Multi Choice Policing In Africa

Policing is crucial to how Africans experience the freedoms of democracy and determines to a large degree the levels of economic investment they will enjoy. Yet it is a neglected area of study. Based on field research, this book reveals the surprising variety of people involved in policing besides the state police. Indeed many Africans are faced with a wide choice of public and private, legal and illegal, effective and ineffective policing. Policing in Africa is very much more than what the police do. It concerns the activities of business interests, residential communities, cultural groups, criminal organizations, local political figures and governments. How people negotiate this Smulti-choice of policing options, and the implications of this for government and donor security policy, is the subject of this book. It covers policing in all its forms in Sub-Saharan Africa, including two case studies of Uganda and Sierra Leone.

The key argument of this book is that state policing plays a vital role in the realm of security sector governance, but that African police have several failings that are direct outcomes of their historical development: they are often violent, brutal, corrupt and politicised. As institutions, Africa's national police forces still tend to resemble those established by colonial powers in their structure and conduct, and are typically mistrusted by the very people for whom they are meant to ensure security and safety.

Policing is undergoing rapid change in Africa as a result of democratization, the commercialization of security, conflicts that disrupt policing services, and peace negotiations among former adversaries. These factors combined with the inability of Africa’s state police to provide adequate protection have resulted in the continuing popularity of various forms of nonstate policing. Based on six years of field work, Professor Bruce Baker presents his findings on eight African countries in Security in Post Conflict Africa: The Role of Nonstate Policing. How well does nonstate policing work? Professor Baker’s research, gathered through interviews, observations, and focus groups, examines the complex types of law enforcement and crime prevention systems that have developed during times of political and social instability. He explores the concept of nonstate policing, explains why it dominates African security provision, describes the services provided, measures the levels of local support, and discusses issues of accountability. He examines the potential hazards of working with nonstate police and suggests ways to enhance these systems and to establish partnerships with the state police for the benefit of the citizens. Are collaborative efforts the key to security? Challenging prevailing assumptions in academic and policy circles about nonstate policing, this groundbreaking work provides insight into the optimum security model, whereby success is determined by the quality and efficacy of the security received by the people, regardless of who delivers that service. The author maintains a related website with supplemental information.

This wide-ranging collection offers fresh insights into a critical factor in development and politics on the African continent. It critically examines and illustrates the centrality of policing in transition societies in Africa, and outlines and assesses the emergence and impact of the diversity of state and non-state policing agencies.

In Police Administration in Africa, Ejakait S.E. Opolot lays the foundation for future developments and trends in police administration in the former British colonies in Africa. Opolot emphasizes the dynamism between theory and practice. As such, Police Administration in Africa establishes a model to be replicated in other parts of the Third World.

State police forces in Africa are a curiously neglected subject of study, even within the framework of security issues and African states. This work brings together criminologists, anthropologists, sociologists, historians, political scientists and others who have engaged with police forces across the continent and the publics with whom they interact to provide street-level perspectives from below and inside Africa's police forces.

The book discusses police practices in Uganda, which are understood as fluid and reflective of the socio-political, cognitive and discursive contexts within which the Uganda Police Force (UPF) exist. The author was immersed in the UPF both as an ethnographer and a consultant. The book demonstrates how police officers navigate clashes between personal interests and those of the UPF shedding more light on the divergences and convergences between policies in theory and policies in practice. It contributes to the literature on police research, especially to our understanding of policing and the anthropology of the state in Africa. It highlights that the Ugandan police engages in political policing and its role is stretched beyond its legal mandate. The target audience is twofold: first, academics interested in police studies and the undercurrents of interface bureaucracies in Africa. Second, practitioners focused on improving state and police services in African contexts.

Innovative Possibilities: Global Policing Research and Practice brings together observations that reflect upon the state of police (and policing) across the globe and associated forms of policing scholarship with inputs from Africa, Australia, South and Central America, China, Europe, and the USA. Following the introduction the book begins with a review of the nature of the relationship between policing research and practice with the Victoria Police in Australia and moves on to Britain where the focus is on how the National Improvement Strategy for Policing (NISP) is developing and how research is being used to design, define, monitor, and develop its strategic interventions using a series of case studies. In the United States the complex American terrain of the police is examined -- in particular this chapter examines how crime statistics are used to rationalize, justify, and account for their actions. In Latin America a comprehensive review of research on police reform in Latin America during the last two decades is given. Africa provides a complex and diverse social terrain which needs to be understood in relation to its plural policing landscape. Police scholarship in China looks at the historical development and current status of police scholarship in China, together with the emerging issues arising from it. The overarching concern of all these reflections is with bridging the deep seated tensions that exist between scholarship and practice within policing across the globe and the call for a new relationship of mutual respect that is committed to exploring better ways of governing security.This book was published as a special issue of Police Practice and Research.