State Policing In Sub Saharan Africa

"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. When police in Africa fail to execute their mandate properly, the entire security system is eroded and public security is in peril. To fully play their role, state police need to be reformed, adapted, reconstructed, and guided by a new philosophy with human security at its core, to bring an appropriate response to assure citizens' security and safety. This book, adapted from the author's Ph.D. thesis, discusses the challenge."--Page 4 of cover.

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.

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.

"This book argues that strengthening policing, and the rule of law is pivotal to promoting human rights, equity, access to justice and accountability in sub-Saharan Africa. Through a multidisciplinary approach, this book considers the principles of accountability, just laws, open government, and accessible and impartial dispute resolution, in relation to key institutions that deliver and promote the rule of law in selected countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Chapters examine a range of topics including police abuse of power and the use of force, police-citizen relations, judicial corruption, human rights abuse, brutality in the hands of armed forces, and combating arms proliferation. Drawing upon key institutions that deliver and promote the rule of law in sub-Saharan African countries including, Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Nigeria, Rwanda, and South Africa, the contributors argue that strengthening policing, security and the rule of law is pivotal to promoting human rights, equity, access to justice and accountability. As scholars from this geographical region, the contributing authors present current realities and first-hand accounts of the challenges in this context. This book will be of interest to scholars of African studies, criminology and criminal justice, police studies, international law practice, transitional justice, international development, and political science"--

The use and abuse of political power in Africa has been closely related to the role and function of the police. This study explores the impact of cautious moves toward liberalization across the continent on both policing systems and the relationship between those systems and national development.

This text charts the growth of fraud and smuggling in African states, the development of an economy of plunder and the growth of private armies. It argues that the state itself is engendering organized criminal activity.

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.

Slaps in the face, kicks, beatings, and other forms of run-of-the-mill violence were a quotidian part of life in German Southwest Africa at the beginning of the twentieth century. Unearthing this culture of normalized violence in a settler colony, Violence as Usual uncovers the workings of a powerful state that was built in an improvised fashion by low-level state representatives. Marie A. Muschalek's fascinating portrayal of the daily deeds of African and German men enrolled in the colonial police force called the Landespolizei is a historical anthropology of police practice and the normalization of imperial power. Replete with anecdotes of everyday experiences both of the policemen and of colonized people and settlers, Violence as Usual re-examines fundamental questions about the relationship between power and violence. Muschalek gives us a new perspective on violence beyond the solely destructive and the instrumental. She overcomes, too, the notion that modern states operate exclusively according to modes of rationalized functionality. Violence as Usual offers an unusual assessment of the history of rule in settler colonialism and an alternative to dominant narratives of an ostensibly weak colonial state.