they have
the responsibility to guide by the policies strategies , mission of
their respective department.
To sum up, in order
to be a crowd management effective the following principles must be
adhered:
➢ Knowledge
of the constitutional rights,
➢ proper
planning,
➢ using
time, patience and communication to attempt to facilitate lawful
protest activities,
➢ seeking
support of the community,
➢ training,
➢
situational awareness,
➢
objectively reasonable use of force,
➢ liason
with the media and a well managed media relationship.
4. Crowd Control
crowd management has
various subtitle, one of them is crowd control. It is about the
controlling of a crowd, to prevent
the out break of disorder and prevention of possible riots. Crowd
controls calls for lenient tactics
unlike riot control. Crowd control can be define as:
“ an ability to
reduce a unit's ability to fight in temporary base or it is the
ability to control protesters by either
restricting their contribution to fuel violence or means to escape.”
In addition, crowd
control can be defined as those techniques used to address unlawful
public assemblies including
a display of formidable numbers of police officers, crowd
containment, dispersal tactics
and arrest procedures.
A crowd is a group
of people who are gathered in one area for a single purpose without
any planned, practiced
or rehearsed agenda. Crowds can vary in size, composition,
intentions, goals, and behaviours. Crowds
can be small, large or larger than expected. They can be composed of
one group with one goal
or multiple groups whose goals can be similar or in opposition.
In terms of their
behaviour, crowds can be completely peaceful or law-abiding or they
can contain disruptive and
destructive elements.
Controlling of a
crowd depend on the behaviour of both actors involved in the protest:
I. The crowd
behaviour
II. The police
behaviour as an individual and as a group will be a factor fro the
intensity of the crowd and the
possibility of maintain stability. Beside, a police department should
adhere them following principles
in dealing with the crowd at minimal cost:
A.
Self control
individual police
officers and the police as a group must not lose self control when
dealing with the crowd. If the crowd
perceives the police as a professional who do their business in an
impartial way to maintain peace
and order, the crowd likely to drain its violent behaviour.
In addition, the
police ought to control their self innate that only force should be
used to control a specific group,
since excessive force in a sensitive situation will destroy previous
gains and seriously affect
future accomplishments.
B.
Alertness
police officers,
especially those in command positions, must be alert so that they can
detect rapid changes in the
course of disturbances. Police personnel at large should be prepared
for the sounds and sights of riots
and other civil unrests.
The reason for
alertness is that riots erupted in unexpected way and time. Police
departments, therefore, should be
alert for any possible riot happening. The personnels ought be ready
in training on how to handle,
deal and control the crowd.
C.
Team Sprite
Normally, police
officers are trained to work individually and to deal with individual
anti social behaviour. They may
think in terms of individual capacity rather than a group.
However, crowd
control needs another pedigree. Unless, officers have to work as a
team in both their actions and
emotions, controlling a crowd is uneasy task. While acting as a team
to control the crowd, police
officers must be well organised and they must expected to act with
precision in order to be effective in
deescalating the atmosphere.
D.
Community Support
policing is about
serving the community. Sometimes it is difficult to control the crowd
without the support of the
community. This is true especially where a crowd is protesting under
the leadership of prominent
individuals or key note speakers. In such case, the crowd has the
tendency to listen its leaders than the
authority of the police.
Hence, it is
important to acquire and maintain community support in crowd control.
Yet, in order to maintain community
support, police must act competently and professionally. They must
defend and protect everyone
in a same magnitude, not just a selected few.
E.
Humour
This principle
reveals that police officers should be friendly and initiate
conversation with individuals in the
crowd, in order to reduce the violent actions of the crowd. Officers,
even, can got to the crowd greet
them and they must tell that they are to protect them.
In addition, police
officers should remember that a smile is contagious and will not
completely destroy their
authority. So that, due to the positive benefits of humour in crowd
control, police department might
identify for such duty those officers who demonstrate an ability to
handle crowds wit and humour.
To sum, crowd
control is one of the elements of crowd management. Police
personnels, command and field officers
need to maintain peace and stability via controlling the crowd in
civilized fashion.
In order to a crowd
control be effective, the emotion of a police officer, his
relationship with the team of officers and
the community , the positive attitude towards the crowd should
maintain. Further, the police
officer should be equipped with crowd control trainings, materials
and tactics.
While police
officers act in crowd control situations, they ought to adhere the
constitutional laws related with
demonstration and the policy of the police department where they
belong.
On the other hand,
failure to incorporate best practices and model policies in preparing
and responding to the
crowd control will result in:
➢ Unecessary
injuries or even deaths of officers, protestors and others,
➢ violation
of basic rights, such as the right to life, right to demonstration
and free speeches,
➢
undermining police community relations,
➢ High
burden of civil law suits and settlements paid by police department
to the person whose property is
damaging due to unconstitutional policing policies or crowd control
tactics.
Therefore, the
police officers must idenitify tactical responses fro crowd control
in order to escape the negative impact
of the crowd control mechanism. There are two very different tactics
of crowd control:
I. The soft
squad tactic- that involves an officers equipped with proper response
gear fro dispersing a non
violent group that could become violent. A soft squad is best used
when the crowd is gathering,
mounting in numbers, blocking designated areas, being verbally
resistant, and using bodies or hands to
resist and or combat officers. The purpose of this initial response
is to gain voluntary passive
compliance from the crowd.
II. Hard squad
that involves violence or active non compliance by protestors. The
purpose of the hard squad is to
move the crowd and make arrests. Concerning to arrest, it is only
advisable only when all alternative
tactics have either been tried unsucessfully or are unlikely to be
effective under specific
circumstances. This is because there are continual compaints that law
abiding protestors and passerby were
rounded up and detained along with violators in overly broad sweeps.
The negative impact of
these media images damages the public perception of the police
operation. In addition, litigation
costs against protestors proven to be expensive.
Subsequent to arrest
is use of force. The use of force is bringing too many questions
whether it is justified or not
from the media, the community and human right groups. Use of force
must be reasonable and
proportionate to the threat, otherwise the criticism broadcasting in
the media will have an effect on
the public perception twards police department.
Pre- event briefing
of officers should include a discussion of the rules of engagement;
the use of force policy; and
the authority to direct the use of force, specialised tools and
weapons. It is recommended that pre
event briefings to make use of force in a uniform standard.
Most importantly,
police managers must ensure, through a system of checks and balances,
that any use of less-lethal
options are necessary and proportionate and can be supported in after
action inquiry through
sufficiently detailed records. When properly applied, less lethal
weapons can be effective tools in accomplishing the police mission. In the same truck, the police have
to wear protective equipment
for safety reasons.
More to the point,
the police must have a means to display to crowds its readiness to
use force. This kind of early
warning is called signal value.
To conclude law
enforcement agencies should be aware of the various types of
behaviors associated with demonstrations,
and determine the law enforcement response appropriate fro each
behavior. The ability of law
enforcement to maintain or restore order is highly dependent upon a
thorough understanding of the
factors surrounding the purpose of the gathering, the type of crowd
and its potential.
5. Police Brutality
Police brutality
refers to the wanton use of excessive force usually physical but
potentially in the form of verbal
attacks and psychological intimidation by a police officer.
Police brutality is
even the a serious problem in a democratic countries. Amnesty
International, for instance, has
reviewed more than 90 individual cases of alleged ill treatment and
excessive force by New York City Police
officers dating from 1980s to early 1996. ( AI, Police Brutality,
1999). Police brutality is getting
huge attention from the media and the international community when it
is inflicted against
minority sections of the society, prisoners and teenagers.
On the other hand,
it is obvious that police officers are legally permitted to use force
in order to dealing a disorder
elements of the society. However, certain groups alleged the police
that it may gradually develop
attitude or sense of authority over society, where the police believe
that they are above the law. The
groups mentioned this argument as the cause of police brutality.
Besides, force used
by police can be excessive despite being lawful, especially in the
context of political
repression. In fact, police brutality is often associated with
violence used by the police to achieve politically
desirable result.
There are characters
that describe the brutality of police that include:
a. excessive use of
physical or deadly force,
b. discriminatory
patterns of arrest,
c. chronic verbal
abuse of citizens including racist, sexist and homo-phobic slurs,
d. crowd control
tactic that infringe on free expression rights and lead to
unnecessary use of force.
Police brutality
,particularly when captured on video and shown on television and the
internet can divide communities.
According to the Justice Department of United States 199 report, the
use of excessive force
continues to spark community disturbance. In turn, this factor would
break a much needed bond between
the police officers and the public.
Allegation of police
brutality are often widely publicized by the news media, but
according to a 2007 story by a
newspaper called USA Today, federal records show that the vast number
of police brutality cases sent
to investigators are not prosecuted. Generally, prosecutors decline
to prosecute when there is an
lack of evidence to support the complaint.
Theories of Police
Brutality : In Brief
Research on police
brutality has used to determine the seriousness of the offences.
Based on this there are theories
developed on police brutality:
A. Situational
Theory
this theory used to
see the intensity and composition of crowd situation to determine
whether a use of force reasonable
or not. According to this theory, police officers use force against
suspects who are minority, male,
young and poor. In addition,. The use of force incidents more likely
occur if the suspect has drugs or
alcohol and resists arrest.
B. Organisational
Theory
It stated that the
police brutality is determined by the structure of a police
department. Organisational
theory is commonly associated with the relationship between police
officers in a department. Here,
job satisfaction is the sub theme that shape the police officers
attitude to use force excessively or
reasonably or necessarily.
The structure of a
police department may have para militaristic, watchman, legalistic,
service style and citizen based
policing structures. Thus, para militarists and watchman style police
organisation are tolerate use of
force. Yet, legalistic and service style polices do not easily
tolerate use of force.
Citizen based
policing such as community policing or other innovative policing
style is also negatively related
with the use of force.
C. Individual
Factor Theory
This implies that
the personal behaviour of a police officer is important to render
response to the crowd. Further, it
stated that individual are composed of specific characteristic and
demographic features that
typically include, among others, an officers race, gender, education,
years of experience and level
of stress.
HOW
POLICE BRUTALITY BE REDUCED?
There are a number
of ways used by police department to reduce police brutality. Better
training of police officers
about the handling of a crowd and if there is greater community
involvement , it could be lead to
fewer instances of police brutality. In addition, police departments
can be assertive and tough on crime
without being abusive and should emphasize tactics that are useful in
avoiding violence during
confrontations with the crowd.
According to a 19994
report from Mollen Commission, there are areas where police brutality became the rule of
the game. Based on this fact, there is a link between areas of high
police corruption and high
police brutality. The report added that excessive force was most
common found in high crime
areas, often with a high rate of drug use. Further, there is a link
between race and police brutality
to account for the high number of cases in ethnically diverse areas.
However, it is
difficult for criminologists to study police brutality since
statistic about the problem
may not always be
accurate. The reason is that many victims of police brutality go
unreported for
due to anxiety of
revenge from the police departments. Further, police officers often
adhere to a
“code of silence”
that refuse to testify against fellow officers.
Moreover, figures
show a lack of punishment in the majority of police brutality cases.
The New
York Times said
that: of the 10,149 police misconduct cases reported in Chicago
between 2002- 2004, only 19 led to
an officer suspension of a week or more.
WHAT
ARE THE CONSEQUENCES OF POLICE BRUALITY?
Police brutality is
an unfortunate and intolerable aspect of police power. The
consequences of police brutality today can
be devastating for all parties involved.
Police brutality is
most commonly associated with physical abuse though It can take many
forms.
Yet, it is also seen
during interrogations with sleep deprivations, sensory deprivation
and emotional manipulation. The
effects of emotional and mental brutality are not always physically
visible but they are long
lasting and devastating. After emotional and mental abuse, the victim
can be left feeling shame,
worthlessness, and dependency or isolation that will require years of
therapy to overcome.
On the other hand,
physical brutality can also have detrimental and long lasting effects
on a victim, especially if
internal organs or muscles are damaged. Even the police officer
herself experience negative consequence
from the brutality. After an accusation of police brutality, the
police officer will face internal
affairs investigating her life and personality. When the police
accused for brutality, she will often be
assigned to desk duty and have her gun taken. This will have an
effect on the rest of the police
officers career. The effect is true even when a police officer
accused without any true grounds. Certain
officers forced to resign due to the allegation of brutality.
Concerning to the
general public, when they learn of a case of police brutality they
are likely to become wary of the
police department and government in general. The public often fanned
by the media will
sensationalize the case. The result is obvious a police department
will have a more difficult time
getting help from the public on investigations since public distrust
will increase.
Police
Brutality and Service Delivery Protest in South Africa
"Loss of life
is not a small matter. We need to know what happened, why it
happened. Any wrongdoing must be
dealt with and corrective action must be taken. Police must act
within the ambit of the law
at all times. As we hold the police to account, we should be careful
not to end up
delegitimising them and glorify anarchy in our society."
President Jacob Zuma
Police brutality had
became more prevalent at service delivery protests in the past two
years. But cases were often
hard to solve, this is because officers are reluctant to incriminate
their colleagues, according to the
Independent Compliants Directortae (ICD). Accordingly, it is
difficult to identify the police officers
who committed abuses at protests because they wore riot masks and
fired rubber bullets, which
unlike live ammunition, cannot traced back to their weapons.
Death during the
protest will be the result of a lack of training or even simple
incompetence of the police. For
instance, this year (I.e 2014) three people were shot to death when
the police mistakenly used live
ammunition instead of rubber bullets. The police officers involved
are now facing
disciplinary action.
In other caes eye
witneses reportedly told that police shooting two protesters in
contravention of crowd management rules. The protestors (because
their water supply had been cut off for a week) in Mothotlung, near
Brits in the North West, the police used force arbitrarily, without
any provocation, and without any warning. 2
The Council for the Advancement of the
South African Constitution (Casac) called on Minstry of Police to
urgently clarify the police's position on the use of ammunition.
Accordlingly, calls for the same from the Human Rights Commission
have previously been ignored. Hence, the SAPS have to made its policy
clear on the circumstances when live ammunition may be used, and what
measures have been put in place to ensure that the constitutional
rights of the public are respected by the SAPS."
Regarding the
number, South African police have also reportedly committed to almost doubling the number
of public order police officers from 4,700 to 9,000 in response to a large number of
protests. Regrding the strategy, Police have also responded in
another, unconventional way -
by taking out advertisements in major newspapers offering advice on how to protest. For
example, they ask people to leave personal weapons at home when attending a protest.
6.
Municipal Protests
South Africa is an
extremely unequal society. The post apartheid dispensation has seen
the situation of the majority of
the working class worsening. In equality in South Africa is easily
illustrated when one observes the
massive disparities in development, service delivery and wealth
between townships and rural
areas on the one hand and suburban areas on the other.
Nationally, South
Africa faces a massive backlog in a service delivery. Some 203 out of
284 South African
municipalities are unable to provide sanitation to 40% of their
residents, just to mention one example.
It is perfectly
understandable, then, why working class and poor people take to the
streets in protest against poor and
costly service delivery provided by the municipality; It is these
residents of South Africa that are
impacted most by in sufficient and costly service delivery,
corruption and municipal management.
Municipalities
in South Africa
Municipalities or
local states are the level of state that operates at the level of
wards. Wards are
geographical areas
set up that divide provinces into smaller units. Municipal government
then
administer a group
of wards which are known as a region. Municipality leadership
consists of :
➢ Mayoral
Council- headed by a mayor,
➢ A
municipal manager and
➢
Executives Councilors lead the various local government departments
(such as Local Economic
Development, Social Development, Health and Education )
Under the layer of
executive leadership are the ward councillors, who ought to represent
the interests of
communities to the executive council and mayor.
The municipalities
are the most appropriate level of governance to carry out the
objectives ofservice delivery and
local economic development. The reasons are:
a. Municipalities
are better positioned to know what people need, since they are closer
to the
communities,
b. Municipalities
are convenient ground for participatory decision making since, they
are closer to
the community,
c. Municipalities
are the right place for implementing the national government
policies.
However,
municipalities have accused for their failure to deliver the basic
services such as water and electricity in
affordable price. Commentators said that this is because there are
rampant corruption,
incompetent and politically appointed municipal officials. A
ociologist from University of Free State said
that the lack of capacity to deliver on mandates, together with
factors such as individual political
struggles, poor communication and ineffective client interfere are
key contributors to the
surge in violent protests.
As a way out
solution, the role of traditional leaders is usually cited. Capacity
of traditional leaders must be fully
explored in assisting the municipalities in service delivery. Issues.
Traditional leaders feel left out in
most service delivery projects in their area. There is a need to
allocate roles for traditional leaders
in municipal processes as well as in rural development initiatives.
Municipal Protest and
the Police
Municipal protests
have creating a difficult task for South Africa police forces. In
most cases, protestors and the
riot police clash due to the competing g interest both of them have.
When one look at the
literatures, the news and analysis about municipal protests, it is
not difficult to read and observe the
clashing point of view of the police and the protestors. The recent
Sasolburg Municipality in
Zamedela township lessons the action of the protestors and the
reaction taken by the police results in
the death of four protestors.
Before the death
happens, the residents:
➢ Set fire
to two trucks,
➢ Throwing
stones and
➢ barricaded
the road,
➢ Injured
two police officers.
On the other hand,
the police used cannons and rubber bullets to disperse the crowd. But
this is unsuccessful and is
not enough to disperse the crowd. Then the police arrest 150 protests
and charged them with
public violence as police accused them looted shops in the townships.
The study work focus
on the service delivery protest and the criteria for police response.
In doing so, as I firmly
believe it is better to know the grass root causes for service
protest. This is the fact that criminology is
about the study, among other things, of the cause of crime.
Then, the
research work will focus on
the what extent the police will tolerate the crowd for service
delivery protest and the what criterias
police used to disperse the crowd with light methods such as watering
on the crowd, tear gas and
the like?. Further, the study will concentrate the timings and the
criteria of the police to use
legitimate force to disperse the crowd. Normally, there is arrest if
the crowd behavior is so violent, then,
the research work will use how the police identify target protestors
to arrest? Post violence
procedures such as prosecution of suspected protestors for killing
police officer, damaging or looting
property also will discuss.
“In the absence of
public electricity, a roof over your head and a running water, it it
keenly felt” an activist said.
Service delivery
refers to the basic municipal service like electricity, water and so
forth. Multi Level
Government Initiative a local NGO defined Protest as any complaint or
issue cited by prtotestors that
relates to the delivery of municipal services over which citizens
decide to actually engage in organised
public protest activity. Protest is a sign of frustration and sense
of disempowerment.
In most cases
service delivery protests initiated by the poor sections of the
society who live in
shoddy housing. In
fact, poverty is the main problem for the protest that characterised
by:
➢ dire housing
conditions,
➢
unemployment,
➢ poor
sewerage system,
➢ lack or cut
off of electricity.
The above indicated
social crises lead poor South Africans to staged more than 300
protests in the past four years.
Media 24 Investigations unit has got data from the SAPS that shows
the existence of service delivery
at least once every two days across the country since January 2009.
According to Municipal IQ
among the 3,258 service delivery protests that occur fromJanuary
2009 to
November 2012,
protests against municipal service delivery system takes the record
of 410. The protests are
either peaceful or violent. SAPS records show that Mmabatho township
in the North West province
had the highest number of service delivery protests with 301
incidents of those 190 were peaceful
and 11 were accompanied by unrest. In 2012, Western Cape become the province with the
biggest number of violent protests.
This research work
solely focus on service delivery protests which are violent that
followed police interventions to
scale down the unrest. According to Multi Level Government Initiative
2012 is the year that anger
boils over, since approximately 80% of uprisings have become more
violent. The protests are
commonly accompanied with stoning of passing cars, burning of
buildings, tyres, road blocking, looting
and burning of shops.
In such cases in
order to break up the angered crowd , the police compel to fire
rubber bullet and other means of
dispersing the crowd. It is obvious that after service delivery
protest, the media, the government,
activists, civic societies made a reaction on which the efficient
administration of municipalities or
local governments are highly criticised. Some persons, comment the
need of intervention on
municipalities from the higher state organ to improve their
structures for effective provision of basic
services.
In addition, service
delivery protests are aggravated in cases where municipal workers
went to strike. This
situation raises fears that dissatisfaction with municipal service
delivery may further increase and that
this might see a spread in protest action.
police as a security
force has the responsibility to stabilise unrest situation and to
restore peace and order. In south
Africa service delivery protests which are violent lead the police to
use force to disperse the crowd,
this is not unusual in daily news hours. Beside, police response will
be arrests for looting, public
violence and various other crimes, this is because that criminals are
exploiting the situation for
their personal gain.
In this case,
residents of a municipalities needs to cooperate with the police to
identify criminals who take advantages.
Even though protestors are angry and frustrated during this times, cooperating with the
police is absolutely critical to the society. It is unquestionable
that people have to give their time
and their resources to common societal problems.
Causes
of Service Delivery Protest at Municipal Level
The causes for
public protest has different dimensions and multi fold reasons. It
ranges from social factors to state
authority failure. Yet, dissatisfaction with the delivery of basic
municipal services are the major
reason. These basic service such as electricity, sanitation are
critical especially during winter season. The
use of electricity , for instance most severely felt in Winter to
cook foods and serving hot drinks
to cope up with the cold temperature.
On the other hand,
being a feeling of social dependent will be the reason for service
delivery protest.
Unemployment that claims 23% of South Africans to sit at home,
according to the data revealed by
Department of Labour, 2009. “ an idle brain is the work shop of
devil” is the saying that prove the
devastating effect of unemployment. The already frustrated youth
would fuel the service delivery
protest to indicate their grievance in the labour system of the
country.
Criminal intent is
also grown up in the minds of unemployed residences to use service
delivery protest as a means to get economic gain e.g by looting
shops. As the protest sustains for consecutive days, it gives the
criminals more discretion , time and idea to continue their anti
social behaviour. These criminals may systematically turn the protest
into violence. When public protest turn into violent criminal
activities, the police had to react to stop both innocent rioters and
the looters.
More to the point,
the breaking of political promises during election campaign to fight
poverty, improve
infrastructures and build house remain one of the causes for service
delivery protests at municipal level. In
fact, the state has paid its wage as it experienced service delivery
protest, immediately after
the 2004 and 2008 elections. In addition, the election month April or
May tribute to service delivery
protest , because April/May periods means immediately before winter,as indicated above,its
harsh realities exacerbate the absence of life's immediate
necessities.
Other hidden reasons
for service delivery protest is the perception of the public about
rampant corruption and
nepotism within local government structures. Certain protestors blame
poor service delivery on the
existence of the ruling party loyal members to positions for which
they are incompetent. This
argument was supported by Minister Sicelo Shiecka:
“ Many of
our municipalities are in a sate of paralysis and dysfunction and
riddled with corruption
and maladministration...there might be a need to declare a 'national
state of emergence on
municipalities.”
The other cause of
service delivery protests would rely on sociological theory. The
theory is called “frustration-aggression”
that purports public violence is the expression of frustration with
the sociopolitical situation
in a given country. The more intense and prolonged the frustration,
the greater theprobability of
aggression by the public.
Service delivery
protest against South African municipalities is due to socio
political instability if the situation
continued over long period of time, there is a probability to develop
public revolt.
Hence, proper
solutions for the socio economic conditions that exists in many
municipalities will be the solutions to
save the from the consequences of fully fledged revolt.
The absence of
public involvement in decision making can cite as another cause for
the service delivery protest. In
a democratic system every state structures expected to be transparent
and accountable to the
public. Municipal authorities ought to meet the public to hear their
grievances and concerns in the
service delivery system. This relation has got an importance to
maintain trust between the
municipality and the public. This relationship will scale down the
public protest and the police will not
deploy to solve the problem.
7. Conclusions and Recommendations
The future is clear
that protesting will continue and falsh mobs will increase. Advances
in technology (such as
cell phone , the social media) have provided protest and rally
participant with invaluable tools to
spread information to a great number of individuals in a short period
of time, resulting in larger,
more informed crowds. Waiting to develop a plan of action fro a
proper response until after a police
department receives the call that a crwod has gathered will leave
officers and the department exposed
to unnecessary danger and challnges.
Service delivery
protest has its roots abject poverty and inequality. The data
available for public access concerning to
the service delivery protest is in complete to tell us the cause,
consequence, theresponse from the
police to the protests.
Hence, it is better
to study the cause of the service delivery protest in depth. The
government must be backed up
community organisations and civic socities in its endeavour for
addressing basicmunicpal services to
the residents. In addition, the South African police must demonstrate
a keenrelationship with
the public, in order to prevent violent and criminal activities that
uses the servicedelivery protest as
their shield.
The police, also,
expected to adopt best practices from other countries that are
successful in controlling riots and protest with different tactics.
The police should understand its overreaching role in dealing with
crowds to protect their rights. And sincere attempt to work with
crowds will reduce police burden by eliminating a preventable source
of crowd anxiety and tension or fear of unwarranted police use of
force. Otherwise, as statistics shows that if service delivery
protest continue like this, there is a huge threat for outburst of
fully fledged revolution across the country.
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1Binyam
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bininabute@gmail.com or
+2743682621
2Yet,
the police defended the allegation. Police said that, they had to
"disperse" the crowd after stones were thrown at the
police, and hawkers' shops were "looted". But the police
could not clarify whether Monday's operation was a dispersal
operation or a crowd management scenario that went wrong. Experts
commented that Standing
order 262
is the police's policy on crowd policing and crowd dispersal.
However, Standing order 262 is outdated and the police pulled out of
a 2011 attempt to develop a clearer policy on the use of force.
