Politics and Policing in South Africa: a Knowledge Leadership Inquiry

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How to cite this thesis

Surname, Initial(s). (2012). Title of the thesis or dissertation (Doctoral Thesis / Master’s Dissertation). Johannesburg: University of Johannesburg. Available from: http://hdl.handle.net/102000/0002 (Accessed: 22 August 2017).

POLITICS AND POLICING IN SOUTH AFRICA:

A KNOWLEDGE LEADERSHIP INQUIRY

CHRISTOFFEL JACOBUS BOTHA

920107328

MINOR- DISSERTATION

Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree

MASTER IN PHILOSOPHY in PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL

LEADERSHIP

In the

College of Business and Economics

SUPERVISOR: Prof LMM Hewitt

DECLARATION OF INTENT AND ADHERENCE

I, CHRISTOFFEL JACOBUS BOTHA, Student number 920107328, the undersigned, hereby declare that this minor-dissertation submitted by me in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the Master’s degree MPhil in Personal and Professional Leadership at the University of Johannesburg is my own original work, and that the intellectual property of the authors cited in the product was not compromised.

C. J. Botha ______PRINCIPAL RESEARCHER

______SIGNATURE Original signed and kept on file at 9 Eden Park, Witteboom Street, Hartenbos (6520).

______PLACE Completed at 9 Eden Park, Witteboom Street, Hartenbos (6520) on 4 January 2020.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Soli Deo Gloria - and this is not negotiable. Thank you, Father, that You guide me to use my talents (that You have given me) to exercise my gifts (that You have also given me). May my contributions to my environment be a pleasure to you, and may Your name be glorified through it.

My study leader, Professor LMM (Magda) Hewitt, for her continuous encouragement, wise counsel and patience with a 65-year-old student. Professor, to me you are the walking image of ethos, pathos and logos. Thank you so much for your care!

My friend and former colleague at the School of Public Leadership at Stellenbosch University (and in so many other endeavours and linkages), Professor (Emeritus) Erwin Schwella, who has created and still creates opportunities for me. Professor Schwella is, to me, the walking image of caritas.

The professors who participated in this study. Working through their narratives, I again came to understand just what giants these people really are. I have known them all for many years, spoken to them on many occasions, read them, and am humbled that they took the time off in their busy schedules to sit down and write me a story. I will continue following them, and learning from them. I hope that I do justice to their narratives in this minor-dissertation.

All the people who have had an influence on me since my birth. At my age, the list is too long to do justice to them all within the confines of this page. May the Lord bless them and keep them always.

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ABSTRACT

“Remember always, bad things happen when good people keep quiet”. (The impact of Frederik van Zyl Slabbert, through Idasa, on this researcher, c 1987).

This minor dissertation interrogates the relationship between politics and policing in South Africa and examines the issue from a perspective of Knowledge Leadership (KL).

It is a qualitative study by an indigenous outsider participant observer. The researcher is therefore mindful of subjectivity and always aware of ethical considerations. The participants are all professors at South African universities active in the broadly defined world of policing. The population was selected from a list of South African researchers active in this policing world. The list was constructed by the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) in consultation during 2016. These professors all have doctorates. They have on average 34.5 years of experience in academia and their average age is 67.1 years.

The study finds that policing in South Africa is unduly and adversely influenced by politics through the actions of politicians. It is clear and reported so in the study, that this was also the case under colonial rule, as well as under Apartheid rule. This means that the current political dispensation in South Africa more than often glibly referred to as the “democratic era” (while it is more likely a “dominant party” era), acts exactly the same as the political dispensations, and therefore the regimes, found during the colonial and Apartheid eras.

The South African Police Service (the SAPS) is a paramilitary organisation resembling a “force” in reality, and not a “service”, as its name and the foundation statutes dictate. The policing systems during the colonial and Apartheid eras were police forces, not police services.

The SAPS is instrumental in keeping a regime in power. It protects powerful political figures against thorough investigation and prosecution for alleged crimes, just as the police forces during the colonial and Apartheid eras did.

The SAPS is instrumental in the oppression of opponents to the dominant party state, just like we found under colonialism and Apartheid. The courts, civil society, academia

and the media (specifically investigative journalists) are closely watched. Many books and articles are published daily detailing corrupt and other criminal activities from within the political elite circle, yet solid SAPS action in partnership with the National Prosecution Authority is clearly missing in action. Also, while some judges, civil society actors, academics and critical journalists are subjected to the most horrible treatment that one can find, both in the public and private domains (resembling the “Stratcom” initiatives under Apartheid) in a constitutional democracy under the rule of law, none of these people are openly challenged in courts of law; and

While the SAPS support criminality to carry on unchallenged among the political elite, some members of this policing institution are actively involved in the committing of crimes in their own right – as it was under colonialism and Apartheid.

The study offers professional policing as the antithesis to this political domination of policing in South Africa. It explains professional policing not in terms of the traditional British view, that of “policing by consent” but as “accountable policing” within a “collective community responsibility”, as advanced by Shearing (as cited in Wood, 2014). According to this view, the state (for instance, to advance the point clearly, through the SAPS) should not be the owner of policing. Rather, the SAPS should be a partner in societal safety without the veto. In this respect, the problem-solving capabilities that we have within our communities on a local level are crucial. So is the multiplying effect supplied by private security as well as knowledge (based on solid, peer-reviewed research, of course) from outside of the SAPS?

The study proposes that professional policing is best served by knowledge leadership (KL) in realising the professional mandate. In this study, KL is defined and a contextual discussion provided to share more detail on the issue. The contribution of academic researchers to policing policy, rather than populist, knee-jerk political decisions, is emphasised. The idea is that peer-reviewed research be utilised to the benefit of policing policy and practices.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION OF INTENT AND ADHERENCE ...... ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...... iii

ABSTRACT ...... iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS ...... vi

LIST OF TABLES ...... xi

1 INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND ...... 1

1.1 Introduction ...... 1

1.2 Conceptualisation of Key Terms ...... 1

1.2.1 Politics ...... 1

1.2.2 Policing ...... 1

1.2.3 Leadership ...... 2

1.2.4 Inquiry ...... 3

1.2.5 Knowledge Leadership ...... 3

1.2.6 Evidence-Based Policing ...... 4

1.3 Study Concern and Focus ...... 4

1.4 Background ...... 6

1.4.1 Policing in Ancient Africa ...... 6

1.4.2 Colonialism and South African Policing ...... 6

1.4.3 Post-Colonial Policing in Africa ...... 8

1.4.4 Politics and Post-Colonial South African Policing ...... 8

1.4.5 Professional Policing ...... 13

1.5 Problem Statement ...... 15

1.6 Research Question ...... 16

1.6.1 Sub-Research Questions ...... 16

1.6.2 Research Objectives ...... 16

1.7 Motivation ...... 16

1.8 Contribution of the Research ...... 17

1.8.1 Practical Contribution ...... 17

1.8.2 Theoretical Contribution ...... 18

1.8.3 Methodological Contribution ...... 18

1.9 Ethical Considerations ...... 19

1.9.1 Role of the Researcher ...... 19

1.9.2 Ethical Dilemmas ...... 22

1.9.3 Insider-Outsider Relationship ...... 23

1.10 Structure of the Research ...... 24

1.10 Summary ...... 25

2 LITERATURE REVIEW ...... 26

2.1 Introduction ...... 26

2.2 Politics/Policing History in South Africa: A First People Perspective ...... 26

2.2.1 Our African Ancestors ...... 27

2.2.2 A Description of the First People ...... 27

2.2.3 The Out of Africa Theory ...... 29

2.2.4 Socio-Cultural Systems of The First People ...... 29

2.2.5 Concluding Remarks on Governance, Leadership and Societal Safety and Order During the Times of Our First People ...... 32

2.3 A History of South African Policing in Colonial Times: Repressive Policing .. 34

2.3.1 Defining Governance Characteristics of South African Policing in Colonial Times ...... 34

2.3.2 Defining Functional Characteristics of South African Policing in Colonial Times ...... 35

2.3.3 A History of South African Policing in The Post-Colonial Era: Apartheid Policing ...... 36

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2.3.4 Independence in Africa At the End of Colonialism ...... 36

2.3.5 Returning to the South African Situation ...... 37

2.3.6 The Quest for A Deeper Understanding of The South African Situation Regarding Politics and Policing: The Data Visible in Shearing’s Life Work in Societal Safety ...... 38

2.4 The Post-1994 Political Era of South African Policing ...... 45

2.5 Professional Policing: A Knowledge Leadership Perspective ...... 47

2.5.1 Commenting on The Characteristics of Professions for Purposes of This Dissertation...... 49

2.5.2 Linking Police Performance to Knowledge Generation and Dissemination ... 50

2.5.3 The Role of The Police in Society ...... 51

2.5.4 The Appointment of Civilian (Non-Police) People in the Post of National Commissioner of the SAPS ...... 54

2.5.5 South African Policing from A Governance Perspective ...... 55

2.5.6 Issues in Policing Leadership ...... 57

2.5.7 Enters KL ...... 57

2.6 Summary ...... 64

3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ...... 66

3.1 Introduction ...... 66

3.2 Ontology and Epistemology ...... 66

3.3 Qualitative Research Paradigm ...... 67

3.3.1 Advantages of Qualitative Research ...... 68

3.3.2 Disadvantages of Qualitative Research ...... 68

3.4 Research Method ...... 69

3.4.1 Research Setting ...... 69

3.4.2 Research Strategy ...... 69

3.5 Population and Sample ...... 69

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3.5.1 Population ...... 69

3.5.2 Sampling ...... 70

3.6 Data Collection ...... 73

3.6.1 Data Recording and Management ...... 74

3.7 Data Analysis ...... 74

3.7.1 Steps Followed in Data Analysis Processes ...... 75

3.8 Validity and Reliability in Qualitative Research ...... 77

3.9 Summary ...... 78

4 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS ...... 79

4.1 Introduction ...... 79

4.2 Emerging Themes and Findings from the Narratives ...... 79

4.2.1 Theme 1: Transformation in Societal Safety in South Africa ...... 80

4.2.2 Theme 2: Power Dynamics in Policing in South Africa ...... 90

4.2.3 Theme 3: Police and Policing Dynamics in South Africa ...... 99

4.3 Discussion of Findings ...... 107

4.3.1 In Search of a Typology of Findings ...... 107

4.3.2 Discussion of the Results of the Primary Data...... 111

4.4 Summary ...... 121

5 REFLECTIONS AND CONCLUSION ...... 122

5.1 Introduction ...... 122

5.2 Reflection on the Study ...... 122

5.2.1 South African Professors as Participants ...... 122

5.2.2 Study Limitations ...... 125

5.2.3 Lack of Previous Research ...... 126

5.3 Contribution of the Study ...... 126

5.3.1 Expanding the Literature on The Policing Body of Knowledge ...... 126

5.3.2 Recommendations for The Promotion of Knowledge Leadership ...... 127

5.3.3 Identification of Areas for Future Research ...... 128

5.4 Insights ...... 129

5.4.1 Comparing Primary and The Secondary Data ...... 129

5.4.2 Linking the Literature Review with The Themes ...... 131

5.5 Research Questions ...... 132

5.5.1 Sub-Research Question 1: What Are the Imperatives of The Current Relationship Between Politics and The Police in South Africa? ...... 132

5.5.2 Sub-Research Question 2: What is Knowledge Leadership? ...... 134

5.5.3 Sub-Research Question 3: Can Knowledge Leadership Influence the Formulation of Policing Policy in South Africa? ...... 135

5.6 Summary ...... 136

REFERENCES ...... 137

ANNEXURES ...... 146

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1.1: Types of Action Research ...... 23

Table 1.2: Banks’ Taxonomy of Participant Observer Researchers ...... 24

Table 2.1: Themes Visible in Wood (2014) ...... 39

Table 2.2: A Break-Down Of Sources Used During The Rwanda Learning Intervention ...... 50

Table 2.3: The Operational Definition of KL Explained ...... 59

Table 3.1: Profile of Participant Group ...... 71

Table 4.1: Emerging Themes from the Narratives ...... 80

Table 4.2: Categories of Police Culture Characteristics ...... 104

Table 4.3: Findings from The Primary Data at A Glance ...... 105

Table 4.4: Identifying Categories from the Findings...... 108

Table 4.5: A Typology of Findings...... 110

Table 5.1: Jansen’s Comparison of Academic Associate Professor Profile Standards Between UNISA and Other Universities ...... 123

Table 5.2: Results from The Literary Review at A Glance...... 131

Table 5.3: A Typology Of Categories, Results From The Literature, And Findings Of The Primary Data ...... 132

1 INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND

1.1 Introduction

Chapter 1 provides an in-depth background to the study. Key terms are conceptualised, the study concern and focus explained and a background to the study provided. This is followed by the purpose of the research, the problem statement and the research question with sub-questions, after which a motivation for the study is presented. The contribution of the research and its ethical considerations precede an explanation of the structure of the research as well as a brief conclusion to the chapter.

1.2 Conceptualisation of Key Terms

At this point, the key terms used in the title of this minor dissertation are conceptualised. These key terms are: Politics, Policing, Leadership, Inquiry, Knowledge Leadership (KL) and Evidence-Based Policing.

1.2.1 Politics

In this inquiry, the term “politics” is used as an umbrella term to describe political structures, political processes and politicians in all three spheres of South African government, namely, the national, provincial and local spheres. Political structures refer to the National Assembly (Parliament), provincial legislators, and municipal councils. It also refers to political parties, in power or not, and the internal party structures and processes related to it. Politicians are the people who come to power by promising to do things or undo things (Pollitt, 2003). They are the ones always mindful of civilised extortion: electorates normally do not control their political leaders in any way except by refusing to re-elect them (Ker Muir, 1983). Policy generation takes place within the environment of politics, and this is where state authority and power is exercised. For the purposes of this inquiry, the term “politics” includes political influence, based on political authority and power.

1.2.2 Policing

This inquiry concerns itself with the formal state policing actor, namely, the South African Police Service (the SAPS). It therefore does not take non-state policing actors

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in account. Accordingly, the private security industry, informal community-based policing structures and localised armed groups are not addressed in this inquiry. African policing, and therefore also South African policing, is steeped in the colonial tradition (see Section 1 above). In South Africa’s case, the political ruler was Great Britain and with this rule came an influence on policing that had a profound effect on the relationships between people in the country. The colonial police system was mainly of a paramilitary (force) nature, and its task was regime protection, oppression of the colonised and the pilfering of natural resources (Alemika & Chukwuma, 2011; Omeje & Githigaro, 2012; Rauch & Van der Spuy, 2006; Alemika, 2015; Francis, 2012). In the motherland, the position was radically different: when Sir Robert Peel charged the Metropolitan Police Act through Parliament in 1829, the British had an unarmed civilian police service which policed by consent of the community as servants of the people (Emsley, 2009). After 1910, (when South Africa became the Union of South Africa) and 1961 (when South Africa became a Republic) and following the election win by the National Party in 1948, the new regime continued the colonial system of policing. In fact, the colonial system of policing was promoted seamlessly into the Apartheid policing system (Van der Spuy, 1989). There is evidence that this is still the case – that the current policing system can be traced to the colonial system – more than two decades after our first all-franchise election and the creation of a constitutional democracy under the rule of law – and it is an objective of this study to investigate this situation further. Hills’ (2000) policing concept is used in this inquiry. The core of her definition is that policing concerns the enforcement of a state’s (or regime’s) definition of appropriate public order and behaviour, and it also refers to a de jure (if not de facto) exclusive monopoly on the use of force within a sovereign authority’s territory.

1.2.3 Leadership

For purposes of this inquiry, “leadership” means the people in leadership positions in both politics as well as in policing in South Africa. After a thorough conceptual analysis, precluded from inclusion in this dissertation because of space limitations, this researcher defines leadership as “authentic influence that integrates management systems on all levels of the organisation and creates value” (Botha, 2018, p. 11). However, this may not be an appropriate definition for the political and policing leadership under examination here. The leadership of the SAPS (with specific

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reference to former National Commissioners Selebi, Cele and Phiyega – see Chapter 2 of this minor dissertation) have been criticised intensely in a way that does not allow the researcher to include these individuals into the definition of leadership as offered above. This view is augmented by, for example, relevant literature authored by Burger (2012; 2012b), Du Plessis (2015) and Newham (2015). Given the current ruling party’s much-publicised policy of cadre deployment, it is argued here that, measured against the definition above, the status of these incumbents may more accurately be described as “in positions of leadership” rather than as “leaders”. Specifically, the references to authentic influence, integration and value creation in the definition questions these appointments. In practical terms, political leadership is limited to the national executive (the President and the Cabinet). For the purposes of this study, the SAPS leadership is limited to the past and present incumbents of the position of National Commissioner (both permanent as well as acting appointees) during the time frame 1995 (when the first National Commissioner was appointed) to the completion of the research report. This is due to the fact that these appointees are politically normative appointees, accentuating the possibility of police support for politically partisan ends.

1.2.4 Inquiry

In this study, inquiry means a seeking for truth or knowledge (Dictionary.com, 2017), or an examination into facts or principles during research (Merriam-Webster, 2017).

1.2.5 Knowledge Leadership

Cavaleri, Seivert and Lee (2005) define knowledge leadership as follows: “Knowledge Leadership is the process of using personal influence to support knowledge- development processes and integrate them with knowledge-management initiatives to achieve an envisioned future” (p. 232).

This researcher, after a thorough conceptual analysis (Botha, 2017), defined knowledge as “valid reality, ascertained through methodical and systematic inquiry from within a chosen scientific paradigm” (p. 7) and leadership as “authentic influence that integrates management systems on all levels of the organisation and creates value” (Botha, 2017: p. 11). Therefore, knowledge leadership is defined by this researcher as “authentic influence on all levels of the organisation based on valid reality, seeking to integrate knowledge development processes and knowledge

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management initiatives, and to create value to the benefit of an envisioned future” (Botha, 2017, p. 12).

When applied to the policing environment, this definition enables the utilisation of research in the development of policing policy and practice. It emphasises the role of leadership to influence all levels of the organisation towards the utilisation of research for this purpose and it therefore has the execution of professional policing as its goal.

1.2.6 Evidence-Based Policing

Sherman (2011) argues that extraordinary competence is needed to solve technically complex matters in a world that keeps increasing in its complexity. To do this, he argues that police competence must be improved to not merely focus on the police’s opinions on crime issues, but on facts derived from objective knowledge. This view by Sherman (2011) is the basis of what he calls “evidence-based policing”.

1.3 Study Concern and Focus

This study is concerned with the relationship between politics and policing in South Africa with a specific focus on the leadership imperatives of the relationship. The official state policing agency of the Republic of South Africa (“South Africa”), the South African Police Service (“SAPS”), is the focus of the research. The dissertation therefore does not cover non-state actors, such as the private security industry, in the South African societal safety environment.

Whereas the focus is on the SAPS and therefore on policing, the SAPS executes its societal role as part of the bigger governance picture in South Africa. Therefore, it is in a relationship with the criminal justice system (the latter system consists of the police, the courts [inclusive of the National Prosecuting Authority, the NPA] and the correctional system) as well as several other official state agencies. These include intelligence services such as the State Security Agency (SSA) and the Military Intelligence Division of the South African National Defence Force (SANDF). It is also in a relationship with policing structures in other spheres of government, such as various metropolitan police services, traffic police services (such as local, provincial and national traffic agencies) and the Military Police Division of the SANDF. One could also add the investigative units of other state actors in the relationship, such as units that may exist at the South African Revenue Service (SARS). In this regard, the

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Commission of Inquiry into Tax Administration and Governance by SARS (the “Nugent Commission” after the chair, Judge Nugent) recommended that SARS re-establish its former capacity to monitor and investigate illicit trades (such as the cigarette trade), on 11 December 2018. An important and very powerful part of the SAPS’s organisational structure is the Directorate of Priority Crimes Investigation (DPCI, commonly known as the Hawks). Should this directorate be negatively influenced by political role players, for instance by appointing political elite–friendly people in positions of leadership with the purpose of protecting such an elite rather than focusing on its legal mandate, it may result in corrupt members of the political elite not getting their day in court.

It stands to reason that adverse behaviour from any of these structures may affect policing negatively, especially so if such behaviour is the result of adverse political influence. It is a submission of this dissertation that good public leadership, political and agency-wise (that is, in the police agency), is an essential ingredient to promote societal safety in a constitutional democracy under the rule of law. Further, it will be argued that knowledge leadership (KL) may be a most useful way to positively influence policing policy in favour of societal safety in a constitutional democracy under the rule of law.

To be able to do this, one will of necessity have to look at the historical development of policing, in tandem with political developments, in Africa as described in the literature. To this end, cognisance must be taken of “policing” in ancient Africa (early populations did not know the word), colonial policing, post-colonial policing and the current state of affairs. These will then be explored and focused on in terms of South Africa.

Very little is known about policing in ancient Africa, since an oral history is difficult to ascertain conclusively. The written history is widely believed to start with the colonial period. However, it is possible to report on the ancient and colonial African policing history from available sources.

The importance of people (The Bill of Rights, Chapter 2 of the Constitution, 1996) rather than the importance of an organisation, such as a political party, is an important aspect of policing a constitutional democracy under the rule of law. This refers to the debate of police independence from politics and cadre deployment by the political elite.

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The findings by Kruger and Dunning (1999) are particularly of interest, if applied to cadre deployment: an inability to recognise one’s own incompetence leads to inflated self-assessment.

1.4 Background

1.4.1 Policing in Ancient Africa

During the ancient existence, control over the behaviour of people was not centralised; instead, it was exercised by small groups, such as families and other groups (Alemika & Chukwuma, 2011, Van Heerden, 1976). In pre-colonial Ghana, the maintenance of peace and order was territorially defined according to ethnic group, in which traditional chiefs played the key role (Fye, as cited in Alemika & Chukwuma, 2011). The great civilisations of Africa (Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kush, Mali, Mapungubwe, Monomotapa, Songhay, the Zulu Kingdom) were, apart from the exotica surrounding them, also known for their systems of societal control (Michigan State University, 2012). According to Lippert (2012), no clear evidence of written laws existed before the Middle Kingdom (2013-1640 BCE), while Cornelius (2014) reports that Egypt’s ancient form of societal control also included the guarding of the tombs of the Pharaohs. Many of the most powerful rulers of Africa had men available to them whose roles may be compared to order maintenance in society (Goody, as cited in Hills, 2000). However, the arrival of colonialism would have a determining effect on policing in Africa, and therefore also in South Africa.

1.4.2 Colonialism and South African Policing

It is appropriate to start the interrogation of the relationship between politics and policing by reflecting on colonialism. As briefly discussed above, this does not mean that rule-making and obedience to the rules did not exist in ancient Africa, including South Africa. Evidence of this is appearing consistently (Botha, 2018).

However, colonialism affected the continent of Africa, and therefore also South Africa, pertinently in the sense that it brought with it a totally foreign view of the world, of foreign views on rules and of written records of this strange legal system (Alemika, 2015; Baker, 2014; Botha, 2014; 2015 & 2018; Hills, 2000). South Africa’s policing system reflects the influence of its colonial master, the United Kingdom of Great Britain

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and Northern Ireland, commonly referred to as England, Britain, or the UK. The terms used in this dissertation will be “Britain” or “British”, as the text dictates.

The policing discourse in Britain has been, and still is, that of a professional police service which is independent of the government and general political interference (Hills, 2000; Oxford Policing Policy Forum, 2009; Reiner, 2010). During colonial times however, the British brought to South Africa a policing system that can be described as a paramilitary force and not a civil service. The British therefore did not establish a policing system in South Africa that would mirror the unarmed civil police service that it introduced for itself with the approval of the London Metropolitan Police Act of 1829 (Botha, 2014; 2015; Hills, 2000). In fact, in their original colony, the Cape Colony (today known as the Western Cape Province, combined with parts of the current Eastern Cape Province), the idea of a paramilitary police force was strongly practised (Botha, 2015; Davenport, 1991; Krüger, 1969). Issues of language and politics (English being proclaimed as the only official language in the Cape, citizenship granted to South Africa’s ancient people and the freeing of slaves) led to resistance by some Afrikaans-speaking farmers, who then left the Cape Colony (thereafter called Voortrekkers on the Great Trek (Botha, 2015; Davenport, 1991; Krüger, 1996). These paramilitary police force model was also followed when the Voortrekker Republic of Natalia (the current Province of KwaZulu-Natal) was annexed as a British colony (Botha, 2015; Davenport, 1991; Krüger, 1996). This practice was extended to the Zuid- Afrikaansche Republiek (also referred to as “the Transvaal”, displaying parts of the current provinces of Gauteng, North West, Mpumalanga and Limpopo) and the Orange Free State Republic (primarily the current Free State Province) after the Anglo-Boer War that was fought between these two Voortrekker republics and Britain between October 1899 and May 1902 (Botha, 2015; Davenport, 1991; Krüger, 1969; this war is also referred to as the Boer War or the South African War, Botha, 2015). When the Union of South Africa was established in 1910, settlements of English- speaking people and British political supremacy were firmly entrenched (Botha, 2015). The British system of policing the colony continued after unification (Botha, 2015).

It is important to understand that the structure and functions of policing agencies in Africa are direct results of Africa’s colonial rule. It was a military model of policing, aimed at conquest, repression and regime protection. It was centralised, corrupt, brutal, effective at the repression of public disorder, but ineffective in the prevention

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and investigation of crimes; it spawned a hostile police-community relationship rather than a partnership; and the general view of the public was that the police were dishonourable and treacherous (Rauch & Van der Spuy, 2006; Emsley, 2009; Alemika, 1998; Francis, 2012).

1.4.3 Post-Colonial Policing in Africa

This colonial model of policing was bound to survive seamlessly into the era of Africa’s independence from colonial rule (most African states gained independence during the 1960s) as the new rulers copied this system. Regime protection, oppression and corruption prevailed through brutal, military-typed police forces (Alemika, 2015). In fact, Flint (1993) notes this final paradox as typical of the ironies of decolonisation. Isima (Alemika & Chukwuma, 2011), for instance, reports that the police force in Nigeria is subservient to political control, regime protection and the abuse of power in favour of the political elite. In the Gambia, political interference and political patronage is a major challenge (Fye, as cited in Alemika & Chukwuma, 2011). For Hills (2000), the police in Africa are either too useful or too dangerous to be disposed of by regimes. The former, the usefulness of the police, is a direct reference to regime protection, which Baker (2014) addresses by stating that insecure regimes in Africa look to the state police for support.

Neo-patrimonial rule, which is also described as Big Man Rule in Africa (Rauch & Van der Spuy, 2006; Cooper, 2014) remains a core feature of African politics, inclusive of the relations between the Big Man and his followers (Hills, 2000). Individuals would seek out “big men” for protection and advancement (Hills, 2000) and one can expect the police to be very close to the political elite, thereby negating equality before the law and non-partisan service delivery (Rauch & Van der Spuy, 2006). The opposite of neo-patrimonial rule is about not clinging to power, exemplary conduct and respect for human rights (Cooper, 2014).

1.4.4 Politics and Post-Colonial South African Policing

In order for the relationship between politics and the police in South Africa to be addressed to its fullest extent, it is necessary to take South Africa’s unique historiography into account. As such, the narrative will address the global issues in the politics-police relationship with specific reference to South Africa’s Anglophone

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position in the policing environment, before describing the South African politics/policing relationship.

In general, the relationship between the political and policing contexts in British society is typically part of an ongoing discourse – a consistent inquiry as to the influence of politicians in policing, and of the influence of the police in politics (Hills, 2000; Oxford Policing Policy Forum, 2009; Reiner, 2010). The police are inherently political and should, as a public service, be open to political influence (Reiner, as cited in Oxford Policing Policy Forum, 2009).

The same sentiments are visible from Australia, where the policing system is also based on the British model and where it is argued that policing is political by its very nature as a public service because of its constitutional position (it is under the direction of a Minister in the cabinet) and because they may be directed to enforce or not enforce a law decided by Parliament (Finnane, 1990).

Coupled to this is the view that the police are historically the instruments of the dominant forces in society (Finnane, 1990). However, this does not mean that the police are politicised, referring to a state where policing issues are politically controversial and where the police themselves are regularly involved in the party- political arena (Reiner, as cited in Oxford Policing Policy Forum, 2009). In such a state, the community may see the police as partisan, which will affect the trust and the legitimacy placed in the police by the public (Reiner, as cited in Oxford Policing Policy Forum, 2009). In this respect, Ker Muir (1983) warns that an unbecoming relationship between the police and politics may be dangerous to democratic processes: the police have access to police intelligence which can be used to harass and blackmail political opponents.

The police should therefore not be politicised in the sense that the police are working to the advantage of a particular political party or sectional interest, or that party political interests could influence police appointments, or that the appointees are of a certain political viewpoint (Oxford Policing Policy Forum, 2009).

The description above of the international sentiments (especially from the view of colonialism) and the African continental history, paves the way for the following discussion: that of policing in South Africa.

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South Africa’s history shows political interference, bias and oppression as a major characteristic of policing under Apartheid (Cawthra, 1993; Rauch & Van der Spuy, 2006; Botha, 2014). In fact, Cawthra (1993) labels Apartheid policing as a typical example of policing in a police state, with the following features: a paranoid fear of opposition; political intolerance; invasion of privacy; and the “midnight knock on the door” (a reference to the laws allowing the police to banish, restrict, detain without trial, and intimidate, and which facilitated the possibilities of torture; p. 15).

As with the other African regimes, South Africa also experienced Flint’s (1993) final paradox as a typical irony of decolonisation. The South African Police (SAP) under National Party rule (and thus under Apartheid) displayed the same characteristics as the paramilitary model that the British utilised here during colonial times; regime protection, repression of some and corruption were clearly visible (Van Vuuren, 2017).

In all fairness, and from the experience of 47 years in policing at the time of writing, this researcher does not hesitate to state unequivocally that this state of affairs was not supported by all of the commissioned officers and members of the SAP. Some policing servants of all South Africa’s people, the disenfranchised included, viewed the people as more important than the rulers’ political policies and executed their duties accordingly.

Given the brief history above, it is clear that the policing system in South Africa was no stranger to political interference. In fact, it was dictated by political ideology. This argument is discussed in more detail in Chapter 2 of this dissertation, specifically with respect to the Apartheid laws that governed everyday life in South Africa. From a governance perspective, some legal prescripts now demand attention. These are described in the following paragraphs.

An escorting phenomenon of dictation by political ideology is found in the system of linkage between policing and military functions in South Africa. According to Dippenaar (1988), the military style of policing was entrenched in law: Section 8 of the Police Act, 1912 (Act 14 of 1912, through which the SAP was formed from various other police forces on 1 April 1913) determined that the SAP could be deployed in case of war or any other emergency, inside or outside of the union. In practice, from the perspective of a participant observer, the outcome of this linkage was that the SAP policed the black townships and areas from a military perspective – and this perspective centred

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around maximum force (which is a guiding doctrine of military forces) while the police in society should work in terms of minimum force (the least force required to do the work of policing, starting with dialogue). The police were therefore utilised in a “war” against subjects of the state who were in opposition to the government of the day, while war should only be directed to risks from outside the borders of a state to safeguard the sovereignty of the state against forceful and unwanted takeovers. This approach (linkage between policing and military interventions) was also followed in the Police Act, 1958 (Act 7 of 1958) which was promulgated as a result of political changes (Dippenaar, 1988) four years before the establishment of the Republic of South Africa on 31 May 1961. At the time that the Republic was established, the SAP was already utilised to police political opponents of the Apartheid state (Botha, 2014). South Africa’s political history informed Section 205 of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996, as well as the South African Police Service Act, 1995 (Act 68 of 1995). This act followed our first full franchise election, in April 1994, during which the African National Congress (ANC), as a former liberation movement fighting against white domination, became the new government. A real attempt was made to focus the new South African Police Service (SAPS) on its policing function as a service to the people of the country. However, political influence again starting creeping into our policing system from the year 2000. This theme will be unpacked in Chapter 2 of this dissertation. Suffice to say at this point that evidence of political interference with policing in South Africa is visible in the public domain.

During South Africa’s period of transformation after 2 February 1990 (the date of then State President De Klerk’s mostly unexpected announcement of the unbanning of opposing political structures and the release of political prisoners at the opening of Parliament), we aimed to create a police service that would serve all South Africans equally through maintaining a balance between the political independence (impartiality) of the police, and the issue of the government giving “direction” to the police (Rauch & Van der Spuy, 2006).

Therefore, three devices were created to manage the relationship between police leaders and political leaders (Rauch & Van der Spuy, 2006): our law makes a distinction between the role of the minister (to give direction to the police) and the National Commissioner of the South African Police Service (the SAPS), whose role is to command the police agency; police accountability meant that the police were

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required to answer for their decisions and actions to a range of institutions and oversight bodies; this accountability counterbalances the professional independence of the police; and the Minister would be advised not only by police officials, but also by civilian policy units (national and provincial secretariats for safety and security) for politicians to make informed policy choices.

These sentiments are visible in the highest law of our country, the Constitution (1996). Political responsibility for policing rests with a member of the Cabinet (Section 206 (1) of the Constitution, 1996). According to Section 207 (1) of the Constitution, 1996, the President of the Republic of South Africa appoints a woman or a man as the National Commissioner (“the National Commissioner”) of the South African Police Service (SAPS). The President does this in his capacity as head of the national executive. The National Commissioner is expected to “exercise control over and manage the police service in accordance with the national policing policy and the directions of the Cabinet member responsible for policing” (Section 207 (1) of the Constitution, 1996).

As far as the police and politics are concerned, the Constitution (1996) is clear, as follows below:

“No employee of the public service may be favoured or prejudiced only because that person supports a particular political party or cause” (Section 197 (3) of the Constitution, 1996 – employees of the SAPS are also employees of the public service); and “The security services of the Republic consist of a single defence force, a single police service and any intelligence services established in terms of the Constitution” (Section 199 (1) of the Constitution, 1996); “Neither the security services, nor any of their members, may, in the performance of their functions, prejudice a political party interest that is legitimate in terms of the Constitution, or further, in a partisan manner, any interest of a political party” (Section 199 (7) of the Constitution, 1996).

In retrospect, South Africa found a way of balancing the influence of politics in policing, and the influence of the police in politics. However, we are now in a situation in which we need to revisit the practical execution of our erstwhile balancing node. This view finds support in the sentiments addressed by Ramphele (2012): in a somewhat

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scathing article, she calls on the current government to replace struggle politics with true democratic governance.

The SAPS is inherently part of the political landscape, since a member of Cabinet (the Minister of Police) is responsible for policing and the determination of national policing policy (Section 206 of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996 (“the Constitution, 1996”). The President of South Africa appoints the National Commissioner of the SAPS who is responsible for controlling and managing the SAPS (Section 207 of the Constitution, 1996). However, being part of the political landscape differs from the term “politicised policing”; the latter refers to a state in which the police is regularly involved in the political arena in a politically controversial manner. Examples of this may be working to the advantage of a particular political party, or when political interest may influence internal policing management decisions, such as influencing appointments (Oxford Policing Policy Forum, 2009). The opposite argument is that the police should be a professional entity guided by professional leadership exercising professional judgement and expertise (Oxford Policing Policy Forum, 2009). Professional policing is introduced in the next paragraph.

1.4.5 Professional Policing

Different definitions of professional policing exist (Institute for Security Studies, 2012), but one factor is visible in all of the definitions: professional policing indicates an effective partnership between policing practitioners and policing researchers (Weisburd & Neyroud, 2011; Institute for Security Studies, 2012). The policing discourse in Britain, given colonial Britain’s influence on South Africa’s policing system, as described above, is around evidence-based policing (Sherman, 2013). This concept argues that policing policy and operational decisions should be made on the basis of research results and therefore indicates a relationship between policing researchers and policing practitioners (Sherman, 2013), which is the defining factor of professional policing. This researcher, as a participant observer, frequently finds that police officials are sceptical of research and researchers. They are put off by the technicalities of research and often believe that research is very difficult and the preserve of academics. Yet there are interesting similarities between research and crime investigation. In the Netherlands, for instance, the Dutch word for “investigator” is rechercheur. Rechercheur has its origins in the French word recherché, which

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means “to investigate” (Van Craenendonck, 2016). Rechercheur also compares favourably with the English word “researcher”. The researcher searches for the truth (epistemology) through a specific and systematic way of doing things (methodology) and by describing, explaining and evaluating phenomena in the world (ontology). So does the police investigator, and then mostly through a combination of both qualitative (interpretivist and phenomenological) and quantitative (positivist) research paradigms. Police officials, because of their development and their understanding of their craft, should therefore not have a problem with research. In fact, the valuable contribution of research to the practice of policing should be understood and embraced.

It is a submission of this dissertation that knowledge leadership (KL) can play an important part in the evidence-based policing debate: it can certainly find itself under the umbrella of thinking around evidence-based policing. It can also make a contribution to evidence-based policing in that it highlights the influence aspect of leadership to the extent that both police leaders as well as academic leaders could influence (not manipulate) the partnership between practitioners and researchers to the benefit of policing policy. The end in mind would be that the community will benefit from the policy so developed and, consequently, from policing in a constitutional democracy under the rule of law. This view will be explored in more detail in Chapter 2 of this minor dissertation.

This relationship or partnership between policing researchers and policing practitioners is not typically created automatically. Although the degree Baccalaureus Artium in Police Science, the BA (Pol) degree, was introduced at the University of South Africa in 1972, it took a concerted effort by police and academic leaders to establish the relationship between policing practitioners and policing academics to achieve results (Dippenaar, 1988). The eventual goal was police professionalism through knowledge generation and dissemination (Van Heerden, 1979). However, nearly 40 years later, Alemika (2009) bemoans the fact that African policing agencies do not use policing research results effectively in the development of appropriate policing policies and practices.

In fact, Murunga (as cited in Liebenberg, Ed, 2012) argues that we (Africa) “do not see the essential connection between leadership and knowledge as a crucial precondition for growth, reconstruction and excellence” (p. 32). This link (between police practitioners and policing academics) is explored as knowledge leadership (KL),

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defined as follows: “Knowledge Leadership is the process of using personal influence to support knowledge-development processes and integrate them with knowledge- management initiatives to achieve an envisioned future” (Cavaleri et al., 2005, p. 232).

1.5 Problem Statement

A research problem “refers to some difficulty that the researcher experiences in the context of either a theoretical or practical situation and to which he or she wants to obtain a solution” (Welman, Kruger & Mitchell, 2005: p. 14). This researcher experiences difficulty in the police/politics relationship in South Africa to which there does not seem to be a readymade solution.

From the discourse in this chapter so far, one can safely state that the politics/police relationship in South Africa is in trouble. More so, evidence exists that this type of relationship is not new: it was practised during the colonial period as well as during the Apartheid eras. A solution could therefore address an old problem in the African policing environment, which has not been addressed satisfactorily yet and demands attention more than ever, given the imperatives of a constitutional democracy under the rule of law. Emerging evidence indicates that the relationship between some members of the political elite and the SAPS is improper (a view that will be explored in more detail in Chapter 2). This state of affairs is consistently seen as counterproductive to the ideals of a constitutional democracy under the rule of law and, indeed, embodies the risk of state capture by political groups in the country.

Coupled to the adverse and improper nature of this relationship is the issue of appointees in the police environment in South Africa. Although the public sector has developed over the years from a simple focus on service delivery to business in some areas of public work (the state-owned enterprises), clear distinctions between public- sector and private-sector managers are visible in the literature (Pollitt, 2003; Andersen, 2010; Hansen & Villadsen, 2010), mostly based on high symbolic significance and expected higher degrees of fairness, honesty, openness and accountability (Pollitt, 2003). Frederickson (Schwella, 2013) talks to the contextual nature of leadership, and the importance of the governmental context, by stating that great leaders are not able to lead effectively in just any setting; great leadership needs “a deep substantive knowledge of the technological and bureaucratic characteristics of the specific setting in which leadership is expected” (p. 68). In essence, this becomes an issue of debate

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on police independence from politics, on the one hand, and cadre deployment by the political elite on the other, as mentioned earlier. Again, the findings of Kruger and Dunning (1999) are of interest, if applied to cadre deployment: an inability to recognise one’s own incompetence leads to inflated self-assessment.

The research problem is now stated as follows: an adverse and improper relationship between political role players and the state police actor in the South Africa Police Service (the SAPS) is a matter of concern, more so as no clear solution to this concern is available at present. This relationship needs to be described adequately, and a solution needs to be offered for a discourse in the public domain.

1.6 Research Question

Thus, the main question this research study needs to answer is: to what extent can KL influence the relationship between politics and policing in South Africa?

1.6.1 Sub-Research Questions

• What are the imperatives of the current relationship between politics and the police in South Africa? • What is KL? • Can KL influence the formulation of policing policy in South Africa?

1.6.2 Research Objectives

• To determine the imperatives of a relationship between politics and the police in South Africa, • To explore the concept KL, • To explore the possibility that KL may influence the formulation of policing policy in South Africa.

1.7 Motivation

The policing system that we have worked so hard on since 2 February 1990 (Rauch, Levin, Lue, & Ngubeni, 1994; Botha, 2012), slowly started to re-militarise from about 1999, after the retirement of former President Mandela. Problems within the crime intelligence environment made commentators severely uncomfortable and by April

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2010 the rank structure was changed back to a military structure, as it was under colonialism and Apartheid. The death of Andries Tatane (April 2011), the Marikana shootings (August 2012) and the death of Mido Macia (February 2013) reminded us about the excesses of colonial and Apartheid policing (Botha, 2015, Marinovich, 2016).

This researcher has pointed out above (citing among others Flint, 1993; Alemika, 1998; Rauch & Van der Spuy, 2006; Emsley, 2009; Francis, 2012; Botha, 2014) that the characteristics of colonial and Apartheid policing effectively mirrored each other. Former State President De Klerk’s 1990 announcement gave South Africa the opportunity to rectify this and therefore to create a real civilian police service, rather than to repeat the final colonial paradox in our new constitutional democracy under the rule of law.

The re-militarisation of the SAPS is in direct contrast to the post-1990 transformation and South Africa runs the risk of returning to the politically defined suppressive police force of colonialism and Apartheid. In fact, some commentators argue that South Africa is again a police state (Nicholson, 2013; Bezuidenhout, 2016). These two authors cite brutality, humiliation, impudence and intimidation as characteristics of this police state. Re-militarisation is also against the imperatives of the National Development Plan (Schwella, 2015) which aims to (again) demilitarise the SAPS.

The discourse on politicised policing and professional policing, and the defining role of KL in professional policing is an effort to steer clear of the final colonial paradox by advancing a different position. It is also aimed at shedding some light on the role of politics in the appointment of the National Commissioner of the SAPS, given our experience with bad public leadership under three non-police appointees by the President.

1.8 Contribution of the Research

Three areas of research contribution are presented below in terms of practical, theoretical, and methodological contributions.

1.8.1 Practical Contribution

The study could contribute to creating an awareness (among politicians, policing practitioners and civil society) of the advantages of policing research, rather than

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political ideology, in the determination of policing policy in South Africa. This may have a positive effect at the ground level where policing operations are conducted, such as a different outcome to, for instance, incidents such as the shootings at Marikana (Marinovich, 2016). Coupled to the quest for police professionalism, the study may be instrumental in influencing education, training and development of South African police officials.

1.8.2 Theoretical Contribution

It is anticipated that KL may affect research-based policing policy in a manner conducive to the imperatives of a constitutional democracy under the rule of law, the current state of affairs in South Africa. This anticipation may extend to the expectations of South African citizens in a manner more acceptable than policing policy based upon political ideology. This anticipation is augmented by South Africa’s history, when policing policies were traditionally made on the basis of either colonial or Apartheid political thinking.

It is further anticipated that research of this nature is particularly useful in policing education, training and development. The results may, for instance, be published in peer-reviewed journals, and written up as case studies or role plays for learning purposes. Consequently, the purpose of the study is:

• To describe the current politics and police relationship in South Africa; • To explore KL as a theoretical term; and • To explore the extent to which KL may influence the formulation of policing policy in South Africa.

1.8.3 Methodological Contribution

The study is therefore both explorative as well as descriptive (Babbie, 2010; Du Plooy- Cilliers, Davis & Bezuidenhout, 2014). It is explorative since it aims to explore an area still under-researched (the influence of KL on politics and policing in South Africa) and descriptive since it aims to describe this phenomenon while exposing the relationships between policing practitioners and policing researchers.

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1.9 Ethical Considerations

Research typically takes place within a framework of ethical practice (Creswell, 1994; Collis & Hussey, 2003; Heppner & Heppner, 2004; Punch, 2004; Welman et al., 2005). It is important to protect the anonymity of participants (Creswell, 1994; Welman et al., 2005). In this study, although the political and policing situation in South Africa seems to be receiving attention at the time of writing (April 2019), the possibility of political or police violence may not be ignored and the researcher is careful not to put participants at risk. Although a description of the population may lead to knowledgeable insiders deducing possible identities, the names and individual responses of these individuals will not be divulged. The right of participants to decide voluntarily whether they want to participate or not was respected (Creswell, 1994; Punch, 2004) and for this purpose the study was explained in detail in the documentation used for the story. Consent was noted formally with the decision of participants to take part in the study. The results of the study will be shared at completion (Creswell, 1994). As far as ethical considerations go, one should explore the role of the researcher.

1.9.1 Role of the Researcher

1.9.1.1 A short curriculum vitae of the researcher.

The researcher was a career police official and is still involved in policing, mainly in research and policing education, training and development. The year 2019 marks an involvement of 47 years in the field of policing. To date, the researcher has worked in the field of policing in 18 countries on three continents. He served:

• In the former South African Police (SAP) for 16 years; • At the University of South Africa (Unisa) as a lecturer in the Department of Criminology for eight years (undergraduate as well as postgraduate work); • In the South African Police Service (SAPS) for 11 years in the Senior Management Service until retirement at the end of June 2006, with the rank of Assistant Commissioner (the current rank of Major General); and • As a researcher, author and facilitator of higher education for 13 years, since retirement from the SAPS, at both a private provider of higher education (Southern Business School) and at the School of Public Leadership (SPL) at the University of Stellenbosch.

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In Africa, as a continent and apart from South Africa, he has worked in Botswana (at the International Law Enforcement Academy), the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mozambique (at the police university ACIPOL), Namibia, Rwanda (at the Rwanda National Police College) and South Africa. During December 2016, the researcher attended, on invitation, a week-long workshop at the African Union Commission (AUC) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia where he was exposed to representatives of all five African policing regions. The workshop was organised by the Peace Support Operations Division (PSOD) of the African Union Commission. At the end of the workshop, the researcher was requested to serve as external moderator of policing policy in peace support operations.

He has published extensively on policing and has three books currently in print, through MacMillan-Troupand publishers. These books are prescribed as textbooks in the National Certificate (Vocational): Safety in Society on National Qualifications Framework levels 2, 3 and 4. Twenty academic articles (four of them in peer-reviewed journals) and five chapters in books (published by four publishers, namely Oxford University Press SA, Butterworth’s, HSRC Publishers SA, LexisNexis) have appeared over the years. Currently, he has one chapter in a book in progress (through Pearson publishers).

The researcher regularly delivers papers on policing themes at national and international conferences. To date, he has delivered six papers at international conferences and ten papers at national conferences. He is a moderator for Umalusi, the South African quality assurer for general and further education on the National Certificate (Vocational): Safety in Society, since 2010. He regularly facilitates learning in the country, the region and on the continent. The South African Police Service Star for Outstanding Service (with post-nominal title SOE, Stella Officii Egregii) was awarded to the researcher for “outstanding service rendered through exceptional resourcefulness, leadership, and sense of duty”.

1.9.1.2 This researcher as a participant observer: arguing the case for the indigenous outsider participant observer

Natural scientists (positivists and mostly quantitative researchers) have nothing in common with their research objects, such as minerals and plants. Interpretivist social researchers, however, as anti-positivists and mostly qualitative researchers, are in

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reality part of society (community of people) and can identify with communal problems experienced by fellow people (Dwyer & Buckle, 2009). Interpretivists do not withdraw as far as possible from the research situation to avoid being biased, as positivists do, but become absorbed in the research situation (Welman et al., 2005). They are therefore not merely disinterested and laboratory-like objective recording machines but pursue a relationship of mutual trust and honesty with their research subjects (Babbie & Mouton, 2001). This situation has led to some tension between qualitative and quantitative researchers, an increasing “war of words” (Babbie & Mouton, 2001). Eventually, it was shown that qualitative research has its philosophical and epistemological roots in prominent metatheories, such as phenomenology, symbolic interaction and existentialism. From this point onwards, researchers could look into the possibility of the two approaches complementing each other (Babbie & Mouton, 2001) and focus on expanding qualitative research.

Observation is a common theme in both quantitative as well as qualitative research. Two types of observation are found in qualitative research, namely, simple observation (the researcher remains an outside observer) and participative observation. With the latter, the researcher has two roles: he or she is simultaneously a member of the group be studied and a researcher doing the study (Babbie & Mouton, 2001).

The anti-positivist approach is most clearly evident in participant observation (Welman et al., 2005; De Vos, Strydom, Fouché & Delport, 2005). In participant observation, the researcher is not a detached outsider, but a first-hand insider, thereby becoming a member of the inner circle of the group that is being studied. (Welman et al., 2005). According to Welman et al. (2005), participant observers must be able to do the following: share the experiences of the group members they are studying; understand the life-world of the group members they are studying; see things from the perspective of the group members they are studying; and unravel the meaning and significance of the life-world of the group members they are studying (p. 195).

As such, participant observers are in reality part of the group, but they have the added role of observing and recording their experiences (De Vos et al., 2005). The latter may become difficult as the participant observer may become so engrossed in the activities within the group that they abandon their role of observing and recording, which may have a negative effect on the research (Welman et al., 2005).

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1.9.2 Ethical Dilemmas

Ethical dilemmas may occur, for instance when the participant observant, through normal observations during the research, uncovers illegal activity and has to make a decision to either keep quiet (and become an accessory to crime) or to report and run the risk of being rejected or ex-communicated by the group (Babbie & Mouton, 2001). Another ethical dilemma arises when the research is done covertly (secret) rather than overtly (transparent). Babbie and Mouton (2001), however, also refer to the possibility that covert research may be in some cases the only way through which to learn more about a specific group, such as when police violence is studied (p. 293).

While the “wars” (Babbie & Mouton, 2001) between quantitative and qualitative researchers over the merits of participant observation raged, a third paradigm emerged: the participatory action research (PAR) paradigm. PAR refers to a co- ownership of research between the researcher and the researched, between the researcher and the subject, as a mutual activity with respect to both process as well as the product of the research (Babbie & Mouton, 2001). It argues that the aspirations of academics to produce knowledge without the knowledge (so produced) being useful in the context from within which it was produced is folly. The importance of knowledge is therefore, not only epistemological, but linked to various contexts for application in practical problem situations (Babbie & Mouton, 2001). According to Reason (in Babbie & Mouton, 2001), PAR therefore means that “social scientists must let go of their control of the research process and engage with ‘insiders’ as full co-researchers” (p. 61), thereby rejecting the separation of researcher and the researched. This is key to this dissertation, since it will be argued later that the objectives of PAR correspond to the epistemological and contextual view of KL.

PAR, as described above, is seen as a form of action research. Action research is defined as a way of generating knowledge about a social system with the view of changing that system (Babbie & Mouton, 2001), or investigating societal problems and finding practical solutions for these problems (Du Plooy-Cilliers et al., 2014). Du Plooy- Cilliers et al. (2014) point out that action research can even be defined more accurately in order to apply a more appropriate type to investigate a particular phenomenon. They therefore identify four types (p. 198) which are presented in Table 1.1 below.

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Table 1.1: Types of Action Research

TYPE CHARACTERISTICS Technical action research To improve the effectiveness of certain practices. Collaboration with participants is an absolute necessity. Practical action research To study a local problem in which the researcher is directly involved. To identify and implement a plan of action. Reflect upon the action. Make suggestions for improvement if necessary. Participatory action research To study social issues that constrain individual lives. To take action that will lead to changes in the lives of participants. Collaboration with participants is an absolute necessity. Emancipatory action research To transform or change existing societal boundaries, conditions and systems. The focus is on changing the system itself. Adapted from Du Plooy-Cilliers et al. (2014)

PAR augments the original view of action research by according some people in that social system, the insiders, co-researcher status (Babbie & Mouton, 2001). These insider co-researchers are thus placed in a position where they can assist in the quest of creating a better world for all in that system.

So far in the discourse it may seem that the participant observer approach, as detailed above, may not be the real role of this researcher in this study. The researcher is technically not part of the SAPS anymore, as he has retired from the SAPS 13 years prior to this study. He is therefore not directly involved with the SAPS. The researcher is also not using the officials working in the SAPS as subjects of the study. Therefore, there are no insider co-researchers.

1.9.3 Insider-Outsider Relationship

Central to a possible solution to this dilemma is the conceptual description of the insider-outsider relationship. Typically, the one would exclude the other, the researcher is either an insider or an outsider. Dwyer and Buckle (2009), however, reject this dichotomous perspective and offer a continuum with “insider” and “outsider” on the extreme ends, indicating that the researcher moves on the continuum between the two extreme ends. This notion of the “space between” (Dwyer & Buckle, 2009) is

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a dialectical approach in which the relationship between insider and outsider is not one of simple opposites. Hayfield and Huxley (2015) support this view and write that insider/outsider boundaries are more blurred than what the terms would imply. In this regard, Cotner (2000) describes a taxonomy developed by Banks (Cotner, 2000, p. 2), which is presented in Table 1.2. It is therefore possible to describe the role of this researcher as an indigenous outsider participant observer.

Table 1.2: Banks’ Taxonomy of Participant Observer Researchers

TYPE EXPLANATION

Indigenous insiders These researchers are members of the community that they study Indigenous outsiders These researchers were once members of the community they are studying, but through high levels of education or other circumstances are no longer considered members Non-indigenous insiders These researchers have been accepted as insiders of the community Non-indigenous outsiders These researchers remain outsiders

Based on Cotner, 2000

1.10 Structure of the Research

The structure of the research is described as follows: Chapter 1 introduces the reader to the relationship between politics and policing in South Africa. Since South Africa is a state on the continent of Africa, and since most of the states on the continent were colonised in the past, the brief background offered in the dissertation covers three distinct periods of the politics-policing relationship. These periods are the ancient period of existence in Africa, the colonial period, and the post-colonial period. It also offers a conceptualisation of key terms. Chapter 2 offers a literature review and a conceptual framework for a deeper interrogation of the three periods mentioned in Chapter 1. It also investigates professional policing from a KL perspective. Chapter 3 describes the methodology followed in the study, inclusive of epistemological and ontological substance. The findings of the study are discussed in Chapter 4. Chapter 5 provides reflective notes on, and the conclusion of, the study.

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1.10 Summary

Chapter 1 of this dissertation served as an introduction to the study of politics and policing in South Africa from a knowledge leadership perspective. This introduction will now be followed by a comprehensive literature review (Chapter 2).

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2 LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Introduction

In this chapter, the researcher aims to describe the relationship between politics and policing in South Africa from the earliest times in more detail than the outline in Chapter 1 provides. Too often, policing historiographies start from the dates of colonial occupation, thereby ignoring issues of community safety prior to colonisation (Botha, 2012; Botha, as cited in Schwella, 2015). In fact, and because of our colonial past, sources show that most historiographies take the policing system of the United Kingdom as the basis of ours, and link the South African policing historiography to the arrival by the Dutch (1652) and the later (first in 1795 and finally in 1806) British takeover of the Cape (Van Heerden, 1976; Botha, 2012; Botha, as cited in Schwella, 2015). Policing literature on policing historiography does not typically describe the early situation of communal order (that is, prior to 1652) and no sources to that effect could be found. While describing the early politics/policing relationship of South Africa, this researcher is not attempting to solve archaeological, anthropological, paleoanthropological or any other scientific problems that may exist, or to render the final word on disagreements that may exist between scientists who study South Africa’s ancient people. Describing the first people of South Africa therefore takes into account the differing views of scientists but focuses on the governance and leadership issues of societal safety, or other designations that may indicate “policing” as we know the term today, such as societal order or rule-abiding.

2.2 Politics/Policing History in South Africa: A First People Perspective

Very little is written about governance, leadership and the maintenance of order in society during the era when South Africa’s first people wandered around and settled in the country as we know it today. This is mostly due to the absence of the written word and the tradition of oral history (De Jongh, 2016). In the latter tradition, elders shared history with the next generation in narrative format (De Jongh, 2016). Rock art, however, would play a significant role in understanding the first people’s history, in the absence of the written word (Parkington & Dlamini, 2015). Combining rock art with oral narrative, Rust (as cited in De Jongh, 2016) finds it striking that the IXAM stories

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recorded on rock a century ago, “are similar to those still related by the local people (that is to say, the descendants of the early Khoekhoen)” (p. 94).

2.2.1 Our African Ancestors

Homo sapiens lived in the great Karoo area of South Africa about 200 000 to 100 000 years ago (De Jongh, 2012) and also in the western, southern and eastern areas of our coastline, both on the coast as well as inland (Parkington, 2006; De Jongh, 2016). This vast area covered parts of the current Namibia and went at least as far as the Great Fish River in the east (De Jongh, 2016). Evidence exists that early people also inhabited the central areas of the current South Africa (Parkington & Dlamini, 2015).

How did South Africa’s first people land here? In his 1871 essay, The Descent of Man, Darwin (as cited in Kuljian, 2016) states that “it is somewhat more probable that our early progenitors lived on the African continent than elsewhere” (p. 25). Darwin’s theory was not widely accepted and was derided for about 150 years (Kuljian, 2016). Support from researchers in the field of genetics changed this position somewhat. According to Parkington and Dlamini (2015), Africa’s people did not come here from somewhere else. Africa was rather the location of the male and female ancestor to all of us. It is widely accepted that studies focusing on mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), which is passed on only through women, are increasingly indicative of the belief that the scientific “Eve” was an African woman (Kuljian, 2016; De Jongh, 2016; Parkington & Dlamini, 2015). In the same vein, because of parallel studies on the Y-chromosome (De Jongh, 2016), which is passed uniquely through the male line, it is believed that the scientific “Adam” was an African man (Parkington & Dlamini, 2015). These first people were the geographic ancestors of the San (Parkington & Dlamini, 2015). According to these studies then, the origins of South Africa’s first people are relatively covered. However, there is still not a consensus as to who these people were. Consider the attempts to identify and describe the first people, discussed in the next paragraph.

2.2.2 A Description of the First People

Although some similarities are visible, the literature differs on the composition of South Africa’s first people. Some views are discussed here. The ‘San’ were nomadic hunter- gatherers and lived in small family groups as an egalitarian society, with a nominal

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leader who controlled the available resources (which belonged to the group) on behalf of the group. The ‘Khoikhoi’ originated from the ‘San’, learned how to domesticate animals and became relatively settled pastoralists. ‘Khoisan’ indicates a convergence between the ‘San’ and the ‘Khoi’ (Botha, 2014).

With the arrival of the Dutch in the current Cape Town of South Africa, the ‘San’ were called ‘bosjesman’ which eventually evolved to ‘Boesman’ (‘Bushman’ and ‘Bushmen’). ‘Khoi’ (also ‘Quena’) or ‘Khoikhoin’ was described incorrectly, as a more correct description would be ‘Khoekhoen’ (De Jongh, 2016). These people were called ‘Hottentot’ by the Dutch which eventually evolved to ‘Hotnot’. Both ‘Boesman’ as well as ‘Hotnot’ are widely seen as insulting and derogatory derivatives. The ‘Nama’ (‘Namaqua’) and ‘Korana’ people use the collective term ‘Khoekhoen’ to describe themselves. Those ‘Khoekhoen’ who collected and hunted seafood were called ‘Strandlopers’ (‘Beach Walkers’) by Van Riebeeck. ‘Khoisan’ (or ‘Khoesan’) denoted the racial stock to which the ‘Bushmen’ and ‘Hottentots’ belong (De Jongh, 2012; De Jongh, 2016).

• The ‘San’ should actually be called ‘IXAM’, and the ‘Khoekhoen’ included the ‘Griqua’ and the ‘Korana’ (Parkington & Dlamini, 2015; De Jongh, 2016).

• A gene flow between East African people and the ‘Southern San’ formed what is now known as the ‘Nama’ population (Lombard, as cited in De Jongh, 2016).

• When ‘San’ hunter-gatherers of Southern Africa mixed with pastoral immigrants from East Africa more than 1300 years ago, ‘Khoe’ herders were the descendants (Macholt et al, 2014; Ranciaro et al., as cited in De Jongh, 2016).

In an effort to provide some clarity for use in this study, the following description is offered:

• The geographic ancestors of the San from Southern Africa, combined with pastoralists from East Africa, were South Africa’s first people. • This gene pool produced the San (IXAM) and the Khoekhoen (Quena / Khoe). • The Khoekhoen consists of the Nama (Namaqua), Korana, Griqua and Strandlopers. • The racial stock of the combination of San and Khoekhoen is the Khoesan (Khoisan).

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2.2.3 The Out of Africa Theory

The Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History (nd) supports the view that Homo sapiens evolved in Africa 300 000 years ago. The museum also is of the opinion that modern humans (Homo sapiens sapiens) originated in Africa over 50 000 years ago. In this vein, Parkington and Dlamini (2015) posit that commentators are almost in agreement on the African origin of Homo sapiens sapiens, but that consensus does not exist as to when and why our first people have expanded. However, we do have evidence of where our species went and when they arrived there. Here follows a summary (Parkington & Dlamini, 2015):

• To Europe: by 45 000 years ago; • To Australia: by 50 000 years ago; • To North America: no earlier than 15 000 years ago; and • To the distant islands (Madagascar, Caribbean, New Zealand, the Pacific): only after 2000 years ago.

Consequently, if we accept the Out of Africa theory, we will be able to conclude that the first people of South Africa, as the origin of our species, had migrated to Europe, Australia, North America and the distant islands as described above. It is then also possible to conclude with some certainty that they would have taken their socio- cultural systems with them. These systems are discussed in the next paragraph.

2.2.4 Socio-Cultural Systems of The First People

Against the background of a dearth of written history, non-consensus on several aspects of first people life, and the increasing evidence from genetic research, it is important to study the available information on first people governance, leadership and societal safety/societal order. The explanation in above allows for the study of the Khoesan (the racial stock of the combination of San and Khoekhoen) as a type through which a relative universal first people pattern of governance, leadership and societal safety/societal order may be described.

2.2.4.1 Governance and leadership:

Elphick and Giliomee (as cited in De Jongh, 2016) explain that the chief of a chiefdom or tribe would overrule the clan heads of the tribe (also called headmen) only if he was

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extraordinarily talented or wealthy. Chiefs and headmen were elected (Heese, in Botha, 2015) and political power was weak (De Jongh, 2016). The chief was a nominal one in an egalitarian society (Botha, 2015; Heese, as cited in Botha, 2015) and his decision-making was not absolute but subject to agreement by his councillors, which were the heads of the clans (De Jongh, 2016). The Dutch called these clan heads “capitain” (“captain”; Le Roux, as cited in De Jongh, 2016). The patrilineal principle (family membership through the father’s lineage) and kinship system (a web of social relationships through descent or marriage) determined governance and leadership importance as well as seniority in the community (De Jongh, 2016). The chief was the political leader who headed the tribal council, the military commander when necessary, played the senior role in peace negotiations and had jurisdiction over civil disputes and criminal offences (De Jongh, 2016). Given the nominal role of the chief, the tribal council was the real governing body of the tribe. Although the chief presided over the council, he was a representative rather than a ruler. However, if the chief had a strong personality, he would be able to sway council decisions (De Jongh, 2016). In some cases, the tribe, and even other tribes, would afford the chief power because of the tribe’s reverence of the chief and his leadership abilities. Chief Gaukou, the influential chief of the Hessequa, is a case in point (De Jongh, 2016). According to Heese (as cited in Botha, 2015) “the shaman (a religious leader) and the medicine person (who could be either a woman or a man) formed an important leadership centre” (p. 79).

2.2.4.2 Societal safety and societal order:

Although no evidence to the contrary could be found, this researcher accepts that the terms “police” and “policing” was not known at the time of South Africa’s first people. Our scant information during the era of the oral tradition does not clear the matter. However, things changed during the era of the written tradition: the noun “police” (“the regulation and control of a community”) was first described in the 1530s in France while the verb “police” (“to keep order”) was first noticed in France during the 1580s (Online Etymology Dictionary, nd). In the 16th century, thus, were the ancestors of the current terms “police” and “policing” first seen. Unfortunately policing institutions in continental Europe were frequently used to dominate subjects, a situation that caused the word “police” to be regarded with suspicion in Britain during the 18th century, as the English considered themselves to be living in a country of liberty not to be curtailed

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by organised governmental power (Emsley, 2009). However, this was also the century, specifically during 1796 AD, in which Dr Patrick Colquhoun supported a centralised policing system to guarantee these same liberties in the United Kingdom (Van Heerden, 1976) and used the word “police” to indicate “a new science” (Mellville Lee, 1901, p. vii).

The terms “police” and “policing” were now in the public domain in Europe and the United Kingdom but were still not part of an organised policing system. Safety and security was still the responsibility of each individual (Van Heerden, 1976) and various structures of constables and watchmen (Howard, 1953). The 19th century indicated another step forward in the historiography: during the year 1829, Sir Robert Peel charged the Metropolitan Police Act through the Parliament of the United Kingdom (Mellville Lee, 1901; Howard, 1953; Van Heerden, 1976; Emsley, 2009). With this, an organised policing agency, staffed by professional police officials, were formally instituted in the British system, the colonial power of South Africa. Unfortunately, the consequences for South Africa were not necessarily as positive as in the United Kingdom.

De Jongh (2016) also does not use the word “policing”, but describes societal order and safety in terms of “law and order” (p. 85). In his opinion, the maintenance of law and order among our first people was based on norms and conventions, or rules of behaviour, which had become commonly accepted in the community over time. Formal legal codes were not available to South Africa’s first people as these would only be developed much later in the early history. In this respect, Lippert (2012) is of the opinion that no clear evidence of written law was visible before the Middle Kingdom (2013-1640 BC), but written law may have been available in the period preceding the New Kingdom (1550-1070 BC). This is supported by Van Heerden (1976), when he states that the first criminal code in written format appeared during the reign of Hammurabi in Babylon at approximately 2001 BC. During the period 549-486 BC, Darius 1 of Egypt had codification done to collect and order all existing laws in one corpus (Lippert, 2012). The norms and conventions that South Africa’s first people obeyed were visible in religious practice, kinship and marriage, interpersonal relations, economic practices and property rights and members of the community were expected to conform (De Jongh, 2016), and these were executed thousands of years before the developments of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries AD. The people were allowed to

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settle disputes on a personal level (even through physical confrontation) but more serious matters were heard and concluded by the chief in council, or in some cases by a headman in council with the adult men of the clan (De Jongh, 2016). Complainants, defendants and witnesses were given a full opportunity to speak. The matter was comprehensively discussed, and a majority verdict delivered. Murder, theft, adultery and incest were punishable by death, which sentence was executed immediately upon the final decision by beating the offender to death with walking sticks (De Jongh, 2016).

2.2.5 Concluding Remarks on Governance, Leadership and Societal Safety and Order During the Times of Our First People

The nominal nature of the chief’s role and the concurrent participative governance style is a clear indication of the egalitarian society that our first people lived in. The leadership style was equally one of participative leadership, and allowance was made for wide recognition of chiefs with particular influence or capabilities. The leadership group in these communities were male-oriented, although some mention is made of women (particularly as the medicine person) playing a role in the leadership group. Societal safety was reinforced by the death penalty for certain offences, which is a harsh punishment, but which probably served a deterrent function. A definite set of rules for human behaviour would have served the quest for order in society. Although this rule-based behaviour within the council system indicates a relationship between the system of rules and the political leaders, it is not clear whether societal safety and order were unduly influenced by the political leaders. The need to have the councillors concur with decisions would most probably act against undue political influence.

2.2.5.1 Information from East Africa (the Rwanda study)

This researcher was part of a two-person team delivering a Post-Graduate Diploma in Strategic Leadership at the National Police College of Rwanda during the years 2015- 2016. The diploma was certified by the Maastricht School of Management in the Netherlands (MSM). Thirty-two (32) participants from sixteen (16) African states attended this intervention. With the exception of three (3) participants, participants were from East African states. Given the relationship between the San in South Africa and pastoralists from East Africa (above) and the origins of our gene pool, it was

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decided to investigate the East African view of leadership while at this location. Appropriate permissions were obtained from participants, the Rwanda National Police College and MSM.

Participants were attending a police staff course and the diploma was an integral part of this course. Participants were senior police officials. When compared with the British system of military ranks, which since April 2010 has again been used in South Africa, despite our efforts of demilitarisation after 1990, ten (10) were in the equivalent rank of Major General while the rest were all in the equivalent ranks of Brigadier, Colonel, Lieutenant Colonel and Major. The average years of service were twenty (20) years.

The research was designed as an ongoing andragogic activity in groups during Module 1 (November 2015), through Module 2 (February 2016) and Module 3 (April 2016). The underlying issue was an attempt to explore the largely verbal tradition on leadership in East African states through the ancient, colonial and post-colonial periods. The theoretical basis for this action-learning process was found in Schwella (2014) and consisted of four (4) questions. These were: i) What happened here? ii) Why did this happen? iii) What can we learn from this? iv) How can we put the learning back into the system to improve the system’s quality and performance?

These questions constituted a specific and systematic way of doing things. It follows that the questions can cumulatively be assembled as a methodology since “specific and systematic way of doing things” is a definition of research methodology in general (Du Plooy-Cilliers, 2014; Welman et al., 2005). Since action research can be defined as the investigation of societal problems and finding practical solutions (Chapter 1), this researcher was able to cluster the four questions under the umbrella of the mnemonic SALM, which denotes the Schwella Action Learning Methodology.

The results are described below:

• Ancient African leadership, from the perspectives of the participants, was mostly embodied in a centralised monarchy. The family received prominence while gender and religious sensitivity were emphasised. The leaders were mostly male and

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succession was managed. These leaders had the services of a body of elderly men to consult. The authority of the leader was visible. He was the ultimate provider, made the decisions after advice and consultation with the elders, and ensured that he had a warrior capacity. • Colonial leadership in Africa, in participants’ views, was dictatorial, worked on the principle of divide and rule and was destructive of traditional African culture. This system was foreign to Africa, oppressive, discriminatory and exploitative. The system of parallel administration was aimed at appeasing traditional leaders while the colonial power claimed superiority. • In the post-colonial world, the new regimes used the leadership view of the colonial masters because they found it useful to them. The new African leadership, the participants concluded, was aimed at regime protection and the suppression of the community, especially those in the community who opposed the regime.

Suffice to say that the views of the participants support the discussion so far. These views are also visible in the discussions on colonial and post-colonial times that follow below.

2.3 A History of South African Policing in Colonial Times: Repressive Policing

Some evidence exists that early visitors to the current South Africa would take back accounts of the people that they have met here (De Jongh, 2016). Diaz, for instance, met the Khoenkhoen at today’s Mossel Bay in 1488 for trading purposes (De Jongh, 2016) and wrote about the encounter. However, the written history of policing in South Africa is typically aligned with the era of colonial rule. The colonists, the Dutch briefly and Great Britain, thereafter, were excellent bureaucrats who wrote books, drafted minutes of meetings, registered births and deaths, recorded marriages in registers and described land transactions. From these documents, one is able to explore governance and other issues of societal order during the time of colonial rule.

2.3.1 Defining Governance Characteristics of South African Policing in Colonial Times

Britain followed the colonial system of policing mostly followed throughout Africa by all colonial rulers. This seems to span colonial governance whether the rulers were Anglophone, Francophone or Lusophone, or while colonial governance was practised

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by Germany in the then German South West Africa (the current Namibia). Two main tenets of colonial governance can be identified. First, a dual system of governance was practised (Killingray, 1986; Fye, as cited in Alemika & Ckukwuma, 2011). On the one hand, this dual system pays reference to the law that the colonial powers brought with them to the countries of Africa, which law was foreign to the people of Africa (Hills, 2000). On the other hand, the colonial powers practised a system of encouraging traditional leaders to practise customary law within their traditional communities. This was simply a political position within the colonial governance system to repress the traditional African people and therefore to effectively keep them under control. In fact, the authority and power of the traditional leaders of Africa depended ultimately on the colonial government (Killingray, 1986).

Second, taxation was employed to serve the needs of the colonial power (Ahire, 1991). This also involved the policing of the labour force (through foreign laws), which was accompanied by tasking the police to enforce direct taxation onto the original population (Alemika, 2015). The repressive system of policing, through colonialism, therefore, became an integral part of governance in South Africa (Baker, 2014).

2.3.2 Defining Functional Characteristics of South African Policing in Colonial Times

This system of policing exhibited certain functional characteristics, which can be described as follows (Alemika, 2011; Emsley, 2009; Francis, 2012; Rauch & Van der Spuy, 2006):

• Colonial rule directly resulted in the structure and functions of policing in African countries (the military model of policing, for instance, originated under colonial rule). This military model was aimed at protecting the interests of the colonial power, and not aimed at the safety and security of the people in the colony. • The character of colonial policing agencies was centralised and coercive, especially in Anglophone and Francophone colonial states. This has led to a lack of accountability, emphasising a culture of a brutal, repressive and corrupt policing style and the title of “police force”, instead of “police service”. • These police forces focused on public-order policing and were thereby quite ineffective in crime prevention and crime investigation. In this way, these forces supported the oppression of people opposed to the colonial government.

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• As far as the police-community relationship is concerned, these forces were consequently not practising a partnership between the community (the idea of a “police service”) and the police. In fact, the relationship practised was one of hostility between the community and the police, indicating the community view of dishonourable police officials who would loot, steal and take advantage of their authority and power.

The colonial system of policing was very different to the system practised by our first people.

Given the views above, one can summarise that colonial policing agencies were:

• Of a military force nature; • Actively keeping the colonial regime in power; • Oppressing the opposition to the colonial regime, sometimes in the most brutal of ways; and • Actively partaking in criminal deeds, themselves.

This summary of characteristics of colonial policing can be used to evaluate post- colonial policing in South Africa.

2.3.3 A History of South African Policing in The Post-Colonial Era: Apartheid Policing

It has been mentioned earlier in this dissertation (Chapter 1) that the Union of South Africa came into being in 1910, that the South African Police (the SAP) was formed in 1913 and that the colonial style of policing prevailed after this. To put this situation (the prevalence of the colonial style of policing) in perspective though, one needs to provide some background as to the timeline coupled to post-colonialism on the continent of Africa. This is necessary because other African countries also kept the colonial system of policing after independence, making the continent one big colonial inheritance as far as policing is concerned (Chapter 1).

2.3.4 Independence in Africa At the End of Colonialism

The timeline mentioned above is supplied through a series of tables covering the former colonisers as well as the dates of independence of African states. The

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information was extracted from About.com (2014) and attached to this study as Annexure C.

According to the information in these tables, two (2) African countries gained independence before 1950, six (6) between 1950 and 1959, thirty-three (33) between 1960 and 1969, nine (9) during the period 1970 to 1979, and one (1) post-1979. The Republic of Namibia is not mentioned in the tables, because the Republic of South Africa administered it from the end of the First World War (after the Versailles Peace Treaty, September 1919), under a mandate of the League of Nations, until independence on 21 March 1990, after international intervention. Ethiopia was invaded by Italy during the period 1937-1936 but, by 5 May 1941, Emperor Haile Selassie returned from exile in Britain and regained his throne. Resistance by Italian forces was finally overcome by 27 November 1941. Most African countries therefore gained independence during the 1960s, and the continuation of a policing system that would mirror the colonial policing system was thereby sparked.

2.3.5 Returning to the South African Situation

After the National Party came into power in the election of 1948, the policy of Apartheid was formally instituted through legislation. Apartheid can be described as the official policy of the National Party, which was an exclusive form of white Afrikaner supremacy, strict separation between black and white people and the suppression of the enemies of white Afrikaner rule (Botha, 2014). Among a host of laws passed by Parliament between 1949 and 1970, the following statutes are named as examples (African History, 2018): the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act, No 55 of 1948; the Immorality Amendment Act, No 21 of 1950; the Population Registration Act, 30 of 1950; the Group Areas Act, 41 of 1950; the Bantu Authorities Act, 68 of 1951; the Natives (Abolition of Passes and Coordination of Documents) Act, 67 of 1952; the Bantu Education Act, 47 of 1953; and the Reservation of Separate Amenities Act, 49 of 1953.

The effect of these laws was that the movement of people, whom they could have sexual relations with, compulsory race classification, where people could live, the establishment of homelands for people who were not classified as white, separate education for people not classified as white and the forced segregation of people was legally enforced. Contravention of these laws could lead to criminal prosecution,

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punishment and criminal records for those found guilty. The SAP was tasked with the enforcement of these laws, which were widely seen as racist.

The brutality of this time is well documented and not without controversy. In fact, during this time the argument of South Africa being a police state (Chapter 1) was highlighted in the public domain (Cawthra, 1993; Van der Spuy, 1989). An example of brutality with far-reaching consequences for many people over many years was the exposé by investigative journalist Jacques Pauw in the alternative Afrikaans newspaper Vrye Weekblad on 7 November 1989, which culminated in a book (Pauw, 1991). The first person to break the silence was former Captain Dirk Coetzee from the Security Police, who detailed the inner workings of an SAP death squad. Coetzee, with the help of Pauw and the African National Congress (ANC), fled the country. Colonel Eugene de Kock, Coetzee’s successor in the unit, was eventually sentenced to 212 years in prison for state-sanctioned killings of political opponents. Rauch and Van der Spuy (2006) posit that the SAP’s reaction to the freedom struggle was responsible for 73 deaths in police detention and 78 000 people detained without trial.

The colonial practice of a military-type police force being used to enforce laws against the opponents of the regime was now established firmly in South African law. Using the summary of colonial policing above, Apartheid policing in South Africa can be described as:

• Of a military force nature; • Actively keeping the apartheid regime in power; • Oppressing the opposition to the apartheid regime in the most brutal of ways; and • Actively partaking in criminal deeds, themselves.

2.3.6 The Quest for A Deeper Understanding of The South African Situation Regarding Politics and Policing: The Data Visible in Shearing’s Life Work in Societal Safety

Shearing’s work (as cited in Wood, 2014) was analysed to understand the South African situation on politics and policing better. The results of this analysis are now discussed. As an entry to the discussion, the themes uncovered from the article can be portrayed as follows in Table 2.1.

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Table 2.1: Themes Visible in Wood (2014)

NO THEMES SUB-THEMES

1 Dynamics of power • Power dynamics in policing. in societal safety. • Broadening the policing power band: “private policing” and “policing as a collective community responsibility”.

2 Transformation in • Transformation in societal safety on the national sphere of societal safety. government. • Transformation in societal safety on the local sphere of government.

2.3.6.1 Theme 1: Dynamics of power in societal safety

Shearing (as cited in Wood, 2014) is of the opinion that the study of criminology, inclusive of policing, provides an opportunity to study the “dynamics of power” and the very real effects of power on “human consciousness and action” (Wood, 2014, p. 1). As an example, he recalls his experiences while employed as an apprentice on a farm in the current KwaZulu-Natal during Apartheid. (Note: references to Apartheid where quoted from the source are quoted directly as spelled in that text. So are the language and spelling). His apprenticeship did not last a year, as he was dismissed for “inciting the natives to rebellion” (Wood, 2014, p. 2). He noticed the “subtle dynamics of Apartheid, and began to contest them” (Wood, 2014, p. 2), which led directly to his dismissal. He felt that “it had not just been the farmer who fired me, but apartheid. Its agents, I realize (sic?), were everywhere. I was, and continued to be, an agent of apartheid, as was the farmer and all who worked there” (Wood, 2014, p. 2). This experience created in Shearing a “thirst for understanding the nature of power and the ways in which human beings both reflected and reified its moralities” (Wood, 2014, p. 2). This experience was part of Shearing’s “paths that led him to become a renowned social theorist and policing scholar” (Wood, 2014, p. 1-2) with, at the centre of his thinking, “concerns about altering power relations such that they enhance the self- direction of poor and vulnerable populations” (Wood, 2014, p. 2). This theme allowed for the discussion of two sub-themes. These are:

• Sub-theme 1.1: Power dynamics in policing

Shearing’s realisation that he and the farmer, as well as all people who worked on the farm, were actually agents of Apartheid, in other words, everywhere (see above),

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allowed him to discover “a distinct lack of emphasis on studies of police” (Wood, 2014, p. 2) and that “the field of police studies was equally as frustrating as it was fascinating” (Wood, 2014, p. 2). The field of police studies was “frustrating because it expressed the assumption within criminology that to study power, one had to study particular government institutions (including the police) … and that this assumption was limiting because power operations were embedded everywhere” (Wood, 2014, p. 2). However, police work was also “fascinating, because it allowed him to explore the relationships between police culture and action, and the ways in which collective police behaviour rather unintentionally perpetuated power relations and structures of dominance through continual reproduction” (Wood, 2014, p. 2). In this regard, Shearing’s huge empirical study completed in the 1970s (Wood, 2014) revealed that “Unlike previous theorists who saw police operating according to an ‘us/them’ worldview, and as representatives of social elites (Wood, 2014, p. 2), provided for “…a more nuanced understanding of how police saw their roles, and the ways in which these perceptions were shaped by the distinctions they made between various types of ‘publics’. What emerged here were at least two such publics: the ones police serve and the ones they regulate” (Wood, 2014, p. 3). This brought Shearing to a place where he could explain “the subterranean character of police culture and both its link to and independence from the legal system or superstructure” (Wood, 2014, p. 3). The police, he concluded, are indeed “… powerful actors due to their legitimate access to coercion and legal authority” (Shearing & Leon, as cited in Wood, 2014, p. 3), “… they are not simply unthinking instruments of the state” (Wood, 2014, p. 3). Wood (2014) explains how Shearing (with Ericson) detailed the importance of story-telling in the police culture: police culture used story-telling “as a daily practice of rule creation or script writing (and re-writing)” … on the [which are] “stories or scripts” … [that are] “forms of concrete reasoning that help officers take on particular sensitivities and make situational judgements of how to act” (Wood, 2014, p. 2). In this regard, Shearing (with Brogden) “observed that the stories and tropes of white and black officers both reflected and reified Apartheid values” (Wood, 2014, p. 3). In a 1995 article, reflecting on his thoughts from South Africa on police culture transformation, Shearing wrote:

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…the heart of police culture was the imagery of Calvinism that has been so fundamental to apartheid. The police saw themselves as ‘Children of God’, doing God’s work. They were brutal because they were called to be brutal. They lied because this too was God’s work. Their job was to keep evil at bay and this required them to deal harshly with the devil in all its forms. As police officers they were (in the words of a senior member of the Nationalist [sic] government) ‘ministers of God – the front line of defence against a total breakdown of law and order’ (Wood, 2014, p. 3).

However, there is a hard part to it: “The hard part is exercising our human agency in the face of powerful scripts replayed in the larger political order. Conventional reform agendas that centre on the ‘re-training’ of officers deny the larger processes through which sensibilities are created and re-created” (Wood, 2014, p. 3). It was therefore interesting to see Shearing’s discovery (also interrogated in one of the publications that this was discussed in, with Brogden) that “... different sensibilities guiding the work of policing can be found outside of the public police and among other entities that produce security” (Wood, 2014, p. 3). This will be discussed in the next paragraph (that is, the paragraph covering sub-theme 2).

• Sub-theme 1.2: Broadening the policing power band: “private policing” and “policing as a collective community responsibility”.

Although this dissertation is focused on the SAPS as a public-policing agency, and therefore not on non-state actors (Chapter 1), Shearing’s work on “private policing” (Wood, 2014, p. 4) was “a critical conceptual move from ‘police work’ to ‘policing’” (Wood, 2014, p. 4). A series of publications (with Stenning) “… helped expand the focus of criminology to practices of social ordering beyond government institutions and to institutions of ‘private government’ that scholars have commonly refused to acknowledge” (Shearing, as cited in Wood, 2014, p. 4). The term “private policing” (Wood, 2014, p. 4) is expanded on by Shearing with his observations during the father- and-daughter visit to Disneyworld. The characteristics of private policing, as defined by Shearing (and often referred to in South Africa as “private security”, and also by Wood, 2014, p. 5) can be described as follows: (Wood, 2014, p. 4).

• First, private policing revealed “unique modalities of power” in that “Social ordering was not being achieved primarily through the exercise of the criminal law, or even the use or threat of coercion”. “Not unlike his revelatory moments in Drakensburg [sic], Clifford saw power being exercised subtly and through the minutiae of human instruction” (Wood, 2014, p. 4).

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• Second, in fact, in private policing “everyone was being enlisted in furtherance of their own compliance”. This was evident in his Disneyworld experience: “As he navigated to, and within the walls of Disneyworld, he observed the manifold ways in which tourists were instructed to move and behave in that space. He noticed that behavioural norms are implicit, yet obvious, both in the behaviours of employees and in the design of the space, and it was difficult to defy such instructions. We comply willingly” (Wood, 2014, p. 4). • Third, Shearing and a co-author describe this as such himself (Shearing & Stenning, as cited in Wood, 2014, p. 4): “Disney Productions is able to handle large crowds of visitors in a most orderly fashion. Potential trouble is anticipated and prevented. Opportunities for disorder are minimized by constant instruction, by physical barriers which severely limit the choice of action available and by the surveillance of omnipresent employees who detect and rectify the slightest deviation”. • Fourth, during their reflection on the Disneyworld experience, Shearing and Stenning (as cited in Wood, 2014, p. 4) write that the embedded power that Shearing saw, can be described in terms of “its presence is unnoticed but its effects are ever present” and that power is “an expression of disciplinary power, as originally conceived by Foucault” (in 1977). However, “in this context it had a primarily instrumental, rather than moral focus”; • Fifth, this led to Shearing and Stenning (as cited in Wood, 2014, p. 4-5) writing the following on the Disneyworld experience:

While this new instrumental discipline is rapidly becoming a dominant force in social control in this year, 1984, it is as different from the Orwellian totalitarian nightmare as it is from the carceral regime … The order of instrumental discipline is not the unitary order of a central State but diffuse and separate orders defined by private authorities responsible for the feudal-like domains of Disney world [sic], condominium estates, commercial complexes and the like … [C]ontrol is as fine-grained as Orwell imagined but its features are very different”.

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Private security in this regard is then rather a “loss prevention strategy” than it is reliant on punishment. Therefore, the emphasis is on a “’risk mentality’, in contrast to a ‘punishment mentality’”.

• Sixth, therefore, criminology’s “routine activities theory” is evident in corporate contexts and criminology’s “’situational crime prevention’ has its roots in a logic or mentality that has long been present in the corporate sector” (Wood, 2014, p. 4). • Seventh, this view offered another insight to Shearing: “... it is not so much that the police need support and consent, but rather that policing is a matter for the whole community, not something that the community leaves to the police to do” (Wood, 2014, p. 6), and a clear indication of Shearing’s proposed move from police to policing (Wood, 2014, p. 6). • Eight, this “nodal conception of policing and governance” as Wood describes it (Wood, 2014, p. 5) is therefore a paradigm shift: it is about “policing beyond the police” (Wood, 2014, p. 6) and therefore moves away from “policing by consent” to “policing as a collective community responsibility” (Wood, 2014, p. 6) by abandoning the concept of “operational independence” in favour of “operational responsibility” (Wood, 2014, p. 6).

2.3.6.2 Theme 2: Transformation in societal safety

Shearing’s work on the Goldstone Commission in South Africa and the Patten Commission in Northern Ireland and the influence that his work on these commissions had on his thinking are all about the eventual requirement to transform societal safety by transforming policing in the broader definition of this societal role. These will now receive more attention in the paragraphs below.

• Sub-theme 2.1: Transformation of societal safety on the national sphere of government

In South Africa, we needed “a new beginning for the policing of South Africans within a human rights framework” (Wood, 2014, p. 7). It was critical to develop a useful and understandable set of proposals through which “demonstrations, marches and pickets” (Wood, 2014, p. 7) could be lawfully managed during the period leading up to South Africa’s first all-franchise elections. Shearing’s contribution to the Goldstone Commission was “to enlist sources of authority, knowledge, and capacity outside of

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the police, ones which expressed different sensibilities” (Wood, 2014, p. 7) which clearly emphasised the notion of “collective community responsibility” (Wood, 2014, p. 7). In practical terms, the following key issues of Shearing’s work on the Goldstone Commission can be identified (Wood, 2014, p. 7): “... the police should not ‘own’ the policing of demonstrations”; “... the organisers of the demonstration should take the lead role in ensuring peaceful protest conditions”; “... the police would need to intervene if their unique authority and capacities (namely the ability to exercise coercion) were required to subdue a violent episode”; “... a mechanism that would persuade demonstrators to self-regulate” was therefore required; “The central mechanism was a licensing scheme, whereby organisers would need to have a public safety plan – guaranteeing a peaceful protest – if they were to receive a license to demonstrate”; “... the police were to negotiate as partners on these plans, which they could appeal, but not veto”; “… both the ‘steering’ of governance (that is, the planning), as well as the ‘rowing’ of governance (the implementation of plans) was shared across several different sets of players or nodes in the governance assemblages”; consequently, there was a distinct “separation between the entities who organized the policing of demonstrations and those who performed the policing of demonstrations” (Wood, 2014, p. 8); and “… furthermore, transformation of policing on national (or policy) level meant that the thinking allowing governments to formulate the demand for policing and then to also provide policing was replaced by thinking that did not see governments as the primary agents in societal safety” (Wood, 2014, p. 8).

It is noted that “most of the demonstrations were peaceful” (Wood, 2014, p. 8).

• Sub-theme 2.2: Transformation in societal safety on the local sphere of government

Building on the work that he has done until this junction, Shearing started working on a local community level with “communities that yearned for something different and lived the daily realities of a largely non-existent and sometimes brutal public police service” (Wood, 2014, p. 9). An “equal partnership between the police and the community” (Wood, 2014, p. 9) was the plausible way to go. After field investigations in a small squatter community near Cape Town, the community agreed to engage in an experiment to build an “institution of local capacity government” (Wood, 2014, p. 9). This is how the “Community Peace Program (Wood, 2014, p. 9) was born. It consisted of the following (Wood, 2014, p. 9): the Peace Committee Model; the Peace

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Committee Model consisted of a Peace Committee and two governance processes, namely the Peace Making process and the Peace Building process; the “Peace Making process involved the resolution of disputes and harms through ‘gatherings’ of community members that ultimately developed ‘plans of action’ to help ensure that the harms did not occur again”. The “Peace Building process centred on analyses of larger structural issues that played themselves out repeatedly through disputes and harms resolved through Peace Making” with action plans aiming to address issues such as “building new recreational spaces or improving ablution facilities” and a budget scheme “put money in the pockets of the people who did the work”: “for every Peace Committee gathering held in accordance with the Code of Good Practice and the Peace Making steps, Peace Committee members received money to help feed their families”. This incentive structure was built in “to encourage members to embrace the Peace-Making mentality and to discourage violence or punishment”.

Against this backdrop, the public police were enlisted “only when: (1) their unique capacities to use or threaten force was required or (2) if the offence was so grave that incapacitation and a formal criminal justice response was necessary” (Wood, 2014, p. 9).

2.4 The Post-1994 Political Era of South African Policing

At the time of writing this dissertation (April 2019), former President Jacob Zuma is the centre of attraction around issues of corruption and state capture (Basson, 2012; Basson & Du Toit, 2017; Kasrils, 2017). Inherent to this issue is the alleged involvement of the Gupta family, an Indian family who allegedly were the real power behind Zuma’s presidency. It is common knowledge that the Judicial Commission of Inquiry into Allegations of State Capture, Corruption and Fraud in the Public Service including Organs of State with Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo as chairperson (consequently referred to as the Zondo Commission) has been convened and is in operation. The commission has not yet concluded its inquiry and a final report is consequently not yet available for perusal. The inquiry into the fitness of Advocates Nomgcobo Jiba (suspended Deputy National Director of Public Prosecutions) and Lawrence Mrwebi (suspended Special National Director of Public Prosecutions) to hold office (the Mokgoro Commission, after its Chair, Judge Yvonne Makgoro) has been completed. Both advocates are implicated in actions to silence the voices of

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critics of the state through corrupt illegal actions while holding these high offices in the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA). It is common cause in the public domain that President Ramaphosa has dismissed both advocates after accepting the recommendations of the Mokgoro Commission.

However, some more detailed and recently published works on the policing/politics relations are available. Some of these are:

• Pitchford (2016) writes about political interference in police work in KwaZulu-Natal, where some individuals in the SAPS and senior appointees in the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) are implicated in unbecoming behaviour against Major General Johan Booysen. Booysen used to be the Head of the Directorate of Priority Crimes Investigation in KwaZulu-Natal (commonly known as the Hawks) and was head of investigations against several high-ranking politicians and police officials. In this case, the interference goes beyond policing and covers more of the criminal justice system (CJS). • Van Loggerenberg and Lackay (2016) write about an elite unit at the South African Revenue Service (SARS) who had a strong record of investigating financial fraudsters and tax criminals. Van Loggerenberg was head of this unit but was forced to quit SARS, being accused of heading a rogue unit in the organisation. The book denies the rogue unit label and claims that the community has been deceived by powers who aimed to capture SARS for their own ends. Not strictly a SAPS unit, it was still part of the greater fight against corruption and the like and therefore details part of the fight against crime in South Africa. • Shaw (2017) publishes horrifying information on the SAPS Crime Intelligence Division in high-profile contract killings. The former Divisional Commissioner of that Division, Lieutenant General Richard Mdluli, is directly implicated. • Pauw (2017) writes on former President Zuma as the central player in his compromised government and other role players that eliminate Zuma’s political enemies and purge policing of good investigators. He specifically speaks to the involvement of Mr Arthur Fraser (former Director General of the State Security Agency, SSA, and now removed to Correctional Services as Commissioner) and Mr Tom Moyane (former SARS head). Again, it now involves more than just the SAPS, but also other organs of state, which gives some credence to the idea of state capture.

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• Burgess’s (2018) book details the SAPS Crime Intelligence Division’s involvement in cash-in-transit heists. • Myburgh (2019) suggests that Mr Elias Sekgobelo (“Ace”) Magashule, current Secretary-General of the African National Congress (ANC) controlled the SAPS (the Hawks included) in the Free State Province during his tenure as Premier of that province. According to Myburgh’s investigation, this practice (of controlling the SAPS, inclusive of the Hawks) is still happening, albeit now from Magashule’s new position at Luthuli House (the head office of the ANC) and extended to the SAPS’s national structures.

Although the books mentioned above (and there are more) are still part of the early days of getting hands-on on the relationship between politics and policing, it needs to be mentioned in this dissertation. Much more work needs to be done here, but the possible implications beg a simple question: is there a nexus between colonial policing, Apartheid policing and post-1994 policing (the era of democracy with the former liberation movement as government)?

If so, one will be able to declare at some point that the democratic government of South Africa’s policing system can be described in the same vein as the other governments. The policing characteristics of those governments are repeated here. They are:

• Of a military-force nature; • Actively keeping the democratic regime in power; • Oppressing the opposition to the democratic regime in the most brutal of way; and • Actively partaking in criminal deeds, themselves.

Does the democratic government’s policing system present the same characteristics? This question will be addressed after professional policing through KL is investigated as a possible counterpoint to adverse political influence over-policing.

2.5 Professional Policing: A Knowledge Leadership Perspective

In Britain, the early view of professional policing was simply a quest to move from a voluntary protection of the self and others to an organised policing environment where the police official would be enlisted in an organisation and receive a salary and other employment privileges (Mellville Lee, 1901; Howard, 1953; Van Heerden, 1976;

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Emsley, 2009). Neyroud (2014) refers to this as the pursuance of a police professional model which later evolved to be based around random patrol, rapid response and reactive investigation. This model has largely been discredited by research and should be replaced with a new professionalism based around targeted intervention, problem- solving, public engagement, partnerships and legitimacy (Neyroud, 2014).

Professionalism, say Green and Gates (2014) in their study of police professionalism in the United Kingdom, the United States of America and Australia, “is the transformation of an occupation into a profession” (p. 75). Although various definitions of police professionalism exist (they have studied the work of 11 authors), the characteristics found in the definitions can be clustered according to the results presented below (Green & Gates, 2014).

First, professions are types of exclusive membership movements which attract only certain types of people, develop values for that profession and then socialise people into the profession. The term “police culture” is akin to this view (Green & Gates, 2014, p. 78).

Second, professions are autonomous: they are operationally independent without political interference. Police agencies in the countries covered by the study are, in general, awarded an operationally independent acceptance by the communities they serve (p. 78).

Third, a profession is an applied, practical societal service. To the police, that societal service is the delivery of societal safety to the citizenship (p. 76).

Fourth, self-regulation, a code of ethics and accountability to society are major necessities for professions, and also for policing agencies (p. 78).

Fifth, higher education, built upon a body of abstract knowledge and professional literature, is a compulsory characteristic of any profession, while lifelong learning supports this characteristic. In the countries covered by the study, however, there is no commonly agreed position regarding higher education in policing agencies or on policing as a scientific discipline (p. 80).

Sixth, the mastery of a complex body of skills and knowledge is a key determinant of professionalism, which requires research and learning as found at providers of higher education. In-house training seems to be still the prevalent norm in the policing

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agencies of the countries studied and there seems to be a reluctance by the police to engage in the “science of policing” (p. 79).

Seventh, professions have self-organising membership, a national register and a system of rewards. In the three countries studied, academic interest in the professionalisation of the police through academic interventions are dependent on practitioner interest, which is not visible enough (p. 79).

2.5.1 Commenting on The Characteristics of Professions for Purposes of This Dissertation

Mastering the complex body of knowledge required by a police official in a constitutional democracy under the rule of law (the POLBoK), such as is the case with South Africa, is dependent on higher education, which is the domain of providers of higher education. These providers, or institutions of higher learning, are required to do regular research on policing in a constitutional democracy under the rule of law. The research is typically reviewed by the researcher’s peers and then published in academic journals and books. The research then forms the basis of the learning provided at these institutions. The institutions are therefore prime role players in knowledge generation (or creation) and knowledge dissemination. The process brings additions to the body of policing knowledge (the POLBoK) on a regular basis. The latter is the link to lifelong learning which will allow the policing practitioner to make policy decisions based on valid and reliable knowledge. This is the point where KL enters the scene, as will be discussed later on in the chapter.

This researcher has used this cycle of knowledge generation and dissemination during the Rwanda intervention described earlier in this chapter. Facilitating learning on the Post-Graduate Diploma in Strategic Leadership in Rwanda provided an opportunity to use available research in an andragogic mode. In total, I used fifty-two (52) sources in eighty-one (81) activities during the seven (7) weeks of the intervention. Thirty-nine (39) of the sources were published, while thirteen (13) were written specifically for purposes of covering the learning outcomes of specific aspects of the three (3) modules, when suitable published materials were not available. Being a South African, I was impressed with the contribution that South African researchers made towards covering the learning outcomes of the intervention (50% of the total sources used during the intervention). Of course, I was proud of the fact that the work of South

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African researchers could be used to good effect in another African setting. A breakdown of the sources follows in Table 2.2 below.

Table 2.2: A Break-Down Of Sources Used During The Rwanda Learning Intervention

No Country Books Foreign African Written Total articles articles specifically sources (peer- (peer- for the reviewed) reviewed) intervention 1 Australia 5 5 2 Canada 1 1 3 China 1 1 4 Netherlands 2 2 5 Nigeria 1 1 6 Norway 1 1 7 Portugal 1 1 8 South Africa 1 12 13 26 9 Slovenia 1 1 10 Taiwan 1 1 11 United Kingdom 3 3 (UK) 12 United States of 1 6 7 America (USA) 13 Indonesia / UK 1 1 14 Norway / Australia 1 1 2 24 13 13 52

Author’s own work The participant group, as explained earlier, consisted of thirty-two (32) senior police officials from sixteen (16) African countries other than South Africa. These participants were comfortable with the materials used and lively discussions on the content of these pieces took place in class.

2.5.2 Linking Police Performance to Knowledge Generation and Dissemination

Measuring police performance in general, and in Africa in particular, is no easy task. The role of the police in society is simply open to too many variables and these have an effect on the domains of performance measurement. In Africa at large, Hills (2000) reiterates the views of others on the difficulties of determining how well the police do their job: “There are simply no published, systematic studies of police performance by

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any possible measures” (p. 17). Of course, some ground has been covered since Hill’s book was published, but the general view is still that police performance management in Africa is in need of intervention. An argument towards this need is presented below.

2.5.3 The Role of The Police in Society

There are at least two ways of looking at the police role in society. The first is that the legal mandate of the police will give a clear indication of the police role in society, as well as how the police are expected to execute that role. Typically, the above will be found in a democratic country’s constitution and Police Act, as well as the criminal law and a host of other Acts of Parliament (such as the Criminal Procedure Act, to name but one of these). This legalistic view of the role of the police in society is a proper way of policing citizens who live in a parliamentary democracy under the rule of law. The reason is that the law takes precedence over the political expedient decisions of authoritarian, nationalist, populist or totalitarian-minded people in positions of leadership in a given country.

The second way of looking at the police role in society is simply to interrogate the community and cultural imperatives of people. People have very specific views on what the police should do and these may not always be reflected in the laws of the country. Some people may feel that the police should be called to extract the proverbial pet cat from a tree, while others may feel that the police should be used to scare children out of a possible life of crime. This community-based view of the police role in society softens the legalistic view to the extent that a certain humaneness, and not merely interpretation and execution of the law, becomes part of the police official’s daily life.

In general, the police can be described as the state structure, which deals with crime, unrest, emergencies and cases of domestic challenges. The ideal is to have thinking police officials, conversant with research findings, who can balance the legalistic view and the community-based view while working on crime, unrest, emergencies and domestic violence challenges.

2.5.3.1 The traditional approach to police performance measurement

Given the role of the police in society, researchers have over many years been informed by the right realism – left realism discourse (Burger, 2016). According to this

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discourse, the police should do everything in their power to stamp out crime (right realism) and do everything in their power to stamp out the causes of crime (left realism). Typically, police performance is measured in favour of right realism, and then mainly in terms of crime rates (have they managed to prevent crime?); arrests (have they managed to take the bad guys off the streets?); clearance rates (have they managed to solve the crimes?); and response times (have they managed to get to those in need quickly?). Reiner (2010) points out that the police culture is mostly conservative, which makes crime rates, arrests, clearance rates and response times important to them. Great sociological or criminological debates are not necessarily attractive to them, for instance on the causes of crime, but being able to show results is an important part of their thinking and, of course, politically useful.

However, there are problems with the right realism approach. As an example, two issues are unpacked further. First, crime rates are not always valid indicators of police performance. This is because of the “dark figure” of crime reporting, or of incorrect recording of the crime by the police (Lab, 2013). However, the better the relationship between the police and the community, the more reporting can be expected. This is bad news for police commanders, if they are assessed against the absence of crime. Paradoxically, thus it is not good for the police to have a good relationship with the community. This paradox flies in the face of community policing initiatives, and response times may be as quick as possible, but the real question is not about how fast the police get to the scene. The real question centres on the time that the police were called: the police are mostly called at a significant time after the incident, leaving a very small possibility of the police finding the perpetrator on the scene, if any possibility at all (Lab, 2013). Consequently, researchers have attempted to find more comprehensive ways of measuring police performance. Some of these are mentioned in the next paragraph.

2.5.3.2 Dimensions or domains of police performance measurement: some research

Maquire (2003) provides some of the available research. These are O’Neill’s five dimensions, which are crime prevention, crime control, conflict resolution, general service and police administration. Hatry’s research equally identifies five dimensions, namely, prevention of crime, apprehension of offenders, responsiveness of the police, feeling of security, and fairness, courtesy, helpfulness or cooperativeness, and

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honesty. Moore’s seven domains focus on reducing criminal victimisation, calling offenders to account, reducing fear and enhancing personal security, guaranteeing safety in public spaces, using financial resources fairly, efficiently and effectively, using force and authority fairly, efficiently and effectively, and satisfying customer demands, thereby achieving legitimacy with those who are policed. Mastrofski’s six dimensions cover attentiveness, reliability, responsiveness, competence, manners, and fairness.

2.5.3.3 Towards a new theory of police performance measurement: Botha’s dimensions

If ever a final word, a ‘catch all’ theory, is possible, it still needs to be written. In the African context, much work still needs to be done here. The following represents work towards a comprehensive African theory of police performance management by this researcher. Some of the domains above are visible in this work, but the proposed theory may have the capacity to provide more comprehensive results on police performance measurement in Africa. It is not only based on crime statistics (though crime statistics are still an important part of police performance), but also makes use of qualitative reasoning, thereby taken the community-police interface into consideration. It also takes cognisance of police knowledge, police behaviour and police leadership. This theory covers five domains and is explained below.

• Dimension 1: Community-police interface. The following questions are asked in this dimension: how do people feel about the police in terms of care, and of mediation of problems? and what is the community-police relationship like?

• Dimension 2: Police knowledge. In Dimension 2 the questions are: is police explicit knowledge (the “know how” inside the policing agency) adequate?; is police tacit knowledge (the “know how” of individual police people) adequate?; and is police client knowledge (the “know about the community” part) adequate?

• Dimension 3: Police behaviour. Police behaviour, it is suggested, centres on transparency; ethics; corruption; and extra-legal activities.

• Dimension 4: Policing results. Dimension 4 works on the fear of crime; police crime statistics; victim surveys; the detection clearance rate; and the extent to which police entice other agencies and structures in society to make an impact on crime.

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• Dimension 5: Policing leadership results: Relevant questions here are to what extent are police people recognisable as having authentic influence on all levels of the policing agency?; to what extent do police people integrate knowledge generation and knowledge dissemination initiatives on all levels of the policing agency?; and how are police human resources, the police budget, and police physical resources managed?

The development of appropriate policing policies for the effective execution of these dimensions is a necessity (and not a luxury) for an effective police agency in a constitutional democracy under the rule of law. It is exactly these policies that should be developed in KL mode.

2.5.4 The Appointment of Civilian (Non-Police) People in the Post of National Commissioner of the SAPS

Criticism towards the appointment of a non-police (civilian) person to the post of National Commissioner of the SAPS is found in Burger (2012) and Newham (2015) who emphasise that policing in a constitutional democracy under the rule of law needs policing competencies. Both authors are of the opinion that the appointment of non- police people is dysfunctional. Newham (2015) brings criticism to the appointment process into the fray. He feels that South Africa cannot accept a situation in which the President, although legally mandated, appoints a loyal comrade as National Commissioner. Such an appointment could directly lead to political interference in the autonomy of the police who do the work of policing. The literature also suggests a distinct difference between the imperatives of public leadership compared to the private sector (Robertson, 2015), indicating a preference for career policing practitioners to lead policing agencies and not individuals from outside the policing environment (Pollitt, 2003; Andersen, 2010; Hansen & Villadsen, 2010). Three of South Africa’s National Police Commissioners after the Mandela presidency were appointed from outside the policing environment. The appointment of the first one, Jackie Selebi (appointed with effect from 1 January 2000), was a particular shock to the long-serving career police officials in the SAPS.

Schwella (2013) made a significant contribution to the literature on bad and toxic public leadership by investigating the Selebi case in detail. Selebi was found guilty of corruption and sentenced to 15 years imprisonment in 2010 (Schwella, 2013;

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Newham, 2015b). Selebi was a long-serving member of the ANC. He was also Chair of the Southern African Regional Police Chiefs Coordinating Organisation (SARPCCO) as well as President of the International Criminal Police Organisation (commonly known as Interpol). This is a study in the post-truth era, when borders blur between truth and lies, honesty and dishonesty, fiction and non-fiction and where deceiving others becomes a challenge, a game and ultimately a habit (Keyes, sine anno).

Analysing former President Mandela’s view on good governance, rule of law and leadership, Schwella (2013) deduces “that good public leadership respects the values of democracy, the rule of law and good governance” while “bad public leadership disregards these values at the expense of the population” (p. 67).

Unfortunately, our experience does not only cover the Selebi case, but also the cases of two other non-police incumbents of the post of National Commissioner (Botha, 2015; Newham, 2015b). Selebi’s successor, Bheki Cele, was dismissed over his involvement in tender irregularities involving R1.7 billion (and is at the time of writing South Africa’s latest police minister). Cele’s successor, Riah Phiyega, was dismissed. This is the result of the Marikana Commission’s finding that Phiyega was dishonest in her evidence before the Commission and recommended that a board of inquiry should investigate her fitness to hold office.

As far as the relationship between politics and policing is concerned, as well as the lack of policing knowledge, based on peer-reviewed research on which to make policy decisions, one has to further investigate the influence of the dominant political party on the lives of South Africa’s citizens and whether these appointees were in fact partisan and biased. Taking a cue from Schwella’s (2013) remark on governance above, and since this study focuses on the official state policing agency of South Africa (Chapter 1), the next paragraph will investigate South African policing from a governance perspective.

2.5.5 South African Policing from A Governance Perspective

According to Schwella (2015), governance refers to the interaction between the government (which makes laws, implement those laws, and interpret those laws), the private sector (which creates jobs and income) and civil society (which facilitates social

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and political interaction). Governance is therefore a cooperative or co-production activity.

However, different regimes have different perspectives, described as governance paradigms by Schwella (2015). These perspectives differ, for instance, between military regimes and new democracies, among others (Schwella, 2015). Sometimes different regimes have in fact the same perspectives. For instance, it was already submitted in this minor dissertation (in this chapter) that the governance perspectives of South Africa’s colonial ruler did not really differ from the perspectives of the Apartheid regime as far as policing was concerned. The opinion was also expressed in this chapter that the post-1994 regime’s view on policing may be the same as that of both these previous regimes. This situation indicates a convergence between different governance paradigms where policing is concerned, whether these regimes are capitalist, communist, nationalistic or radically fundamentalist by nature. These, according to Schwella (2015), are typed as governance ideologies. However, he also writes about state concepts (Schwella, 2015): the authoritarian state, failed state, developmental state and constitutional state.

South Africa is not a failed state (no governance and total chaos, depending on the results of the commission into state capture), nor a developmental state (good cooperation between the three actors in governance described above; in fact, South African civil society is mostly highly critical of the government. It is ex officio a constitutional state because of the Constitution (1996) and the central role of the Constitutional Court as the highest court in South Africa but is most probably rather an authoritarian state where powerful leaders are in control, because of its dominant party status.

The point, however, is that policing takes place within the ruling environment of the country, which can be determined by studying the governance paradigm, governance ideology and state concept. This is where Hills’s (2000) view, that the police “… are evidently too useful (or potentially too dangerous) for regimes to dispense with their services” (p. 55) becomes a useful guide in determining the convergence between different regimes as described above.

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2.5.6 Issues in Policing Leadership

As much as one needs to look at good governance as a defining issue within the three (3) governance partners as described above, one needs to look at research on ineffective and good police leaders. As far as ineffective police leaders are concerned, the Schafer (2014) study in the United States of America (USA) had three hundred and four (304) responses from career police officials on ineffective police leaders from all over the world with roughly 90 percent (90%) of the respondents from the USA. These officials were in management positions and had an average of twenty (20) years of service. Schafer (2014) found that ineffective police leaders “focus on self over others, display ego and arrogance issues, are closed-minded, tend to micromanage others, inconsistent in decision making, play organisational politics, display poor work ethic, fail to act for fear of looking bad or not knowing what to do, fail to communicate, lack interpersonal skills and lack honesty and integrity” (p. 3-7).

On good police leadership, Pearson-Goff and Herrington (2013) found that good police leaders were ethical, legitimate, role models, practised good communication and decision making, displayed trust and trustworthiness and were capable of critical, strategic and creative thinking. These good police leaders are able to create a shared vision in the workplace, engender organisational commitment, care for subordinates, solve problems and drive (and manage) change (Pearson-Goff & Herrington, 2013).

2.5.7 Enters KL

The continuous themes visible in this dissertation so far, may be summarised in two points. First, the history of policing on the continent of Africa, and therefore also South Africa, displays unbecoming political interference in policing. Four (4) key pillars are exposed in this politics/police historiography, namely, military-styled policing agencies would work at keeping the regime in power by suppressing the opponents of the regime (sometimes with deadly force) and at the same time also practice all kinds of criminal activities themselves. This is a classic situation of quis custodiet ipsos custodies (which may be translated as “who will protect us against the protectors?”). Second, the utilisation of knowledge, based on research, as the basis for police policy decisions on a non-partisan and democratic basis leads to professional policing. The scene is thus now set to investigate KL in more detail.

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2.5.7.1 Conceptual clarification of KL

Botha (2017) sought conceptual clarification of KL by exploring the definitions underlying KL. He therefore developed definitions for knowledge and for leadership, which he then used to develop an operational definition of KL. These definitions are presented below.

• Knowledge is defined as “valid reality, ascertained through methodical and systematic inquiry from within a chosen scientific paradigm” (Botha, 2017, p. 28). The definition is rooted in philosophical discourse by interrogating epistemology, methodology and ontology (which is subject to ontological pluralism, thereby indicating that reality in the social sciences may not necessarily be reduced to a “single truth” only). For purposes of this dissertation, the definition indicates that people in positions of leadership in the SAPS will do well to understand the need (and, indeed, the benefits) to using research in policy decisions.

• Leadership is defined as “authentic influence that integrates management systems on all levels of the organisation and creates value” (Botha, 2017, p. 29). The central role played by leadership in the organisation as part of the management function is emphasised by this definition. One of the points of departure in the article concerns the accepted four (4) management functions, namely, planning, organising, leading and control. Using right and left brain thinking, these functions can be divided into left brain functions (planning, organising and control), with leading as the only right brain function. Therefore, the definition accentuates the central role of leadership in the management structure of the organisation.

Authenticity and value creation are equally central to the definition. These terms will be clarified in more detail during the discussion of the definition of KL below. Suffice to say that, for purposes of this dissertation, people in positions of leadership in the SAPS will do well to keep in mind the discussions on bad, toxic, ineffective and good police leadership presented earlier on in this chapter.

• KL is defined as “authentic influence on all levels of the organisation based on valid reality, seeking to integrate knowledge development processes and knowledge management initiatives, and to create value to the benefit of an envisaged future”

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(Botha, 2017, p. 36). This definition expands on the definition provided by Cavaleri et al. (2005). Table 2.3 explains the definition.

Table 2.3: The Operational Definition of KL Explained

Term in definition Explanation Authentic Well-developed self-awareness that openly faces strengths, vulnerabilities, and development challenges. Influence Meaningful communication that connects with people by reminding self and others what is genuinely important. All levels of the Knowledge leaders are found across the organisation. organisation Based on valid The effect of ontological pluralism. We see reality differently. This is reality acceptable, as long as the validity of our views is supported by methodical and systematic inquiry from within a chosen scientific paradigm.

Integration of KD Knowledge leadership includes knowledge management (KM) but must go and KM processes beyond it to embrace the interpersonal, self-organising, and knowledge- developing (KD) aspects of knowledge in organisations. In contrast to KM, KD is an inside-out process that requires leadership through visioning, coaching and mentoring.

Creates value Passion and aspiration to serve multiple constituencies – self, team, organisation, world, family, community – to sustain performance and contribution over the long term. Envisioned future This envisioned future involves ideals for both optimum performance and knowledge mix. When knowledge leadership is done effectively, it leads to the creation of pragmatic knowledge.

Adapted from Botha, 2017, p. 36-27

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2.5.7.2 The pure inevitable parts of KL

The pure inevitable parts of KL may be described as having three components.

• Explicit knowledge is found in the public domain, which means that communities have some knowledge of it as well. It is found in books, journals and the media, among others (Seidler-de Alwis & Hartmann, 2008; Faucher, Everett, & Lawson, 2008). People can therefore read about the explicit knowledge used in policing. They may also follow court cases in which policing explicit knowledge is tested. Explicit knowledge represents the base of knowledge needed to execute the police role in society. Therefore, and for the sake of the argument, if one takes Botha’s dimensions on police performance as the standard, one should expect policing education, training and development interventions to be focused on the dimensions. • Tacit knowledge is personal and unique to a specific individual. It is about an individual’s judgement, based on natural talent, experience and education (Faucher et al., 2008; Seidler-de Alwis & Hartmann, 2008) and it refers to knowing what to do but based on individual competence (Hellriegel et al., 2010). The development of tacit knowledge, from this researcher’s point of view, is therefore closely linked to a personal commitment to life-long learning which can also be linked to growing experience as opposed to stagnant experience (doing the same thing over and over for many years without growth). • The sequential arrangement of knowledge refers, according to Faucher et al. (2008), to the movement from raw data to information (which is processed data), to knowledge (which is processed information), to wisdom (which is processed knowledge).

2.5.7.3 A contextual analysis of KL

KL can be analysed from several contexts. The contexts used in this minor dissertation are the personal context, the interpersonal context, the organisational context and the contexts provided for by a STEEPLE analysis. Although some sources are cited in the paragraph as it unfolds, much of it is based on this researcher’s role as an indigenous outsider participant observer (Chapter 1). The contexts are discussed below.

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The personal context refers to the idea that the knowledge leader must believe in the KL concept and practice it himself or herself. Given the operational definition of KL, the knowledge leader is the central person in the process. This knowledge leader does not kowtow to political expedience when the latter influences the organisation in other ways than following research based on the epistemological, methodical and ontological perspectives outlined above. The person herself or himself, the knowledge leader, must be able to withstand the consequences of opposing powerful political figures irrespective of what could perhaps happen. It is a principle-based lifestyle.

The interpersonal context refers to the relationship between the knowledge leader and the colleagues in the organisation. Since KL takes place on all levels of the organisation and not only from the top down, it has to do with the way in which a leader, as defined above, practises the opposite of bad and toxic leadership, as well as ineffective policing leadership. This entails a caring attitude, although a firm insistence on principles is not ignored.

The organisational context refers to the knowledge leader’s support of, and adherence to, the imperatives of South Africa’s constitutional democracy under the rule of law. This is, after all, South Africa’s chosen settlement to deal with our history. All other governance paradigms, ideologies and concepts are not supported by the knowledge leader and she or he withstands state capture approaches by politicians operating under the guise of a constitutional democracy under the rule of law.

The STEEPLE analysis is a development of the PESTLE concept, which is used often on governance contextual terms (Schwella, 2015). PESTLE is a mnemonic which refers to political, economic, social, technological, legal and environmental contexts. Schwella (while professor of Public Leadership at the School of Public Leadership at Stellenbosch University) added education to the mnemonic, which then became STEEPLE. This has not been published yet but was used in leadership development programmes at the school when appropriate. The STEEPLE analysis is used here and discussed below.

• First, the social context: policing is a social service. In the community, the police are the most visible and most accessible representative of government (Downey, Ekstrom, & Jones, 2011; Hills, 2000; Holm & Eide, 2006; Palmiotto & Unnithan, 2011). It therefore represents the public governance environment in South Africa.

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Because of the nature of the polices’ duties in the community, they are required to be among the community. The police are often the first responders to incidents, whether criminal-related or not. The police are required to respond whenever communities protest, often violently, against perceived poor service delivery by government. These incidents have the potential to harm the relationship between the community and the police, which relationship is necessary to maintain a partnership between the community and the police. The knowledge leader will not only be required to influence the police as an organisation, but also all spheres of public governance (national, provincial and municipal) in an effort to support knowledge development among these structures. • Second, the technological context: technology is used increasingly in criminal activity and the reports about this phenomenon are available in the media on a daily basis. These reports describe a world in which gifted people turn their minds towards using technology to, among others, hack and defraud others. As an example of the technological context in policing, a recently described investigation into the role of the cellphone in a criminal act is an example of knowledge generation that may be used effectively by the police’s knowledge leaders. According to the Lochner principle (Lochner & Zinn, 2015), there is non-visible contact between the cellphone and the scene of crime, whereas the Locard exchange principle (Lochner & Zinn, 2015) explains that some traces of the perpetrator stays on the scene, and some traces from the scene will stay on the perpetrator. These may be made visible by way of dactyloscopy (fingerprinting) and other forensic investigations. The Lochner principle describes the fact that traces of the cellphone will not be found directly on the crime scene but that the location of the cellphone is recorded by the cellphone network, which is not at the scene of a crime. The traces that may be linked to the scene are therefore mapped through telecommunication techniques by the relevant service provider. Investigators have been doing this before Lochner and Zinn (2015) described it, but their work contributes to the body of peer-reviewed scientific knowledge available in the public domain, and therefore reliably usable by knowledge leaders in policing. • Third, the economic context: the knowledge leader in policing should be acutely aware of possible causes of crime as a result of the economic environment. Burger

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(2007), for instance, points out the effects of poverty and unemployment in crime causation. Although crime is caused by a combination of factors, the part played by economic factors can not be underestimated by the police knowledge leader. This includes taking cognisance of the latest criminological and other research which investigate the causes of crime. • Fourth, the education context: the key characteristic of a knowledge leader is learning (Viitala, 2004). Apart from own learning, the knowledge leader has other functions also: she or he is a coach, facilitator, teacher and developer. For purposes of this dissertation, it is important to emphasise that knowledge leaders create a climate in the police organisation that supports learning and unleashes a thirst for knowing more (and therefore, supports life-long learning). A submission of this minor dissertation is that this is the only way to lead the police in a constitutional democracy under the rule of law. Van Heerden (1976) emphasises this point in a special way by writing about the symbiotic relationship (which he borrowed from biology) between police science, on the one hand, and other disciplines on the other. These include the law, criminology, psychology, public administration, sociology and several natural sciences (such as chemistry, among others). The question therefore is: why does South Africa still appoint young people with matric certificates, approximately the same procedure followed from the colonial era and the Apartheid era, to police an advanced constitutional democracy under the rule of law? (Although recommended, matric was not always a prerequisite during those eras. As long as the police official was physically strong, could subdue another person with physical techniques and able to shoot well). Of course, this researcher does not maintain that young people should not get the opportunity to join the official policing structure in the country. Far from it. But should our police officials not at least have a tertiary qualification from a registered higher-education service provider? This issue needs to be expanded on in future research endeavours. • Fifth, the political context: this context is part of the overall investigation of this minor dissertation. Suffice to say that history indicates an unbecoming politics/police relationship (chapters 1 and 2). The knowledge leader is a professional police official required to form policing policy based on research, not

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on political expedience that may be counter to the imperatives of a constitutional democracy under the rule of law. • Sixth, the legal context: this context has been discussed earlier in this dissertation (Chapter 1). Suffice to say that the knowledge leader will be a staunch supporter of the constitutional democracy under the rule of law. • Seventh, the environmental context: in South Africa, land is an issue of national discourse. This discourse may lead to protest action which, as described under the social context, will inevitably lead to the activation of the police. The knowledge leader will tap into all her or his knowledge resources to deal with this. The knowledge leader will understand the emotions on all sides of the debate and attempt to exercise authentic influence in order to prevent negative effects.

2.6 Summary

This chapter investigated the politics/police relationship in South Africa. However, because of the African continent’s shared contextual historiography, it covers an African first people perspective, then moves on to the colonial era, the post-colonial era (with specific reference to Apartheid in South Africa), and then to the post-1994 era.

The first people inquiry (an effort to find more on governance, leadership and policing in Africa before colonialism, from a mostly verbal history environment) uses work done in South Africa but also takes account of the views of some East African police officials, called the Rwanda Study in the chapter. This was deemed necessary for this dissertation because of the influence of East African pastoralists on the formation of South Africa’s first people. After the first people inquiry, a discourse on colonial policing and post-colonial policing asserts that policing was executed by paramilitary forces, which were utilised to keep the regime in the seats of power, suppress the community (especially critics of the regime) and loot the state’s assets for personal gain.

The post-1994 era covers the democratic government which the African National Congress (the ANC) was elected to during South Africa’s first all-franchise elections of 27 April 1994. This discussion is particularly focused on the presidency of former President Jacob Zuma. Much more academic work should ideally be done on this fourth phase in South Africa’s politics/policing environment as many questions prevail.

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However, the chapter mentions some recent research in this phase that is worth reading and will hopefully be entertained in more academic studies.

Finally, professional policing through knowledge leadership is explored in this chapter. It is a submission of this dissertation that professional policing is the counterpoint to the system of adverse political influence over-policing that is visible from colonial times, to post-colonial times and then to current times in South Africa.

Chapter 3, following directly after this chapter, will describe the method used in this study.

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3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

3.1 Introduction

This chapter will cover the researcher’s research philosophy, research method, research strategy, population and participant profile, as well as an explanation of the primary data collection. The data analysis strategy will be explained and the issues of validity and reliability in qualitative research will be addressed.

3.2 Ontology and Epistemology

Ontology (the study of being and of reality, writes Eriksson & Kovalainen, 2016) is subject to ontological pluralism: the view that truth or reality in the social sciences may not be reduced to one explanation only but represents an individual’s interpretation of what constitutes fact (Snyman & Du Plessis, 1987). In social research, the construct truth or valid knowledge may be an elusive concept when one compares it to the natural or physical sciences. This study adopts an ontology that the truth is with various individuals and can be explained by many. The ontological perspective of this researcher is interpretivist, describing the social reality (Collis & Hussey, 2003) as interpreted from the narratives. Ontologically interpretivists believe that reality is dependent on the meaning that people ascribe to their experiences and interactions with other people. The social world is what people perceive it to be (Du Plooy-Cilliers et al., 2014). It is therefore by nature subjective, relative, evolving and dynamic (Cresswell, 1994).

Mouton (1996) describes epistemology simply as a search for the truth. For Babbie (2010) and for Snyman and Du Plessis (1987) epistemology is the science of knowing, which is derived from the Greek epistèmè (meaning real knowledge) and logos (meaning science or cognitive ability). Since methodology is a specific and systematic way to search for the truth (Mouton, 1996), research is in pursuit of valid knowledge. Epistemology is dependent on a method to obtain truth. The researcher utilises a social constructionist epistemology, in which knowledge and meaning are generated through subjective involvement between the researcher and the participants (Eriksson & Kovalainan, 2016). For purposes of the social constructionist approach, the researcher preferred to use the qualitative research paradigm.

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3.3 Qualitative Research Paradigm

A qualitative research paradigm is used in this study. People are not mere objects and the application of the methods of the natural sciences not necessarily useful for studying social phenomena (Du Plooy-Cilliers et al., 2014). Qualitative research enables the researcher to describe and understand (interpret) human action, rather than explaining and predicting human behaviour, as quantitative research aims to do (Babbie & Mouton, 2001). According to Babbie and Mouton (2001), qualitative research is inductive in that its emphasis is on developing new interpretations of first- order descriptions of events, rather than approaching people with deductively derived research hypotheses (hypothetic-deductive, as used in quantitative research). Qualitative research is rooted in anti-positivism, a reaction to positivism (and consequently quantitative research), and studies human behaviour from the perspective of people themselves (Du Plooy-Cilliers et al., 2014).

Babbie (2010, p. 33) defines a paradigm as “a model or frame of reference through which to observe and understand”. In the social sciences, paradigms are more likely to be referred to as research traditions or worldviews (Du Plooy-Cilliers et al., 2014). In this study, the interpretivist paradigm is used (Du Plooy-Cilliers et al., 2014), which is also known as the hermeneutic-phenomenological science (or hermeneutic- phenomenological cognitive interest). Ontologically interpretivists believe that reality is dependent on the meaning that people ascribe to their experiences and interactions with other people. The social world is what people perceive it to be (Du Plooy-Cilliers et al., 2014).

Methodologically it is argued (Du Plooy-Cilliers et al., 2014) that interpretivists depend on qualitative research, which can be described as a research strategy that emphasises words rather than numbers (quantification) in the collection and analysis of data.

As far as epistemological thought is concerned, interpretivists challenge the idea of objective knowledge and objective truth: truth is dependent on people’s interpretation of facts (Du Plooy-Cilliers et al., 2014). The anti-positivist approach is most clearly evident in participant observation (Welman et al., 2005; De Vos et al., 2005). In participant observation, the researcher is not a detached outsider, but a first-hand

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insider, thereby becoming a member of the inner circle of the group that is being studied. (Welman et al., 2005).

Against this background, one can now deduct several advantages as well as disadvantages of qualitative research. These will be discussed in the next two paragraphs with the support of a summary of findings by several researchers and published by Rahman (2016).

3.3.1 Advantages of Qualitative Research

Using a qualitative research approach, the researcher capitalised on the advantages of qualitative research, as postulated by Rahman (2016), such as obtaining a rich, thick and detailed description of participant’s feelings, opinions and interpretations of the meanings of their actions; each participant provided a holistic view of their human experience within their specific settings. An ability to understand different people’s voices was evident in the participants’ narratives. Participants’ inner experience, an understanding of how meaning is shaped and an understanding of the effect of culture on meaning were discovered in the narratives. Since the researcher interacted with participants directly and personally, data collection was subjective and detailed. The structure was therefore more detailed than what would be found in quantitative research.

3.3.2 Disadvantages of Qualitative Research

Equally, the researcher could also reflect on the disadvantages of qualitative research postulated by Rahman (2016). In this regard, participants placed more emphasis on individual meaning and experience than on contextual sensitivities. The researcher made provision for the possibility that policing policymakers may criticise results from qualitative research because they may perceive a lack of credibility when measured against the positivist nature of research in the natural sciences. Since the sample was small, the researcher kept in mind that the sample size may equally lead to a perception of low credibility and that the interpretation of the data may generally be more complex and even more difficult.

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3.4 Research Method

3.4.1 Research Setting

The research setting was the physical, social and cultural site in which the researcher conducted the study (Babbie, 2010). The researcher therefore studied the participants in their natural setting. In this study, the natural setting is South Africa, and therefore formed the basis of the theme covered in the study. The natural setting therefore served as the foundation from which the relationship between politics and policing was studied. Given colonialism and Apartheid, this relationship (between politics and policing), could not be studied without working from a South African historiography. Of necessity, it also studied the political, social, economic and legal contexts of South African historiography. This historiography was included in Chapter 2 of the minor dissertation.

3.4.2 Research Strategy

The researcher needed to have clarity with regards to the differences among various research strategies. The research strategy used in this study was a qualitative one (Heppner & Heppner, 2004) by which the narratives collected were analysed through content thematic analysis. This strengthened the relationship between document analysis (the narratives were individual documents written by the population) and content thematic analysis as postulated by Bowen (2009). The research strategy therefore served the study as an overall plan through which the goals of exploring, describing and explaining phenomena were reached (Babbie, 2010).

3.5 Population and Sample

3.5.1 Population

The research population is the object of study, which can consist of individuals, groups or organisations (Welman et al., 2005; Punch, 2004). This particular population consisted of university academics with the rank of professor, who worked in the policing, politics and leadership environments in South Africa. These professors were accessed from a list drafted by the Institute of Security Studies (the ISS) in South Africa during 2016. The reason for this choice was that the researcher valued the work

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done by policing academic researchers in South Africa, the researcher having been part of that environment for 47 years. It was an expedient choice as the professors offered very useful insights into the topic. Academic researchers were also purposefully chosen because of the very specific contribution they have already offered to the societal safety discourse in South Africa. In many respects, they worked in tandem with the results offered by a vibrant civil society and investigative media environment, both of which are highly visible in the critical assessment of policing in our country.

It is common cause that the rank of professor is the highest academic rank in South African universities and elsewhere in the world. According to an Emeritus Deputy Vice Principal of the University of Limpopo, professors are, in general, appointed because of specialised knowledge in a field. They are generally recognised for their academic expertise and for valued contributions to the national discourse (Franks, 2017). South African academia has been clearly visible in the policing field for many years and have played a major role in policing transformation, policy determination and policing education, training and development (Erasmus, 1985; Van der Spuy, 1989; Hansson, 1989; Prior, 1989; Plasket, 1989; Steytler, as cited in Hansson & Van Zyl Smit, 1990; Schärf, 1989 and Schwella, 2013).

3.5.2 Sampling

The professors were extracted from a list compiled by the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) during April 2016 in consultation with individuals working in the world of policing. This was a purposive sample aimed at getting the most out of the participant group. The participant group’s experience of phenomena studied, commonly required in interpretivist and phenomenological studies, dictated sample sizes. The views of Polkinghorne (as cited in Creswell, 2012) was followed. He indicated that a sample size between one (1) and ten (10) would suffice in such studies.

3.5.2.1 Gaining Access to Participants

Prospective participants were approached through email with a formal written request and a consent form (Annexures A and B). When no responses were received, the researcher telephoned participants and requested that participants kindly considered participating in the research.

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3.5.2.2 Participant Profile

Twelve (12) professors in South African universities were identified from the ISS list of researchers working in the field of policing in South Africa and approached for participation. Of these, six (6) participants responded. Of the remaining six (6), non- responding is explained as follows: no initial response and failure to establish telephone contact, five (three women and two men) and no response because of a possible clash of interests, indicated during a follow-up telephone call, one (male). The narratives were then numbered according to their positions on the original list as P2, P4, P5, P7, P11 and P12. Closer scrutiny of the contributions received from the participants revealed that one of them (P4) did not produce a narrative written by himself or herself. Instead, (s)he produced a narrative about himself or herself written by another researcher and published as academic literature in a series on policing pioneers. The contribution by this respondent (P4) was consequently not included in this minor dissertation as a primary source, but as a secondary source in the literature review. This left the participant group with five professors.

The profile of this final participant group was collected from Part A of the written request to the participant to take part in the research (Annexure A) and is shown in Table 3.1 below.

Table 3.1: Profile of Participant Group

No Highest qualification PhD: 4; D Litt et Phil:1 1 Experience as an academic (in Highest: 40 years; Lowest: 17 years. years) Average: 31.2 years. 2 Academic discipline English literature and language: 1 (Combinations differed, therefore Sociology/criminology: 1 individually described). Policing/forensic investigation: 1 Criminology/criminal justice/law: 1 Governance/public management/public leadership: 1 3 Experience of policing (in years) Highest: 32 years; lowest: 2 years. Average: 18.4 years. 4 Age Highest: 80 years (still working as Emeritus); Lowest: 56 years. Average 65.2 years. 5 Gender Female: 1; Male: 5 6 Race group White: 6

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3.5.2.3 Notes on the Participant Group Profile

This section profiles the participant group. Participants understood paragraphs 1 (experience as an academic) and 3 (experience of policing) differently. Some interpreted their time as academics in the field of policing as part of their experience of policing. Others distinguished between time spent researching and teaching at a university and time spent within the police organisation as a policing practitioner and presented years spent in both environments as such. At the drafting of Part A of the written request to the participant to take part in the research (Annexure A), the researcher was of the opinion that experience “as an academic” (researcher’s accentuation) would be seen as years spent researching and teaching at a university. In the same vein, the researcher believed experience “of policing” (researcher’s accentuation) would be understood as years spent in the environment of policing, whether researching and teaching at a university or within the police organisation as a policing practitioner. The lesson here is that this researcher should have provided a range for each of the two paragraphs, defining the area more thoroughly. One of the participants decided not to provide his or her real age, but to indicate “60+” in Section 4. The participant indicating an age of 80 years, which is normally well over compulsory official retirement age, is still working in the field of policing but as a professor emeritus.

The participants are all white and only one woman participated. The original ISS list of 12 professors, demarcated as the population was, offered only one person not belonging to the white race group and four women professors. The black professor did not participate, despite several efforts to reach her, and only one woman participated, also in spite of several attempts to facilitate responding.

In summary: the participants were provided with a participant number from P1 to P12 (where the designation “P” indicates “Participant”) on the original sample list for purposes of honouring the promise of anonymity that I made to proposed participants at invitation. The contribution of participant P4 was not used as a narrative since he had a biographical article on his life work sent to me. Instead, his work was used in the literature review. Since 5 of the 12 professors approached were used in the study, the numbers of the five eventual participants therefore do not necessarily follow in direct numerical order. As a result, the participant numbers used in this minor

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dissertation are P2, P5, P7, P11 and P12, with P4 not used as a source for primary data as described above.

3.5.2.4 Reference to Research Bias in the Study

Heppner and Heppner (2004) speak to the importance of the role of a researcher and dealing with bias during the research process. The role of this researcher was explained in Chapter 1. A brief repetition may be useful here. The researcher was a career police official and is still involved in policing, mostly in the fields of research as well as policing education, training and development. This allowed him access to many people in the policing field inside and outside the sector. The year 2019 marks an involvement of 47 years in the field of policing in general, police education, training and development and the academic study of policing at a tertiary level. To date, the researcher has worked in 18 countries on three (3) continents of the world. He served in the former South African Police (SAP) for 16 years; at the University of South Africa (UNISA) as a lecturer in the Department of Criminology/Penology/Police Science for eight years; in the South African Police Service (SAPS) for 11 years in the Senior Management Service until retirement at the end of June 2006 in the rank of Assistant Commissioner (the current rank of Major General). This gave the researcher knowledge and information that could impact the manner the study was executed.

Taking Welman et al. (2005) as the cue, it is argued that the decision to use a narrative approach rather than interviews is already an effort to prevent bias, since the narrative approach relies on faceless content analysis. The researcher enjoys an honest standing in society, partly due to his personal convictions and principles. Although the personal-self and the researcher-self is the same person (Creswell, 1994), the researcher writes this dissertation while continuously reflecting honestly and without manipulation. The latter is also a result of the researcher’s attitude to a police career, where falsification of evidence can never be part of the organisational principles and is therefore mercilessly punishable.

3.6 Data Collection

Primary data collection was done by way of narrative research. Narrative research is a form of inquiry by which the researcher asks individuals to provide stories about their lives (Sandelowski, 1991; Creswell, 1994; Bell, 2003). These stories are then analysed

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and described to explain some phenomenon. The participants in this study all had stories to tell that shed light on politicised policing and professional policing in that policing has had (and in some cases still has) a measurable impact on their academic lives. Participants were asked to:

• Comment on politicised and professional police in South Africa;

• Comment on the politics/police relationship in South Africa; and

• Comment on whether KL may influence the politics/police relationship in South Africa.

3.6.1 Data Recording and Management

Data were stored electronically and then printed for purposes of content thematic analysis. Participants were numbered in alphabetical order per university, and the universities arranged in terms of the number of researchers on the ISS list. The university with the most researchers on the list was consequently ranked first among the universities, while the universities that had fewer researchers followed downwards, and the professors were listed alphabetically under each university. This ranking hierarchy served as a basis for filing the stories in hard copy. Apart from storing the stories on the researcher’s computer, two back-up copies of each story were saved on two external hard drives. Two hard copies of each story were printed. One of the copies was used for the analysis, which was done by hand with coloured pens and markers. The other hard copies were used to re-read some of the stories when necessary, without having to cope with an already busy and colourful copy, and to do selective coding in step 5 of the data collection process.

3.7 Data Analysis

Content thematic analysis was used. Content analysis is a systematic assessment of documents to extract data (themes and categories), which are then examined and interpreted to gain understanding and develop empirical knowledge (Bowen, 2009). This part of the analysis represented a substantive approach of searching for the truth. The other part of the analysis consisted of a procedural approach in the search for truth: in terms of procedure, data were found, selected and appraised after which major themes and categories were drafted. It is important to understand, also given

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the role of this researcher and the constant awareness of bias, that the content analysed was found in documents that the researcher was not directly involved in. The conceptualisation and drafting of the stories are the work of the individual respondents.

With the choice of content thematic analysis made, the issue of coding entered the scene. Analysis was done through three major types of coding, used in a collective manner (De Vos et al, 2005; Babbie and Mouton, 2001). These types were open coding, axial coding and selective coding.

During open coding, every individual text was first done in its entirety to determine the main idea of the text. The texts were broken down and examined by asking questions, the view being to understand what the key issues were. The texts were then examined by paragraph, sentence and line to determine the main idea of each paragraph/sentence/line.

The axial coding phase followed open coding to focus attention on specifying categories and subcategories (De Vos et al., 2005; Babbie & Mouton, 2001). This meant that the data could be reassembled in new ways and comparisons could be made to the pictures emerging from the open coding phase. Finally, during selective coding, further refinement took place. It was now possible to identify themes and sub- themes with more clarity. This exercise formed the basis for the findings and discussions to follow in Chapter 4.

The brief outline of the coding process within the three tiers, as described above, fits into the steps available for analysis. These steps are discussed below. Initially a process with steps was compiled from De Vos et al. (2005), Babbie and Mouton (2001) and Zhang & Wildemuth (as cited in Du Plooy-Cilliers et al., 2014). However, the exposition of Braun and Clarke’s seminal work (where they offer a six-step framework for qualitative data analysis) by Maguire and Delahunt (2017) serves for this researcher as a neat and systematic process. It combines the various views on process in an easy-to-use framework. Therefore, these six steps were employed in the data analysis process of this dissertation.

3.7.1 Steps Followed in Data Analysis Processes

Maguire and Delahunt (2017) are of the opinion that Braun and Clarke’s six-step framework, published in 2006, is arguably the most influential, clear and usable

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framework for thematic analysis in the social sciences. Their rendition (Maquire & Delahunt, 2017) is based on meeting the needs of their own students. The steps, and the way I used them, are explained below.

• Step 1: Become familiar with the data

Reading and re-reading the stories ensured familiarity with the entire body of data. This supported my quest to first get an overall image of each respondent’s story. For coding purposes, I was able to start making comparisons and asking questions to determine the main idea of the text.

• Step 2: Generate initial codes

Initial data organising took place in this step of the process. I decided to use open coding, from whole text, to paragraphs, to line-by-line coding. In this way, I did not have pre-set codes. The codes were indeed developed and modified as I worked through the process. Also, I found it useful to migrate from the whole-text picture to paragraph coding to line-by-line coding. This meant that I could explore the richness of the data further than what was possible with whole-text coding.

• Step 3: Search for themes

In this step, I organised the initial codes into broader themes through axial coding. The results of the actions here are discussed in more detail in Chapter 4 of this dissertation.

• Step 4: Review themes

The themes developed in Step 3 were then assessed and modifications effected. The data associated with each of the themes were tested as to whether they really supported the themes. In this regard, Maguire and Delahunt (2017, p. 3358) offer the following questions for the researcher to think about: “Do the themes make sense?; Does the data support the themes?; Am I trying to fit too much into a theme?; If themes overlap, are they really separate themes?; Are there themes within themes (subthemes)?; Are there other themes within the data?”

• Step 5: Define themes

This step constitutes the final refinement of the themes, inquiring into the “essence of what each theme is about” Braun & Clarke (as cited in Maguire & Delahunt, 2017, p.

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33511). In this step, I assessed the codes on the basis of selective coding. I selected the core category de novo and compared it to the results of open and axial coding.

• Step 6: Writing-up

This minor dissertation serves as the endpoint of the research.

3.8 Validity and Reliability in Qualitative Research

Given this researcher’s sensitivity, as explained in the paragraph on bias, the soundness of the study is of importance. Creswell (1994) and Welman et al. (2005) are particularly helpful in advising on this issue. On validity, Creswell (1994) suggests primary strategies to check on soundness, which are supported by Welman et al. (2005). Of these, this researcher has already written in this dissertation around bias and member checking (taking findings back to participants for approval). The researcher has also commented on the prolonged time spent in the field (in the role of the researcher as an indigenous outsider participant observer) which indicates an in- depth understanding of the phenomenon and setting under study. In addition, and now mentioned for the first time, the researcher is in constant discussions with peers on research being done and this will be no exception.

Collis and Hussey (2003) point out that reliability is of more importance in positivist studies than in interpretative studies. However, for them, it is important that qualitative studies show the authenticity of the findings by the “protocols and procedures” (p. 64) that the researchers deploy. In this sense, authenticity in qualitative research is directly related to reliability in quantitative studies. The question therefore in this qualitative study was simply whether the researcher’s conclusions would stand up to close scrutiny. In much the same vein, Welman et al. (2005) argue that objectivity refers to “objective methods and procedures” (p. 2) that do not rely on personal feelings, whereas interpretivists argue that the researcher is subjectively involved in the research, the main tenet of the paradigmatic ontology and epistemological assumption. This view places authenticity firmly in view: will the conclusions of the study stand up to close scrutiny? This study therefore, being an interpretivist one, was cognisant of validity and the ontological pluralism that exists around reliability and objectivity from an authentic perspective.

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3.9 Summary

The nexus (connection, or linkages) in the storyline so far can be traced as follows: first, a general introduction of and background to the study was offered in Chapter 1. A comprehensive literature review forms the content of Chapter 2. This chapter, Chapter 3, has now defined the parameters of the research methodology that was utilised. This will set the scene for the findings, as extracted from the stories of the participants, in Chapter 4.

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4 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS

4.1 Introduction

This chapter presents the discussion and findings of the research. First, it displays the themes and sub-themes that emerged from the narratives, and the findings that emerged from the themes and sub-themes. The findings are then categorised and a typology of findings constructed. A discussion of the typology of findings follows, after which the sub-research questions are compared to the findings.

4.2 Emerging Themes and Findings from the Narratives

The results of the analysis of the narratives, provided by P2, P5, P7, P11 and P12, will now be detailed by describing the themes that have emerged. I analysed all the narratives through the steps identified in Chapter 3 of this minor dissertation. An overall observation while working through these narratives was the realisation that the narratives were all very personal. Participants were baring their souls when they wrote their stories. This was a sobering realisation emphasising, for me, that participants such as these could give a researcher free access to their academic contributions while sharing also their innermost selves. It did have a personal effect on me (after all, I know them all) and I resolved to stay as objective as I possibly could. To achieve this, I looked at their narratives almost as from the sideline, detached yet focusing on the interrogation of every word and sentence that I read. I simply guarded against any possibility of bias. I consider this experience as a very important methodological realisation and I vowed to practise extra care as I started to understand more about the role of the indigenous outsider participant observer within an ethically informed qualitative research environment (Chapter 1). As an entry to the discussion, the themes discovered in the narratives can be portrayed as follows in Table 4.1.

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Table 4.1: Emerging Themes from the Narratives

NO THEMES SUB-THEMES 1 Transformation in • Transformation in societal safety on the local sphere of societal safety in South government. Africa. • Transformation in South African police and policing. • Disillusionment with transformation in South African police and policing. • Governance transformation and transition, and professional leadership and management development of the new SAPS top structure. • Dissociation from the SAPS.

2 Power dynamics in • Young white police officials and soldiers during Apartheid. policing in South Africa. • Politics and policing in South Africa. 3 Police and policing • Police culture. dynamics in South Africa.

4.2.1 Theme 1: Transformation in Societal Safety in South Africa

4.2.1.1 Sub-theme 1.1: Transformation in societal safety on the local sphere of government

P2 explains in his narrative that he

was persuaded by my old friend Clifford Shearing to join a project just starting in Zwelethemba, Worcester, with the strong support of the late Dullah Omar. This enterprise turned into the Community Peace Programme, facilitating community-based processes of dispute resolution that came to be called Peace Committees. This programme was soon seen by SAPS as complementing their formal policing approach, and we established excellent relations with local stations (P2).

However, according to P2, this team of Shearing and himself went further than the Community Peace Programme in Zwelethemba by starting an “experimental programme in Cape Town’s Metro Police, appointing experienced officers as ‘Neighbourhood Safety Officers’, inspired by the example of Amsterdam’s ‘wykagente’” (P2). He also informs us in his narrative that, at the time of writing the narrative (according to my notes, this was in June 2018), he was “in the middle of a

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three-year contract with the City to assist in taking it further” (P2) This further work entailed “developing a programme of integrated policing” (P2), which aimed to establish a “mutual complementaritry” [sic] (P2) between various units within the City’s policing environment and the SAPS. Apart from an attempt to make the world a better place in a specific community by empowering community members to resolve disputes, P2 and Shearing were also experimenting with operational policing entities whose reason for existence lay in societal safety. Experimenting, of course, is an academic term and the activity is aimed at a possible epistemological outcome. This can be seen as a direct reference to the ideals of KL, as discussed in Chapter 2 of this dissertation, even if the P2 and Shearing team does not use the term. The following finding is made:

• Finding 1:

Experiments in community-based processes of dispute resolution and integrated policing at the local level can contribute to a better understanding of the quest to make the world a better place for South Africa’s citizens. Experimenting in these areas is a direct reference to knowledge creation and dissemination, and therefore to KL.

4.2.1.2 Sub-theme 1.2: Transformation in South African police and policing.

P5’s narrative starts with her growing up in a house and family of police officials (her father, brother-in-law and mother’s brother were police officials, and in the wider family environment there were more police officials). These people joined during the depression and thereafter (P5 does not provide a timeline, but it is common knowledge that it covered an approximately ten-year period from 1929 to 1939). They were “men who were not skilled for other jobs who took advantage of the civilised labour policies of the time” (P5). It is important to note the reference to men in P5’s work. She does not mention women at all. The policing environment that she experienced in her family home was a male-dominated one. In line with this argument (about the omnipresence of men), I noticed that P5’s father played an important role in her life:

I remember my father’s uniform hanging in the corridor. It was my job to polish his shoes. But my efforts were never good enough – he would re-polish and spit and polish. I knew from very early on that cops were ordinary people and not necessarily pigs with weapons. My father was

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a quiet man. He studied Latin at school and understood the structure of language. I don’t think he ever abused his power as his inclination was to avoid conflict (P5).

She remembers that her father “used to tell the most amazing stories about doing patrol on horseback in the Northern Cape. He loved the solitude and the open space, but above all he loved his horse” (P5). When the horse died, she felt that a part of her father died as well. The horse incident was long before she was born, yet it played an important role in the way in which she remembers her father.

However, the picture sketched above about a thoughtful, quiet, non-abusive, neat father with a strong love for his horse as the typical police official would change for P5. A series of events were instrumental in this change. She became cognisant of the power that police officials have power that could be used to harm others when she asked her father about detainees shouting at the Athlone police station (alongside which they lived at the time) and he answered, “Because that is what they do. The answer did not satisfy me” (P5). Steve Biko’s death particularly affected her: “I was a troublesome 19 or 20-year-old by then and Radical Sociology had turned my world upside down. When I asked my dad, he said ‘there are things that you should not be concerned with’” (P5). She recalls “a picture of a man without clothes, injured by numerous beatings and transported in a police van. When Kruger was left cold by Biko’s death I turned a political corner, I became a rebel and a bit of an outcast in the family” (P5).

Her wider academic exposure brought more insights to P5. During studies in the United Kingdom in 1980, she realised that police torture “was a global one and that SAP practices constituted a variation on the wider theme. The comparative perspective helped a bit but only a bit as the racial dynamics of white cop and black detainee still made the SA version different” (P5).

In her narrative, P5 refers briefly to her interest in policing historiography, by talking about an article that she wrote on the history of the South African Police: “There was not much scholarship at the time. It seemed like a worthwhile thing to do. I never looked back. I wanted to understand why my father – who did Latin in matric and came from a middle-class family – joined the cops in the 1930s” (P5).

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P5’s learning was augmented by several academic forays on the planet. During 1990 she researched policing policy issues in “the UK; the Netherlands; and in Northern Ireland. It was tense in Northern Ireland at the time. Catholics and Protestants shooting at one another and the cops somewhere in the middle. The Northern Ireland piece pointed to parallels with South African policing” (P5). In 1991 she went to India “and read whatever there was on Indian policing – there were colonial parallels” (P5).

In 1992 P5 became involved in policy conversations about the future of police and policing. She does not say so in the narrative, but this is most probably a reference to transformation work on policing in South Africa. Consider, for instance, the following which I believe to be a reference to police officials who served in the former SAP during that time: “Some cops of the old guard would pitch at the workshops. I thought they were brave to be ignored or shouted at. In the end, we all drank too much. But it was easier to socialize with wine in the paw” (P5). At this stage of her life, argues P5, “I belonged neither to the lefty crowd nor to the police crowd. Always balanced somewhere in-between” (P5). The discussions were about “democratic policing and community-orientated policing. We did not have the foggiest idea what we were talking about. Not really. But we were holding conference after conference” (P5). In 2000 P5 went to Ghana

and became part of a network of researchers interested in policing in Africa. That put a new spin to an old interest. The state is a strange creature in Africa. The police are underdeveloped, deeply corrupt, and generally emaciated. The continental dynamics forced me to question the Western model of police and policing. Again, the challenges in South Africa constituted a mere variation on a continental theme (P5).

The P5 narrative brought me from her growing-up years in a policeman’s home to her questioning the status quo, to constant searching for a better-policing world through thorough research, which is the basis of KL. However, soon P5 was to interrogate the transformation process that took part around her and in which she worked. This will be discussed in the next sub-theme. The following finding is made:

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• Finding 2:

Personal experiences in policing and research about policing enrich the contribution that individuals can make to policing. Knowledge so created can be disseminated to the advantage of policing policy and practices. This is the quest of KL.

4.2.1.3 Sub-theme 1.3: Disillusionment with transformation in South African police and policing

P5 eventually became disillusioned with the efforts to change the police and policing in South Africa.

By the mid-2000s my son was 16 and my fear was that he would be picked up by the police for some or other transgression. I realised then that little has changed … except of course that we could go to court and/or IPID should things go wrong. Sixteen years of police reform and I am anxious about my son. How difficult for things to change. How easy for things to remain the same (P5).

But there was more to come. Says P5: “In 2012 Marikana happened. Black cops shooting black workers. The same old thing. It sparked an interest in the history of massacres and took me back to the archives to revisit turning points in the history of public order policing” (P5).

Lastly, P5 is apparently expressing a wish of being an indigenous insider, and not a non-indigenous outsider (described in Table 1.2, Chapter 1): “In my next life I hope to wear a uniform. Then I will be able to experience from the inside out. Until that happens, however, I will probably continue to experience from the outside in” (P5).

P5’s work on police and policing policy transformation through academic work is a clear reference to KL as described in this dissertation (in Chapter 2) even though the term itself only came to pass many years later. Her disillusionment, in my opinion, is in fact an indictment of the political powers who chose to ignore the tenets of work, such as that done by P5, in the determination of policing policy suitable for a constitutional democracy under the rule of law. All things stayed the same as they were under colonialism and Apartheid. The following finding is constructed:

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• Finding 3:

The political powers have ignored all the knowledge work done by academic researchers on policing transformation. South African policing has therefore not transformed. It is now at exactly the same place as it was under colonialism and Apartheid. This represents disillusionment of the highest order.

4.2.1.4 Sub-theme 1.4: Governance transformation and transition, and professional leadership and management development of the new SAPS top structure

P12 narrates a multi-faceted contribution to governance transformation and transition, and links it to the quest for a professionally developed top leadership and management cadre for the new SAPS. He identifies two main roles utilised to progress with his contribution. These are the roles of an activist and of an academic. This view of the academic as an activist (or the activist as an academic) can be linked to emancipatory action research as described in Table 1.1, Chapter 1. It is also quite constant in the historiography of South African policing. This academic/activist relationship in policing historiography is discussed in Chapter 3. Suffice to say that activist academics played an important part in policing with their critical studies. Many postgraduate theses and dissertations were as critical although, unfortunately, most of these research works were not published.

Returning to P12, he explains that he “became aware of the issues with all Apartheid South African institutions during the 1980’s as a young academic at Stellenbosch University. I associated then with Afrikaans professional, academic and activist groups opposing Apartheid” (P12).

His narrative indicates the following (verbatim, as it appears in the narrative, in conjunction with the use of sic at times. This is not meant as undue criticism, but to indicate that the word or sentence was quoted exactly as it stands in the original as it should be done in this type of analysis. This was explained in Chapter 3 of this dissertation, where I indicated that the language used by the participants was used as received. However, I took note of the fact that this participant completed his narrative from Tilburg, the Netherlands, probably under time constraints, and I appreciate his effort to do so):

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• As an activist I initiated and helped to facilitate an activist campaign for a judicial investigation into apartheid hit squads;

• As an academic I was invited to present a course on governance to ANC leadership in exile funded by the British Government at the then British Civil Service College in the UK during 1989;

• As an academic, I and a number of ‘progressive’ colleagues including returning exiles from the liberation movements established a network to deal with governance transition in South Africa which we called the Mount Grace network and arranged a conference which was called the Mount Grace conference from which base we worked on the values and initiatives and actions to support a governance and administration transition in South Africa [sic]. This initiative then created the Joint Universities Public Management and Education Trust (JUPMET) as a vehicle for co-operation across Universities in the training field with the intention to provide relevant training to a new cadre of South African public servants. This initiative later resulted is [sic] a large and substantive police training programme for the SAPS focussing on police station leadership and management which lasted for about 4 years from 1994 to 1999 [sic].

• As an academic I was also brought into a team of international academics and professionals linked to a Dutch and Danish supported initiative to develop the top management of the SAPS appointed after 1994. This was an executive leadership course stretching over 6 weeks and presented to the newly appointed National SAPS Commissioner. [sic] Commissioner George Fivaz and his executive management team of 18 members (P12).

P12 consequently developed a strong relationship in the professional development of the leadership and management of the new South African constitutionally created SAPS. Many projects in the mainstream and on different provinces ensued in this programme amongst others a set of leadership and management development programmes at the Stellenbosch University School of Public Leadership for senior members in the next level below the Commissioners in the international programme [sic]. I was also appointed officially as a member of the SAPS committee to provide

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inputs on a new promotion policy for the SAPS in the democratic South Africa (P12).

He makes valuable remarks on his personal journey through this time:

During all this work which lasted from about 1989 to 2000 I got into a deep immersive exposure of the work of the SAPS and grappled with the profound political and professional challenges of the major transition and transformation the SAPS was undergoing. My impressions are that these processes, even though very complex and challenging were dealt with systematically and generally involved serious attempts at effectively and ethically creating a police service which would serve the South African nation with solid police services in a constitutional way (P12).

However, P12 experienced a problem: he felt that he was able to make a contribution under the leadership of President Mandela, “who introduced the themes of good constitutional governance and professional service delivery” (P5). The scene set by South Africa’s first president under the all-franchise period, as it were, introduced and sustained “… a conscious, collaborative and constructive set of initiatives to improve professional policing which set the SAPS on a potentially solid trajectory” (P12). However, P12 narrates that, “This ethos and logos started to change after Mr Mandela even in the times of President Mbeki, and most notably after his appointment of Mr Jackie Selebi as National Police Commissioner” (P12). He then proceeds to explain the results of Selebi’s appointment:

This scene setting political appointment sped up and elevated the dynamic of cadre deployment in the SAPS to the absolutely destructive further actions of President Zuma who turned these matters into the norm with the SAPS and used cadre deployment in the worst political way conceivable as it was not only a political strategy towards serving party political agendas, but also a personal strategy to create through a ring of corrupt appointments and appointees a protective shield from a personal interest base to protect himself from prosecution by appointing incompetent politically and ethically compromised police leaders essentially because they were

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bad leaders and amenable to his corrupt influence. This signalled and sustained a prolonged period of deeply disastrous dynamics which have nearly succeeded in destroying any remaining and hard to find effective and ethical professional policing in South Africa on the altar of the worst forms of political expediency going beyond party politics only and into even personal politics to protect an absolutely and resolute to destroy an semblance of professionalism in the SAPS corrupt President in a mafia like protection racket [sic] (P12).

The finding is:

• Finding 4:

Activist academics played a major role in the professional development of policing management and leadership in the early years of the new South Africa, specifically under the Mandela presidency. After the Mandela presidency, however, political influence led to cadre deployment with Selebi the most visible. During the Zuma presidency, the appointment of incompetent as well as politically and ethically compromised leaders for the formation of a protective shield against the prosecution of the president increased. It was reminiscent of a Mafia-type protection racket. Because of this deterioration towards bad public leadership, P12 made a decision that is discussed in the next paragraph.

4.2.1.5 Dissociation from the SAPS

As was the case narrated by P5, P12 also eventually experienced disillusionment.

As a result of my, and others public and vocal condemnation of these processes we, like the few remaining good cops, were cut out, marginalised and even trivialised with classical propagandistic labelling tactics and removed from the positions that we could use to exert positive influence in the SAPS system. Since 2000 and progressively so since the inception of the Zuma regime this push factor combined with a personal set of driving motives for me consciously, actively and categorically disassociate myself from the associated real and potential reputational risks of being or being seen to be associated with the generally and systemically perceived as

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corrupt and incompetent SAPS. This is not to my benefit, but a necessity given the calamitous disaster that the SAPS has become with a few exceptions. In a symbolic way the repeated notions glibly propagated as a war against crime by the SAPS has become the war of criminals in the SAPS. The few ‘bad apples’ turned into a toxic brew of poisonous apple cider which will be very difficult to get focussed on the necessary real transformation into an ethical and effective professional police service serving the people rather than the current pervasive politicised and corrupt police force serving the powerful (P12).

What could the way forward look like? I asked myself this question while analysing P12’s story. I wondered whether the SAPS will ever be able to reverse this downward spiral, this total decline into disorder. P12’s view on this is narrated as follows by him:

The Ramaphosa Presidency seems to have other intentions and is seemingly attempting to move away from the calamitous disastrous precipice of the total destruction of the professional intentions we had for the SAPS, however the battle may be a bridge too far. We will observe with anxious anticipation and prayers for – anagainst [sic] the odds – possible positive outcome of a normalised professional SAPS rather than the current disastrous South African Police Force (P12).

The latter designation (force) for the SAPS is a rather insightful one. The following finding is made:

• Finding 5:

Vocal public condemnation led to the critics being cut out, marginalised, trivialised with classic propagandistic labelling tactics and removed from positions in which positive influence could be exerted on the SAPS. It became a reputational risk to be associated (or seen to be associated) with a perceived corrupt and incompetent SAPS. The glibly propagated war against crime was a war of criminals in the SAPS. The professional intentions for a new SAPS were destroyed. While the Ramaphosa Presidency is seemingly moving towards a normalised and professional SAPS, this is probably

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expected against all odds. The police were a “force” again, just as it was under colonialism and Apartheid. The critics became disillusioned.

4.2.2 Theme 2: Power Dynamics in Policing in South Africa

This theme, the issue of power dynamics in South African policing, surfaced clearly in the narrative provided by P5.

4.2.2.1 Sub-theme 2.1: Young white police officials and soldiers during Apartheid

P5 narrates her observations of young white police officials and soldiers during Apartheid. It is a personal view, but also a disturbing one. She writes:

In the mid-1980s travelled [sic] on the N2 from Stellenbosch to Cape Town daily. The state was under siege. I watched the Casspirs on the highway with young white cops stuffed into the rear end. They looked too young. The country was burning. I realised then that the Police occupy this kind of critical position between the people and those with political power. They were stuffed really. Not out of choice I hoped. In the late 1980s I was teaching political sociology at the University of Stellenbosch. Some of the male students had spent two years on the border. They were old souls. Some had empty eyes. Two were bosbefok. I wondered about white young men being stuffed into uniforms to fight the ‘onslaught’ for volk en vaderland [sic]. It made me angry. It made me sad (P5).

The Casspirs that P5 refers to is a reference to the Casspir mine-resistant and ambush-protected vehicle widely used by the former SAP. It is a four-wheeled, four- wheel-drive vehicle able to carry two crew as well as 12 other police officials with the equipment needed for specific situations. It was used in public order policing as well as in a military role by Koevoet (literally “crowbar” in English, a SAP fighting unit utilised in conjunction with the former South African Defence Force – the SADF - and allied forces in the Border War with insurgents and stationed in various bases in the north of the then South West Africa, now Namibia). The term bosbefok (also bossies) is an Afrikaans slang word meaning mad. It is linked to battle flashbacks by soldiers and police officials who fought in the Border War and often treated for post-traumatic stress

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disorder. The young white male soldiers sent to the Border War theatres were mostly directly out of school under the conscription legislation (all South Africans were conscripted into the SADF by law, unless they chose to join other forces such as the former SAP). Police officials were sent after their basic police training and with some military-type training prior to deployment. These young white police officials that P5 refers to were also employed in unrest situations within South Africa. These unrest incidents were mostly a reaction against Apartheid and its laws.

• Finding 6:

Many young white police officials and soldiers developed serious psychological problems due to their exposure to the violence and animosity during internal unrest and exposure to the violence experienced during the Border War. The decision to be involved in such was not their own, but the result of political coercion, enforced through legislation.

4.2.2.2 Sub-theme 2.2: Politics and policing in South Africa

An interesting discourse on politics and policing in South Africa is found in the narrative provided by P7. This discourse may be presented as follows:

He places high emphasis on policing by consent, the idea of which is that policing “must meet with the approval of every law-abiding person in the community” (P7). This view is found as a fundamental principle of British policing since 1829 (discussed in Chapter 1) and seems to discount P2’s view above that highlights a move from policing by consent to policing as a collective community responsibility. However, P7’s argument is interesting because he juxtaposes the political system’s power to the power of the ordinary law-abiding person who is not necessarily part of the political elite. He therefore advances “the concept of civilian oversight over the police that is supposed to be done by a representative group of the community and not by the governing political party alone” (P7). In a sense, this can be seen as being part of advancing a collective community responsibility. P7 warns however that history “shows that policing in Africa was and is to a great extent directly influenced by politics and political systems. This has both positive but, in most cases, negative consequences for professional policing” (P7). On this point, P11 points out in his narrative that the mere fact that he was deployed to the then Rhodesia in a counter-

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insurgency capacity has political bearings. Says P11: “The idea that the police of one country is operationally deployed, not as crime combaters but as soldiers in an insurgency war in another country is clearly political” (P11). P7 raises the extent to which colonial policing discarded traditional methods of policing that “were rooted in the community and closely interlinked with social and religious structures” (P7) and “policing objectives were reprioritised to mainly protect colonial economic interests. This resulted in local communities regarding the police force as illegitimate and reverting to their own form of policing guided by the principles of hunhu/ubuntu” (P7), because local communities responded to what was “regarded as illegitimate or immoral police action by the colonial state” (P7).

In a similar fashion, P7 describes the policing systems used in South Africa by the minority governments of the Dutch and the British, and later followed by the Afrikaners, the reference probably being to Apartheid, although he does not spell this out in his narrative. He then highlights that policing in South Africa

was for most of the time prescribed and dominated by the politics of the time. This is evident in the policing that was used by the governments of the time to help them to stay in power. This was done through suppression of any political unrest or violent resistance to the government (P7).

P7 feels that this

capture or dominance of policing in South Africa by governments to enforce a political dispensation has caused immense damage to the image of the police but more so on their primary function to ensure safety for everyone in the community based on just and fair principles” (P7).

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Moreover,

Political influence in policing is however inevitable. The fact that South Africa, pre-and post-apartheid had and still has a Minister of Police, clearly accentuates this point. The enforcers of laws that are of a political nature such as the Immorality Act and others made the South African Police a political extension of the National Party. In the new dispensation, there is still a Minister of Police (P11).

It is plausible to make a finding at this point: The finding is:

• Finding 7:

Policing on the African continent, and in South Africa, was always and continues to be dominated by politics. This is negative for professional policing. Traditional methods of policing, rooted in social and religious structures, were replaced because of a need to protect colonial interests and (later in South Africa) Afrikaner interests.

P7 sees continuous restructuring of the police in South Africa (which he describes as the visible part of the police being continuously in a state of flux) as

the direct negative effect of policing that is dominated by politics and politicians of the day and not based on ‘pure’ professional policing principles. Policing is supposed to be based on the rule of law as well as objectivity and independence irrespective of the politics of the day. It should not be necessary for a police service to be restructured every time there is a change in the governing or change of politicians within the government. The continuous restructuring of the police indicates the desire of influential politicians who want the police to reform to their desire (P7).

This state of flux with restructuring as the most visible component

has the negative consequence that most of the focus of police management is spend on realignment, working out how they personally will survive restructuring the best and staff and resource management issues related to restructuring. It detracts their focus from safety and security as their primary responsibility (P7).

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However, he concedes that the post-1994 restructuring and remodelling was essential. This was because the SAP had

very little credence before 1994 with the majority of the population due to its use by politicians to enforce first British rule and later apartheid. This necessitated a remodelling of sap [sic] to align its values with the Constitution but also to accommodate the various police services that were part of the ‘independent homelands’. This was a very important and necessary remodelling that went beyond restructuring to assist the police to reform also in the eye of the public, the world and the judiciary. It culminated in the establishment of the South African Police Service (SAPS) (P7).

According to P7, little possibility for political influence was affected because it was “a collaborative effort by all role players in society (including political parties) as well as with local and international police and civilian oversight” (P7). It created an opportunity for professional policing, writes P7, as “the objectives of restructuring were based on sound reasons” (P7).

The following finding is made:

• Finding 8:

Post-1994 restructuring was necessary because a remodelled and reformed SAPS would replace the British and Apartheid models with its credibility problems. There was little political influence during the post-1994 transformation process (even though political parties were involved in the process) because of the collaborative, inclusive process that was followed. However, after the initial transformation, continuous restructuring was based on political needs as configured by politicians and not by professional policing principles.

Unfortunately, the

flaw in the new political system was that extraordinary powers were assigned to the president to appoint the National Commissioner of the SAPS (without any criteria or standards prescribed by law) with approval by parliament. The system premises on the basis that the president will be an [sic] honourable person with good judgement and

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who will act in the best interest of society when appointing the National Commissioner (P7).

For P7, this was a

naïve [sic] political approach. This believe [sic] that a president will automatically have these positive attributes was at the time fuelled by the very high credibility of then then [sic] President Mr Nelson Mandela. It was probably at the time incomprehensible that a president would try and capture the police through appointment of political appointees as commissioner of police who would only serve the interest of the president and not the community (P7).

This state of affairs is also discussed by P11 who notes that

three consecutive National Commissioners were political appointees. Even when these appointees are discarded, the fact remains that the National Commissioner, even from amongst the ranks is appointed by the president (P11).

An attempt was made, argues P7, to correct this flaw through the National Development Plan (the NDP). The NDP recommended

…that the national commissioner must be appointed on a competitive basis and by a selection panel who will select, and interview candidates based on merit; and by implication that the president will appoint a national commissioner from the short list (P7).

The NDP also recommended a civilian oversight committee which monitoring function over the police will include the National Commissioner and that “commissioned officers are selected on the basis of the standards and criteria set by a professional body. These are only recommendations and were mostly ignored by government” (P7).

The result of this flaw in the system

allowed for the president to appoint politicians without meeting any specific criteria as National Commissioner of Police. This commenced with the appointment of Jacki [sic] Selebi (2000-2009), Bheki Cele

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(2009-2012) and followed by Riah Phiyega (2012-2015). During the term of these national commissioners the South African Police Service and the Scorpions were stripped of most of their specialised investigation units and therefore also their specialised investigation capabilities. The removal of these units as well as many other poor decisions by these political appointees let the SAPS and now the Hawks to be mostly dysfunctional. The Judicial Commission of Inquiry into Allegations of State Capture, Corruption and Fraud in the Public Sector Including organs of State [sic] is currently (2018) underway in South Africa. Compelling information before the commission and in the public domain indicates that the SAPS, with especially their crime intelligence unit [sic] as well as the Hawks, were purposely placed under the command of political appointed national commissioners and ministers to give the president full control over these enforcements [sic] units and the ability to squash and [sic] investigations into corruption by politicians. There were, however, exceptions to the willingness of the political appointed national police commissioners who resisted interference by the president in the operations of the police as can be seen by some of the actions of Bheki Cele and Khomotso Phahlane (Acting) 2015-2017 and Lesetja Mothiba (Acting) 2017 (P7).

In P7’s view, both Phahlane and Mothiba were at least “career police officers who in more than one way objected to political interference and tried to assure the independence of the SAPS” (P7).

At the time of writing (September 2019), the media have widely reported that Phahlane has been suspended since June 2017 and that he is being investigated on charges of fraud and corruption. The following finding is made:

Finding 9:

The extraordinary powers assigned to the president in the appointment of the National Commissioner of the SAPS worked under the Mandela presidency, but not thereafter. After the Mandela presidency incumbents were political appointees who produced

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disastrous results, especially during the tenures of Selebi, Cele and Phiyega, who were not career police officials.

An example of political opposition that benefitted the professionalisation of police because of political opposition to the practices of the government of the day is however also available in our policing historiography. P7 talks to the example of

Ms Helen Suzman (1917-2009) who was a member of the opposition in Parliament (was) considered notorious in her criticism of the South African Police force especially during the 1970’s and 1980’s. Her criticism on [sic] and public pressure on the police led to the then Ministers of Police introducing new measures of policing. This included the marking of police vehicles with visible police insignia and blue lights and sirens after a member of the public was killed while fleeing from an unmarked police vehicle who gave chase; the retraining of police officers and to better equip them to deal with public unrest without using lethal force; and the amendment of several standing orders and national instructions (P7).

• Finding 10:

South Africa has a precedent of positive political influence that led to the institution of new policing measures that added value to the policing system. Many examples are available. These were delivered under the Apartheid regime by the opposition politician Ms Helen Suzman.

The principle of professional policing, in P7’s view, is continuously undermined by “the dichotomy between professional policing and politics (which continue to exist in South Africa” (P7).

Later, in the narrative, he posits that, “This problem of politically controlled police will only be resolved when the policing function in South Africa is freed from undue political interference; and only directed by the rule of law and effective representative civilian oversight” (P7).

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In support of P7’s view, P11 argues that:

Civilian oversight through the Secretariat (National and Provincial) and CPF’s is an attempt to ensure police impartiality. Yet if we view the exit of senior generals from the police, the closure of the Scorpions and the battle for the independence of ICD and IPID, there is no doubt that the leadership of SAPS are not independent. They dance to the tune of political masters. Leadership in law enforcement should jealously guard police impartiality, sovereignty of the law and human rights. Only leaders with an understanding of democracy will be able to lead a police in terms of the Constitution and Police Act and not by party political dictates. It would be difficult to withstand political pressure, but it is doable within professional conduct (P11).

P11 uses some names and abbreviations without explanation. This will be dealt with briefly. The Secretariats that he refers is the Civilian Secretariats for Police Service (CSPS) the mission of which it is to provide efficient and effective civilian oversight over the SAPS in support of the political role players in the policing environment on both national and provincial spheres of government. CPFs refer to the Community Police Forums within the policing system in South Africa. This is an effort to achieve civilian oversight on the local and provincial spheres of government. The Independent Complaints Directorate (ICD) was replaced by IPID (the Independent Police Investigative Directorate) which, like its predecessor (with some changes), is tasked with investigating cases against the SAPS. The following finding can be made:

• Finding 11:

Political influence through party political dictates is in opposition to professional policing.

P7 then provides a final say in his narrative:

The role of politics in South Africa continue [sic] to be one of domination of policing and by politicians [sic] attempts to manipulate the police (force and service) to serve a political agenda. History in South Africa has shown that ordinary police officer [sic] including the national commissioners are rendered powerless against political

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interference and dominance. They have very little recourse in such situations and there is no authoritative independent structure or civilian oversight committee that they can approach when they are coerced by politicians. There [sic] only recourse would be the courts, but it probably goes against the grain of police officers [sic] code of discipline for officers to take their political superiors to court. The reality in South Africa is that political motives forced National Commissioners to either bow to the pressure of politicians or to leave the police service at the first amenable opportunity. Politics have thus far reigned superior to the principle of independent and professional policing (P7).

The sentiments provided by these participants reminded me of Hills’s (2000) submission, so long ago, that the relationship between policing, politics and regimes in Africa was, at the time of her writing, the same as they were in the 1960s, politicised and fragile. Looking at the results of the narrative analysis above, it seems that the same situation still exists at the time of writing this dissertation. This is a stark and ominous reminder of the conclusion reached in Chapter 4, namely, that policing in the current South African dispensation does not differ from policing in the Apartheid dispensation that preceded it, nor does it differ from the colonial dispensation that preceded Apartheid.

It is also ominously patent that the central pillar supporting no meaningful change in South African policing is the politics/policing relationship in a dominant party-political system, the same system that we saw in the colonial and Apartheid eras. Here is the finding:

• Finding 12:

Politics dominates policing in South Africa through manipulation by politicians. Thus, far politics reigned superior to the principle of independent and professional policing, the same as during the eras of colonialism and Apartheid.

4.2.3 Theme 3: Police and Policing Dynamics in South Africa

From this participant observer’s perspective, it is submitted in this dissertation that the most basic form of dynamics in societal safety can be found in the relationship between

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the police and the community at large. It is however also obvious that, although the similarities between communities are visible (for instance, we are all South Africans), there are also differences between communities (for instance, we have rural and urban communities in South Africa). There are also unique patterns of interaction between community members in communities (for instance, I speak isiZulu in my house, but I speak English at the Community Police Forum meetings). These unique patterns indicate differences between communities and also between members in a specific community. In the same way, police agencies have common characteristics, but differ from agency to agency. There are even differences between police officials in the same police agency. This is where the study of police culture becomes important.

4.2.3.1 Sub-theme 3.1: Police culture

Given what has emerged out of the narratives, it is a submission of this dissertation that a focused look into the police culture is needed. First, the term is generally used in differing configurations in the literature. For instance, Shearing uses the word “culture” (Wood, 2014, p. 2); Van Heerden (1976, p. 103) uses “sub-culture”; Perez (1997, p. 119) talks of the “subculture”; Hills (2000, p. 209) uses “occupational culture”; and Faull (2010, p. ix) utilises “culture”. Although choosing one term after conducting a full word and term analysis may be uncalled for, given the restrictions of a minor dissertation, and the small differences in spelling being probably a trivial exercise, I do have a need to be able to understand what the police culture/sub- culture/subculture/occupational culture entails. I need this even more to understand the relationship between the political environment and the policing environment.

After a thorough analysis of the literature, I submit that, at this stage of the completion of this dissertation, the terms can be used interchangeably and that they, in general, refer to perspectives that people (both internal and external to official police organisations) may have about the role of the police in societal safety and the behaviour of police officials while executing the job of policing within the society. Some of this work has already been highlighted in the analyses pf P5’s narrative above. However, her views are brought in here from the perspective of the police subculture.

P5’s police official father’s uniform was visible in the corridor and his shoes submitted to a continuous cleaning procedure. Her efforts to clean his shoes “were never good enough – he would re-polish and spit and polish” (P5).

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From a police culture perspective, this was part of the extreme focus on neatness in the police organisation during the 1930s, when P5’s father served. Those days it was a direct result of the paramilitary inclination of the SAP, informed and groomed by the colonial practice as explained in chapters 1 and 2. Given the fact that the SAPS has slowly been re-militarised since 2000, neatness is probably still a characteristic of the SAPS culture although probably contained to training institutions, if the appearance of many police officials today are anything to go by.

P5 learned from early on that “cops were ordinary people and not necessarily pigs with weapons” (P5). A plausible explanation is that police officials are comparable to an animal that some people seen as disgusting, and that they use their equipment, firearms included, indiscriminately.

Her father was a “quiet man (who) studied Latin at school (and) understood the structure of language” (P5). He “loved his horse, solitude and open space and suffered when the horse died” (P5). Therefore, is the possible explanation, he probable never “abused his power (supported by the fact that he would) avoid conflict” (P5).

The counterargument would then be that one of the characteristics of the police culture was conflict inclined people who abused their power. The answer that her father gave to P5’s question of the shouting detainees at the Athlone police station (“Because that is what they do”, P5) did not satisfy her but she “sensed that they had a lot of power. Power to harm others” (P5).

Of course, the police have legal powers assigned to them to be able to do their work, but the plausible explanation here is that this power is used indiscriminately by the police and that abuse of power is therefore a characteristic of the police subculture.

P5’s father felt that she should not be concerned with Steve Biko’s death, and it left Jimmy Kruger, who was then Minister of Police, cold. This death, and probably the related experiences, made her sick. She was already a difficult young person exposed to radical sociology and this death turned her into “a rebel and a bit of an outcast in the family” (P5). The implication was that the police are killers and that this was an inherent characteristic of the police culture.

In 1988, P5 started writing an article on the history of the South African police because she wanted to understand why her father “who did Latin in matric and came from a middle-class family – joined the cops in the 1930s”. The picture of the police culture in

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P5’s narrative up to now does not look good, to say the least. It is plausible to understand that such a special father could, in P5’s understanding, never have joined an organisation whose culture displayed these unacceptable characteristics.

If police torture was a global issue (she realised this during her studies in the UK during 1980), then torture is an inherent characteristic of the police culture globally but the “racial dynamics still made the SA version different” (P5). Police torture, based on such racial dynamics, could therefore be considered a characteristic of the South African police culture.

The police culture “was stuffed” (P5), during the mid-1980s. Interpreting from within my understanding of the context in P5’s work, I understood that the word “stuffed” is here not about being crammed into the back of a Casspir, nor that one has eaten too much. It is plausibly more about being in trouble and totally immersed in uncontrollable circumstances. It is about being defeated heavily and being worthless, meaningless and ruined. P5 hoped it was “Not out of choice…” (P5).

From her experiences with young white police officials on the N2 in the back of Casspirs in SA and her experiences in the UK, the Netherlands, Northern Ireland and India, she concluded the SAP and the police in Northern Ireland and India presented colonial parallels. She also noticed that the SAP was in “this kind of critical position between the people and those with political power” (P5). I can consequently deduce that the SAP culture was keeping the political role players in the chair, suppressive of government’s opponents, of a military nature and criminally minded.

From her involvement in policy discussions in (what I have accepted to be) South Africa, all participants, including the “cops of the old guard” (socialised) “with wine in the paw” (P5).

From the literature and my participant observer status, I considered the possibility of an “alcohol culture” within the SAP culture. There are certainly many references to this in the literature (see, for instance, Perez, 1997) and I have experienced many instances of alcohol abuse within policing in South Africa. However, the evidence in the narrative is not compelling enough to make a finding that alcohol abuse was a characteristic of the SAP culture.

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In the mid-2000s, P5 was concerned about her 16-year-old son and police behaviour if he was accosted. In 2012, Marikana happened. With nothing changing, I can deduce that the (SAPS) police culture did not change.

It is also possible to find a reference to police culture in the narrative provided by P12. This narrative was discussed above but is used here for purposes of the investigation into the police culture. His contribution is presented as follows: “… initiated and helped to facilitate an activist campaign for a judicial investigation into Apartheid hit squads” (P12).

This, together with what we now know from the cases of Captain Dirk Coetzee, Colonel Eugene de Kock and the general information around Vlakplaas (the SAP base from where these activities were planned and executed and without me offering any opinions on this time of our policing history), the indication is that the SAP culture was a murderous one. This echoes P5’s view on the death of Steve Biko.

P12’s work into developing professional leadership and management for the new SAPS, and also in major transition and transformation efforts, gave us a possibility of a professional leadership and management core in the SAPS and, consequently, a professional police culture. His work on the processes to serve “the South African nation with solid police services in a constitutional way” (P12) be an effort to create a constitutionally minded police culture.

P12’s criticism of the appointment of the late Jackie Selebi as National Police Commissioner, and the subsequent policy of cadre deployment was described as serving both party political as well as the then president’s personal interests. In reaction to the criticism, P12, others and “the few remaining good cops, were cut out, marginalised and even trivialised with classical propagandistic labelling tactics and removed from the positions that we could use to exert positive influence in the SAPS system” (P12). This was progressively advanced “since the inception of the Zuma regime…” (P12) and led to P12 dissociating himself from the corrupt and incompetent SAPS, also for potential reputational risks. A plausible deduction would be that the (SAPS) police culture was a partisan one.

The “war against crime…” (P12) has actually become a “…war of criminals in the SAPS” (P12), making the (SAPS) police culture a criminal one.

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P12’s adds the word force to the designation of the SAPS. This is, in my opinion. not a mistake, but intended as a criticism against transformation thoughts, as follows: “…the current disastrous South African Police Force …” (P12) (my emphasis). We do not have something called the South African Police Force, but a South African Police Service (very specifically named in the Constitution, 1996 as well as the South African Police Service Act, 68 of 1995). P12 is saying that we are a police force again, not a police service as intended during our transformation process. Therefore, we now again have a police culture focused on force, rather than service.

From the narratives of P5 and P12, it is possible to divide these characteristics into categories of acceptable and unacceptable characteristics of the police culture. These categories are expressed in Table 4.2 below.

Table 4.2: Categories of Police Culture Characteristics

Unacceptable Police Culture Characteristics Acceptable Police Culture Characteristics Disgusting. Neatness (appearance). Indiscriminate use of equipment, inclusive of Professional (effective and ethical) leadership. firearms. Conflict-inclined police officials. Constitutionality minded. Abuse of power. Respect for ancient and pre-colonial societal order systems. Police as killers, murderous. Knowledge-based. Torture, specifically racially minded. Professional policing. “Stuffed” (being in trouble and totally immersed in uncontrollable circumstances. It is about being defeated heavily and being worthless, meaningless and ruined.) Politically partisan. Suppression of regime opponents. Military nature of the police culture. Criminally minded. Bad and toxic leadership. Force, rather than service.

(Researcher’s own work)

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It is possible to formulate the following finding:

• Finding 13:

The issues of “culture” and “sub-culture”, is clarified as follows:

• It appears that the acceptable police culture characteristics can easily be found in a constitutional democracy under the rule of law, while the unacceptable police culture characteristics will find it difficult to be housed in a constitutional democracy under the rule of law. As such, I submit that the acceptable police culture characteristics can serve as a “sub-culture”, since it forms part (the “sub”) of the culture of society, namely, a constitutional democracy under the rule of law. • The unacceptable police culture characteristics would rather find a place in authoritarian and failed states. It will sit easily within the compounds of the police state. Therefore, I submit that the unacceptable police culture characteristics represents a “culture” on its own, as it does not fit into the culture of our society. • The unacceptable police culture characteristics were clearly evident during colonial rule, the time of Apartheid and, now, under the so-called democratic rule that is said to have followed our first all-franchise elections in April 1994. • Therefore, if we are indeed a constitutional democracy under the rule of law, then our police culture should be seen as the police subculture, since it would reflect acceptable characteristics, which it does not currently, judging from the evidence.

Findings 1 to 23 are now displayed at a glance in Table 4.3:

Table 4.3: Findings from The Primary Data at A Glance

FINDING FINDING NUMBER

1 Experiments in community-based processes of dispute resolution and integrated policing at the local level can contribute to a better understanding of the quest to make the world a better place for South Africa’s citizens. Experimenting in these areas is a direct reference to knowledge creation and dissemination, and therefore to KL.

2 Personal experiences in policing, and research about policing, enriches the contribution that individuals can make to policing. Knowledge so created can be disseminated to the advantage of policing policy and practices. This is the quest of KL.

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3 The political powers have ignored the knowledge work done by academic researchers on policing transformation. South African policing has therefore not transformed. It is now at the same place as it was under colonialism and Apartheid. This represents disillusionment of the highest order.

4 Activist academics played a major role in the professional development of policing management and leadership in the early years of the new South Africa, specifically under the Mandela presidency. After the Mandela presidency, however, political influence led to cadre deployment with Selebi the most visible. During the Zuma presidency the appointment of incompetent as well as politically and ethically compromised leaders for the formation of a protective shield against the prosecution of the president increased. It reminded one of a Mafia-type protection racket.

5 Vocal public condemnation led to the critics being cut out, marginalised, trivialised with classic propagandistic labelling tactics and removed from positions in which positive influence could be exerted on the SAPS. It became a reputational risk to be associated (or seen to be associated) with a perceived corrupt and incompetent SAPS. The glibly propagated war against crime was a war of criminals in the SAPS. The professional intentions for a new SAPS were destroyed. While the Ramaphosa presidency is seemingly moving towards a normalised and professional SAPS, this is probably against all odds. The police were a “force” again, just as it was under colonialism and Apartheid. The critics became disillusioned.

6 Many young white police officials and soldiers developed serious psychological problems due to their exposure to the violence and animosity during internal unrest and exposure to the violence experienced during the Border War. The decision to be involved in such was not their own, but the result of political coercion, enforced through legislation.

7 Policing on the African continent, and in South Africa, was always and continues to be dominated by politics. This is negative for professional policing. Traditional methods of policing, rooted in social and religious structures, were replaced because of a need to protect colonial interests and (later in South Africa) Afrikaner interests.

8 Post-1994 restructuring was necessary because a remodelled and reformed SAPS would replace the British and Apartheid models with its credibility problems. There was little political influence during the post-1994 transformation process (even though political parties were involved in the process) because of the collaborative, inclusive process that was followed. However, after the initial transformation, continuous restructuring was based on political needs as configured by politicians and not by professional policing principles.

9 The extraordinary powers assigned to the president in the appointment of the National Commissioner of the SAPS worked under the Mandela presidency, but not thereafter. After the Mandela presidency incumbents were political appointees who produced disastrous results, especially during the tenures of Selebi, Cele and Phiyega, who were not career police officials.

10 South Africa has a precedent of positive political influence that led to the institution of new policing measures that added value to the policing system. Many examples are

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available. These were delivered under the Apartheid regime by the opposition politician Ms Helen Suzman.

11 Political influence through party political dictates is in opposition to professional policing.

12 Politics dominate policing in South Africa through manipulation by politicians. Thus far, politics reigned superior to the principle of independent and professional policing, the same as during the eras of colonialism and Apartheid.

13 The issues of “culture” and “sub-culture”, as discussed above, is clarified as follows: It appears that the acceptable police culture characteristics can easily be found in a constitutional democracy under the rule of law, while the unacceptable police culture characteristics will find it difficult to be housed in a constitutional democracy under the rule of law. As such, I submit that the acceptable police culture characteristics can serve as a “sub-culture”, since it forms part (the “sub”) of the culture of society, namely, a constitutional democracy under the rule of law. The unacceptable police culture characteristics would rather find a place in authoritarian and failed states. It will sit easily within the compounds of the police state. Therefore, I submit that the unacceptable police culture characteristics represents a “culture” on its own as it does not fit into the culture of our society. The unacceptable police culture characteristics were clearly evident during colonial rule, the time of Apartheid and, now, under the so-called democratic rule that is said to have followed our first all-franchise elections in April 1994. Therefore, if we are indeed a constitutional democracy under the rule of law, then our police culture should be seen as the police subculture, since it would reflect acceptable characteristics, which it does not currently, judging from the evidence.

4.3 Discussion of Findings

4.3.1 In Search of a Typology of Findings

With the findings having now been documented, I needed to categorise them in order to get some clarity on a possible typology, and to investigate the relationship of the typology to the sub-research questions. The results of this investigation are displayed in Table 4.4.

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Table 4.4: Identifying Categories from the Findings.

FINDING FINDING CATEGORY NUMBER 1 Experiments in community-based processes of dispute resolution Policing. and integrated policing on the local level can contribute to a better KL understanding of the quest to make the world a better place for South Africa’s citizens. Experimenting in these areas is a direct reference to knowledge creation and dissemination, and therefore to KL. 2 Personal experiences in policing, and research about policing, KL. enrich the contribution that individuals can make to policing. Knowledge so created can be disseminated to the advantage of policing policy and practices. This is the quest of KL. 3 The political powers have ignored the knowledge work done by Politics. academic researchers on policing transformation. South African KL. policing has therefore not transformed – it is now at exactly the same place as it was under colonialism and Apartheid. This represents disillusionment of the highest order. 4 Activist academics played a major role in the professional Politics. development of policing management and leadership in the early KL. years of the new South Africa, specifically under the Mandela Professional presidency. After the Mandela presidency, however, political policing. influence led to cadre deployment, with Selebi the most visible. During the Zuma presidency, the appointment of incompetent as well as politically and ethically compromised leaders for the formation of a protective shield against the prosecution of the President increased. It was reminiscent of a Mafia-type protection racket. 5 Vocal public condemnation led to the critics’ being cut out, Politics. marginalised, trivialised with classic propagandistic labelling tactics, Professional and removed from positions in which positive influence could be policing. exerted on the SAPS. It became a reputational risk to be associated (or seen to be associated) with a perceived corrupt and incompetent SAPS. The glibly propagated war against crime was actually a war of criminals in the SAPS. The professional intentions for a new SAPS were destroyed. While the Ramaphosa Presidency is seemingly moving towards a normalised and professional SAPS,

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FINDING FINDING CATEGORY NUMBER this is probably expected against all odds. The police was a “force” again, just as it was under colonialism and Apartheid. The critics became disillusioned. 6 Many young white police officials and soldiers developed serious Politics. psychological problems due to their exposure to violence and History of animosity during internal unrest and to the violence experienced policing. during the Border War. The decision to be involved in such was not their own, but the result of political coercion, enforced through legislation. 7 Policing on the African continent, and in South Africa, has always Politics. been and continues to be dominated by politics. This is detrimental Professional to professional policing. Traditional methods of policing, rooted in policing. social and religious structures, were replaced because of a need to protect colonial interests and (later in South Africa) Afrikaner interests. 8 Post-1994 restructuring was necessary because a remodelled and Politics. reformed SAPS replaced the British and Apartheid models with its Professional credibility problems. There was little political influence during the policing. post-1994 transformation process (even though political parties were involved in the process) because of the collaborative, inclusive process that was followed. However, after the initial transformation, continuous restructuring was based on political needs configurated by politicians and not by professional policing principles. 9 The extraordinary powers assigned to the President in the Politics. appointment of the National Commissioner of the SAPS worked Professional under the Mandela Presidency, but not thereafter. After the policing. Mandela Presidency, incumbents were political appointees who produced disastrous results, especially during the tenures of Selebi, Cele and Phiyega, who were not career police officials. 10 South Africa has a precedent of positive political influence that led Politics. to the institution of new policing measures that added value to the policing system. Many examples are available. These were delivered under the Apartheid regime by the opposition politician, Ms Helen Suzman. 11 Political influence through party political dictates is in opposition to Politics. professional policing. Professional policing.

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FINDING FINDING CATEGORY NUMBER 12 Politics has dominated policing in South Africa through manipulation Politics. by politicians. Thus far, politics has over-ruled the principle of Professional independent and professional policing, just as it did during the eras policing. of colonialism and Apartheid. 13 The issues of “culture” and “sub-culture” as discussed at the Police beginning of Section 4.3 above, are clarified as follows: culture. • It appears that acceptable police culture characteristics are Politics. appropriate in a constitutional democracy under the law of law, Professional while unacceptable police culture characteristics are policing. incongruous in a constitutional democracy under the rule of law. History of As such, I submit that acceptable police culture characteristics policing. can serve as a “sub-culture”, since they form part (the “sub”) of the culture of society, namely a constitutional democracy under the rule of law; • Unacceptable police culture characteristics are more suited to authoritarian and failed states. They fit easily within the confines of a police state. Therefore, I submit that unacceptable police culture characteristics represent a “culture” on their own as they do not fit into the culture of our society; • Unacceptable police culture characteristics were clearly evident during colonial rule, at the time of Apartheid, and under the so- called democratic rule that is said to have followed our first all- franchise elections in April 1994; • Therefore, if we are indeed a constitutional democracy under the rule of law, our police culture should be seen as a police sub-culture, since it would reflect acceptable characteristics – which it currently does not do, judging from the evidence.

Based on the findings tabulated above, it was indeed possible to cluster the findings into a typology. This typology is detailed in Table 4.5 below.

Table 4.5: A Typology of Findings.

Category Primary Data Findings Category (per numbers 1-13) mentioned per findings History of policing. 6, 13 2 X Professional Policing. 4,5,7,8,9,11,12,13 8 X KL. 1, 2, 3, 4 4 X Politics. 3-12, 13 11 X Policing. 1 1 X

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Police Culture. 13 1 X Some interesting conclusions may be made from this typology, such as that i) all categories are found in the primary data; and ii) Measuring by the number of mentions: iii) the relationship between Politics (11 mentions) and Professional Policing (8 mentions) is clear. The general ambience of this relationship, judging by the content of the findings, is mostly adversarial, especially where undue political influence hampers professional policing service delivery.

4.3.2 Discussion of the Results of the Primary Data

The discussion of the primary and secondary data is structured according to the categories in the typology described in Table 4.5 above.

4.3.2.1 History of policing

The study of South Africa’s first people, coupled to the study in Rwanda, brought good insights that this researcher could use to understand more about societal safety on the African continent, and in South Africa. I have for a long time been uncomfortable about the tension that I have been feeling, and still feel, about traditional African and European systems of societal safety. I am struggling to find remedies for the misunderstandings between our peoples that I see daily in the media. My immediate inclination is to investigate the areas where we do not understand each other, and then to see how we can find common ground and a non-threatening discourse that will assist us in bridging the differences in the systems for the betterment of our communal life in South Africa.

For instance, according to Joubert (2018), South Africa’s legal system is based on Roman-Dutch law, flavoured with English Law (the latter mainly in terms of procedural issues), as applied and adjusted circumstantially by the South African courts. Statutory law (legislation) is enacted by Parliament in accordance with the Constitution, 1996, which is the supreme law of the country. All laws must be consistent with the Constitution, 1996. Case law consists of court decisions that interpret the Constitution, common law and laws passed by Parliament.

In a constitutional democracy under the rule of law, the courts may declare a law passed by Parliament as unconstitutional if it does not comply with our Constitution. This was not the case under the Westminster system that we had before 1994. It is

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common cause that the Romans, the Dutch and the English (the British) were not indigenous to Africa when their legal systems were brought here. The rules that the indigenous communities had were usurped by the systems brought into Africa from other places.

In South Africa today, our Constitution, 1996, in sections 211 and 212, allows traditional authorities to observe a system of customary law but this is subject to applicable legislation. The courts may apply customary law when that law is applicable, but such application is subject to the Constitution and any legislation that specifically deals with customary law.

Since this researcher is not a legal philosopher but a societal safety academic and practitioner, I do not intend to enter any discourse on this topic, simply because I will be out of my depth. But the law, like almost all academic disciplines, has a symbiotic relationship with policing. Leaders of jurisprudence are the correct people to debate the issues that I have briefly outlined above, but the area of societal safety will need some answers soon if we want to advance professional policing in South Africa. For this reason, this area of research will be mentioned in Chapter 5, where areas for further research are identified.

The same argument about the legal system applies to other areas of the criminal justice system, those that we today call policing and corrections. We simply need more research about African systems if we want to make the continent a better place for all. it would be helpful if politicians followed this line of reasoning and participated actively for the common good of our cumulative society. This would be difficult for them – given the nature of politics and the need to be in power (with lucrative remuneration and fringe benefits and, of course, the possibility that they may gain financial benefit from simply being in office) – but the current divisive tendency in the country is severely perturbing to people working in societal safety, also from the perspectives of a KL approach.

At the end of the day, it is the police who must step in if politicians incite people into anti-other-group frenzies. The rule is simple: it is not what populist politicians with self- enriching agendas say – it is what the law says. But, does the law adequately bridge the systems from pre-colonial Africa, and those systems brought here by people from

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continents outside Africa? The jury (so to speak, as that system is not used in South Africa) is still out on the issue.

4.3.2.2 Professional policing

Apart from the academic exposition on professional policing advanced in this minor dissertation, this researcher finds it necessary to reiterate the following: Professionalism is the foundational requirement for the eventual deployment of KL; KL is the absolute prerequisite for designing policing policy and policing practices based on knowledge rather than on populist dominant party considerations; and professional KL-based policing is the only plausible road to take if we want to prevent the total collapse of our state, caused by a criminally minded political dispensation’s abuse of the policing system for the benefit of a political elite.

For the police to perform, and indeed survive, in professional mode, the following are absolute necessities:

• Policing self-regulation, as seen in accepted professions such as the legal or medical fields, must be installed; • A non-negotiable view of lifelong policing learning, with a foundation of higher education, must be promoted; • The promotion of policing as a scientific discipline must be revisited and accelerated beyond current boundaries. The symbiotic relationship between policing and most, if not all, other scientific disciplines gives credence to this statement; • The generation of public acceptance through accountable policing must be affected in a co-productive and inclusive dialogue process; and • It goes with the territory that the appointment of people in this professional policing institution must be commensurate with professional policing service delivery ideals, from the national commissioner down to entry-level appointees.

4.3.2.3 KL

From both secondary and primary sources, academic policing studies have played a major role in creating a policing body of knowledge (POLBoK). It is also clear that critical policing studies have played a role in the transformation of South African

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policing after the event of 2 February 1990, when then State President De Klerk displayed his courage in turning South Africa around with the purpose of making this a better country for all his people, not just a minority group. This is still so, and strong research on South African policing is continuously published, as reflected for instance in Van der Spuy and Banchani (2013).

However, it is also clear that much of the research used in policing in South Africa and elsewhere on the continent is produced by researchers from other continents, notably continents in the northern parts of our planet. The work produced by these researchers is not discounted or rejected just because it was produced by non-African researchers, but it is a submission of this minor dissertation that policing issues on the continent of Africa needs to be exposed to research by African researchers. The reader should not read “African researchers” to mean only black African people. It is meant to indicate that all researchers in Africa should work at producing peer-reviewed African policing research for Africa. This is, in my opinion, a way to build an even more credible African policing epistemology.

In that sense, I do not necessarily subscribe to the “de-colonisation” of so-called “Western” research and knowledge systems – that term (de-colonisation) has unfortunately attracted the attention of failing South African politicians, who use it as a red herring to draw attention away from their poor governance, lack of real leadership and the criminal activities that they, more than often not, busy themselves with.

The use of the designation “Western” is often a reference to capitalistic states, as opposed to socialist/communist states, and therefore a pejorative term used by some black South African politicians to describe white people’s oppression of black people in Africa.

My focus is rather on the development of a southern epistemology, meaning an epistemology developed and grown in the different territories in Africa, Asia, Oceania and Latin America. Such a southern epistemology could be used with a (critically evaluated) northern (or Western) epistemology to expand the POLBoK. It could even be an interesting experiment in Hegelian dialectics: from thesis, to antithesis, to synthesis.

Of necessity, given the applicable value of a policing epistemology, part of the KL discourse should clearly work on the relationship between policing policy and policing

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practices. In this regard, and to the benefit of policing research outcomes, one would do well to build relationships between “pracademics” (practice minded academics, with recognition to E Schwella, Professor Emeritus at the School of Public Leadership, Stellenbosch University, who is credited with the term) and “acapracs” which is Botha’s creation for academic minded practitioners (Botha, 2019).

4.3.2.4 Politics

To my mind, the most important reason why we have to interrogate the issues advanced in the previous paragraph in a more nuanced, and at the same time fearless manner, is that I was able to write in this minor dissertation that colonial policing under Britain, Apartheid policing under the National Party, and post-1994 policing under the African National Congress government display exactly the same characteristics.

This makes it a mockery when politicians incite people into action with cries that “colonialism must fall” and that Apartheid policing should never be allowed to happen again (“even if we have to go to war”, sentiments that are common in South Africa’s media, inclusive of social media). But these themes are powerful weapons in the arsenal of aggressive, constitutionally delinquent politicians, with no regard for minorities.

Equally, it may be that the hateful and uncouth way in which “white monopoly capital” and the so-called “Stellenbosch Mafia” (Du Toit, 2019) are attacked is simply an exercise to create a rather crude, unsophisticated and uncivilised red herring situation with the intention of drawing attention away from an unethical and ineffective government and delinquent opposition parties, who are failing the people of South Africa. In fact, Du Toit (2019, p. 193) writes that “‘Stellenbosch Mafia’ has become a political insult, a racial epithet and a reference to rich, old white men. It may not exist formally, and it may not be involved in crime or illegal dealings. But there are few networks more influential or affluent than the one consisting of the business heavyweights and snappy entrepreneurs of the Boland town by the banks of the “Eerste River”. These rich old white men apparently made it, our politicians not really.

Public utterings, commonly visible in the general and social media in South Africa, are quite disturbing. The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) leader, Malema (whose official title within the EFF is that of “commander-in-chief”, casting doubt on whether this party wants to be some sort of private army or a political party in a constitutional

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democracy under the rule of law) is on record with his “we will keep Mugabe, you keep your De Klerk”. De Klerk won a Nobel prize, Mugabe can best be described as the typical “African Big Man”, a term used to describe a neo-patrimonial styled, corrupt, autocratic and totalitarian male black African ruler (Hills, 2000). A Black First Land First (BLF) member, backed by that party’s spokesperson, Maasdorp, in celebrating the deaths of four white children at the Hoërskool Driehoek, is rather close to erstwhile Apartheid National Party police minister, Jimmy Kruger, who was left cold by Steve Biko’s death 42 years ago.

Therefore, when I wrote in this minor dissertation that “South Africa is not a failed state (no governance and total chaos – depending on the results of the Commission into state capture) nor a developmental state (good cooperation between the three actors in governance described above – in fact, South African civil society is mostly highly critical of government), it is ex officio a constitutional state because of the Constitution (1996) and the central role of the Constitutional Court as the highest court in South Africa, but is most probably rather an authoritarian state where powerful leaders are in control because of its dominant party status”, I probably should have included “and where other politically unethical, unconstitutional, aggressive, racist and hateful saboteurs of our constitutional democracy under the law operate”.

However, after these strong opinions expressed in rather strong language, I still want to advance my view that we should “investigate the areas where we do not understand each other, and then to see how we can find common ground and a non-threatening discourse that will assist us in bridging the differences in the systems for the betterment of our communal life in South Africa” (in the previous section).

I also mean that we should investigate political interaction in our country. The right to freedom of speech brings with it the responsibility of honouring the rights of other people. Of importance is the role that the police service will have to play, given its legal mandate – and whether it is fair to the police when unscrupulous politicians incite people, casting the job of containing the results of their actions onto the shoulders of the police. The problem is that the police must act, in situations not created by themselves, with the distinct possibility that any confrontations to follow may conclusively damage the community/police relationship. This is therefore also an area for further research and will be mentioned in Chapter 5.

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A solution for undue political interference in policing, advanced in this minor dissertation, is professional policing underwritten by KL. Professional policing, given the evidence discussed in this minor dissertation, is not necessarily policing by consent. It is rather accountable policing, in which policing is not merely accountable to populist, red-herring-creating, corrupt politicians for the latter’s dubious concerns, but also to representative accountability structures.

South Africa already has these structures. For example, the South African Parliament consists of the National Assembly (NA) and the National Council of Provinces (NCOP). A joint sitting of Parliament therefore means that the members of both the NA and the NCOP attend a combined sitting. There are various parliamentary oversight committees, such as the Portfolio Committee on Police, the Select Committee on Public Accounts and the Joint Standing Committee on Intelligence. The Select Committee on Security and Justice in the NCOP is another example.

Given the symbiotic relationship between policing and just about all other disciplines in society, any other oversight committee in Parliament may theoretically instruct policing agencies to appear before it, if circumstances demand this. These committees are typically representative, in one or other form, of all political parties in Parliament.

Other representative accountability structures are the National and Provincial Secretariats of Police, Community Police Forums, the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID), the courts, the Human Rights Commission, the Public Service Commission, civil society (non-governmental organisations, faith-based organisations, non-profit organisations and community-based organisations), academia, the media (inclusive of fearless investigative journalism), and the Office of the Public Protector.

However, the red light of political interference is also visible here. At the time of writing (22 September 2019) the media is reporting extensively on the fitness for office of the current incumbent of the Office of the Public Protector. She is widely criticised by the courts, opposition political parties and civil society organisations for party political partisanship. It is alleged that ANC politicians are the recipients of her partisanship, in the sense that she is acting against people who oppose the ANC (which includes senior ANC politicians widely seen as people attempting to stop the rot of corruption and other crimes).

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Since the Public Protector is part of the so-called “chapter 9 institutions” (referring to chapter 9 of the Constitution, 1996, which speaks to state institutions supporting constitutional democracy), he or she is therefore (like the other institutions mentioned in that chapter) expected to be impartial and to exercise his or her powers and perform his or her functions without fear, favour or prejudice (Constitution, 1996, section 181 [2]). Parliament is at present working on rules that should guide the steps needed to legally remove leaders of chapter 9 institutions, such as the Public Protector, from office.

The problem is not the availability of the accountability structures, but the dominant party issue. As soon as the governing party is painted into a corner or finds it difficult to achieve its objectives, it instructs its members not to vote according to their conscience but to adhere to the caucus instructions; that is, to vote how the ANC instructs them to vote. Because of the ANC’s majority in Parliament, the ANC then always has the majority of the votes and therefore always forces on South Africa what the ANC wants – which is not necessarily good for the country, but probably incredibly advantageous to a criminally-minded political party. This is increasingly reported in the media, books and articles by investigative journalists and in evidence offered at various commissions of inquiry. The reports are in fact an indictment of the ANC, whose deployment of dominant party politics, even on its own members, is potentially extremely harmful to South Africa. And, of course, such behaviour flies in the face of the ANC’s claim of being “democratic”.

A professional police official will withstand this behaviour, and act against it, which is exactly why the ANC is being investigated for state capture – it is not in its favour to have professional police agencies that do not kowtow to their wishes. It is as simple as that.

4.3.2.5 Policing

It must by now be abundantly clear, since it has been said several times in this minor dissertation already, that the characteristics of colonial policing and Apartheid policing are still visible in the post-1994 regime, which the author is hesitant to designate as a democratic regime, and which has also been described ad nauseam in this minor dissertation. It suffices to say that this researcher supports (as he has for more than

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four decades) resistance against practices that have been visible from the colonial era, through the Apartheid era and into the current era:

• The practice of the police being abused to keep a political regime in power; • The practice of the police being abused to oppress legitimate opposition to that political regime; • The practice of the police being abused to assist political elites and any other individuals in corruptive activities and other crimes (and the police themselves being involved in committing the same); and • The practice of creating and maintaining a paramilitary style of policing, ignorant of the principles of minimum force (and therefore leaning towards the principles and doctrines of maximum force, such as is expected from the military and of authoritarian states and police states).

This nauseating depiction is the pinnacle of the most despicable politics-policing relationship that a society can ever be exposed to, that of the police state in which paranoia reigns, human rights are abused, the political elite literally gets away with murder, and where the designation of the constitutional state under the rule of law is merely a smokescreen and a handy tool to be used in populist political diatribes.

4.3.2.6 Police culture

The discussion above makes a clear distinction between the police culture and the police subculture. The point is that the police culture is outside of the general culture created in a constitutional democracy under the rule of law. It has been argued that the unacceptable characteristics of the police culture do not fit in with the imperatives of a constitutional democracy under the rule of law, which is the agreed-upon system of the South African state. In fact, it is above the law and contrary to the democratic principle of voluntary obedience to the law.

A police culture, with all the negative and unacceptable characteristics found in the data, is therefore contrary to our agreed-upon state system and should be rejected with very strong political will. These unacceptable characteristics are akin to the rejected systems of state in South Africa, specifically colonialism and Apartheid, and the reasons for South Africa’s quest to reform in accordance with the ideal of a constitutional democracy under the rule of law. It is therefore untenable to maintain a

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police culture approach in South Africa – it can simply not be defended and should not be maintained.

Rather, the approach followed by the term “police sub-culture” should be pursued actively, also from the side of politicians, given the characteristics outlined above. The characteristics of the police sub-culture support our form of state since the prefix “sub- ” indicates part of the whole. The whole is our agreed-upon constitutional democracy under the rule of law - the preferred form of state of the Republic of South Africa. The insistence of the current South African government on maintaining a police “force”, to use P12’s argument, rather than a police “service”, as our legal framework prescribes, is therefore unintelligible to this researcher. Did the freedom forces fight in favour of colonialism and Apartheid? If so, certainly as it seems in this argument, why are politicians in the governing party telling us that they fought against colonialism and Apartheid?

These police sub-culture is the ideal for South Africa, as we all agreed during the initial process of transformation of our society, and so should be actively pursued. Anything to the contrary should be severely attacked with ethical and effective scientific peer- reviewed research.

For purposes of completeness, the characteristics of the police subculture in South Africa’s constitutional democracy under the rule of law are repeated here, in the order in which they emerged during the analysis process:

• Neatness (appearance); • Professional (effective and ethical) leadership; • Constitutionality minded; • Respect for ancient and pre-colonial societal order systems; • Knowledge-based; and • Professional policing.

It is another submission of this minor dissertation that, if South Africa cannot achieve the transformation from a police culture to a police sub-culture, our existential crises will continue to exist unabated.

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4.4 Summary

The results of the investigation were reported and discussed in detail in this chapter.

The results reveal that the police in South Africa are in serious difficulties. Adverse political interference was confirmed and a lack of faith in the government to reverse this situation was evident.

It was clear that the South African government does not understand the state as a system of law and cooperation, but rather as a framework within which dominance over the state can be achieved and maintained. This dominance allows for corruption and other crimes to be committed.

Adding insult to injury, the current regime has appropriated the state’s organisations, such as the SAPS (and also other societal safety agencies) without unanimous agreement among the people who live and work in our constitutional democracy under the rule of law as equal citizens.

To rub salt in the wounds, the control of the SAPS (as well as other societal safety agencies, and any other organisations in order to maintain the system of total appropriated dominance) is given to individuals as a political reward. This is visible, for instance, in the cadre deployment system of the ANC-led government, making a mockery of the competence demanded of political role players and of officialdom in a constitutional democracy under the rule of law. Total subservience to the regime is the expected result of such appointments, making it very difficult, if not impossible, to trace corruption and other criminal activities.

This results in law enforcement that is likely to be partial, political party-controlled and partisan. Of course, this is exactly as was the case in the colonial and Apartheid eras of our country’s history.

Chapter 5, which follows this chapter, deals with reflections on the study, as well as with the conclusions of the study.

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5 REFLECTIONS AND CONCLUSION

5.1 Introduction

This chapter allows the researcher to reflect on his experiences throughout the study, to conclude on them and to offer the insights gained during the study.

The reflection addresses issues regarding the utilisation of subjects in the rank of professor for purposes of academic research, the limitations of the study and its contributions. It explores the possibility of expanding the literature in the Policing Body of Knowledge – POLBoK; recommendations for the promotion of knowledge leadership – KL; and the identification of areas for future research.

It also explores the relationship between the prominent findings in the literature and the results of the analysis of the primary data (that is, the themes uncovered from the narratives).

Lastly, the research question and sub-questions are revisited and answered.

5.2 Reflection on the Study

5.2.1 South African Professors as Participants

A cautionary word should be spoken on the utilisation of professors for purposes of gathering primary data.

The participants of this study were all professors at South African universities, active in the broad environment in which policing can be found. The choice of professors was properly motivated, in Chapter 3 of this minor dissertation, and this motivation concentrated on the high regard that the role of professor enjoys at universities globally and in South Africa in particular.

The University of South Africa (UNISA) has played a major role in developing the academic study of policing in South Africa (Van Heerden, 1976). It is therefore a role- player to be considered when studying the POLBoK within a KL paradigm. The ISS list that I used for sampling purposes named only one UNISA professor, and this professor chose to respond.

The profile of the participants in this study was documented in Table 3.1. All of them had doctorates, they had an average of 31.2 years in academic service, their average

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experience in policing was 18.4 years, and they were on average 65.2 years old. Unfortunately, I did not request indications of their publications in books, peer- reviewed journals and other secondary sources – and this is a lesson learnt for the future. However, I knew they had extensive publishing records simply because I had known them all for years and had read their publications. Equally unfortunately, I did not request information on their possible individual National Research Foundation (NRF) ratings, which is another lesson learnt. The reason for the inclusion of publications and NRF ratings in the profiles of the researchers will become evident in Table 5.1 below.

However, Jansen (2019) reported that UNISA has, with effect from June 2019, released new standards for becoming an associate professor at that university. The gist of his article is that “lowering the employment bar does academics and students no favours” and the foundations of his criticism are presented (verbatim) as follows (Table 5.1):

Table 5.1: Jansen’s Comparison of Academic Associate Professor Profile Standards Between UNISA and Other Universities

UNISA Other universities

• PhD • (the PhD is obvious, writes Jansen) • 3 years teaching within Odel (Open distance • evidence of substantive research over many e-learning) years – typically, 15-20 articles in top world • 2 research outputs in 3 years journals to begin with and, in the social • 3 research outputs in five years sciences and humanities, at least a solid • No supervision, as supervision forms part of first academic book (not a Unisa study the research output guide!) • a good number of doctoral students and (Jansen writes underneath this in his article: Now even more master’s students supervised to set aside for the moment the appalling use of completion, language and let this sink in). • and a respectable research rating by the National Research Foundation.

I searched the internet in an effort to find some comments by UNISA on Jansen’s article, but could not find any. I therefore contacted Professor Jansen through his office at Stellenbosch University by email and asked whether Jansen was aware of any

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comments on his article. I highlighted the fact that I wanted to comment in this minor dissertation on this issue. Jansen replied by email on 30 August 2019, as follows:

Dear Chris

Yes, two published notices from UNISA did come through in response to my article, both of which actually ended up making the case for my article! But off-the-record I have had many UNISA professors telling me that the article was spot on, accurate, correct….at least one other university has decided in one of its departments to no longer use UNISA “profs” in their external examinations.

As far as the “off-the-record” remark in Jansen’s email is concerned, I understand the remark to mean that some UNISA professors commented “off-the-record”, not that I am not able to use the content of the email. This is because I asked for his comments with a view to using them in this minor dissertation, and he responded.

This issue, of the standards set by UNISA for the appointment of associate professors, made me uncomfortable because of the possible implications for the utilisation of professors (at least from UNISA) as research subjects in future. If the standards have indeed been dropped, the expertise of professorial appointments may not be a given. Fortunately, courtesy of the biographic details that he provided in Part A of his narrative, I could ascertain that the UNISA participant (P7) in this study has a DLitt et Phil (Police Science), 26 years’ experience as an academic and eight years active experience as a police official. Since I am au fait with his career progress, I know that his university experience is in Odel mode, as well as in blended learning mode. He delivers excellent and frequent research outputs, which I have read, and I use his work in academic programmes and my own research. I contacted him to ascertain whether he was an associate professor, and he informed me that he is, in fact, a full professor.

I know, however, that P5 is an associate professor (although not at UNISA). This rank is visible in her email designation. She has a PhD and 35 years’ experience as an academic (in blended mode, since her university is primarily a residential one). Because I know her, I am au fait with the excellent quality and frequency of her research work and the ground-breaking nature of the same.

Suffice to say, researchers will have to look at the possibility of contaminated or weak data because of the individual lack of stature of subjects in academic studies. However, race activism is an inherent part of the political environment of South Africa

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and could therefore also be part of undue political influence in South Africa’s ability to perform competitively with the rest of the world. When this is the case, namely that political influence is actually “dumbing down” (Jansen, 2019) the value of our academic research, then one will have to reconsider the utilisation of KL in policy development: It may be as fruitless and counterproductive as the utilisation of populist politics for the gain of criminal politicians.

5.2.2 Study Limitations

No unsurmountable limitations were found during the completion of this study.

Available literature was readily available for the completion of the literature review. Given this researcher’s participant observer status, insider knowledge of the societal safety environment was helpful, and the participants were known. So were many parallel initiatives, such as evidence-based policing, which aims to influence policing policymaking based on (scientific, research-derived) results – which links well with KL.

However, the participants, all professors at South African universities, experienced severe time constraints in the normal course of their daily activities. They needed to publish, to get their research results out in the academic domain, and to perform in the difficult higher education environment of current South Africa. Political interference is visible in this higher education environment, with student activism, violent student protests, language issues and (in some cases) real physical threats being part of the package. Therefore, to make the time in this volatile and disruptive environment for narrative writing in favour of someone else’s academic studies may simply not have been a priority. Yet, five of the 12 identified professors did respond, despite all the obstacles in their daily existence, and their views are presented in this minor dissertation. Of course, this is appreciated.

One must however be aware that more than 50% of the population did not respond and that this is most probably because of time constraints. I can state this because some of the non-responding professors indicated that time was a problem, even though they really wanted to respond. One respondent cited a possible conflict of interest which is also quite understandable, given the relatively small population in the policing field of study in South Africa. Future researchers, therefore, should they want to use university professors as participants, will have to take notice of possible non-

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responses due to time constraints and other academic considerations in a relatively specialised field.

5.2.3 Lack of Previous Research

I found that a lot has generally been written about politics and policing, globally as well as in South Africa. Except for Alemika’s work (for instance, Alemika, 2009) and the work of Rauch and Van der Spuy (2006) as well as Botha (2015; 2018) and Burger (2012b; 2016) the African contributions were scarce. The dearth of research by African researchers for African policing should be addressed as a matter of priority.

Except for Cavaleri et al. (2005), contributions on KL are equally scarce. Some work has been done by Botha (2017; 2019), but this needs to be expanded.

This minor dissertation is part of that expansion. This is an ideal situation to be in as it is hoped that researchers will find it useful to expand on KL, especially where it may be in the favour of the world of societal safety, in the broadest sense of the term.

5.3 Contribution of the Study

In my opinion, this study may contribute to societal safety in the following ways:

5.3.1 Expanding the Literature on The Policing Body of Knowledge

This study has detailed to some extent the historiography of societal safety prior to 1652, the date on which Van Riebeeck landed in what is today known as the City of Cape Town to establish a halfway station between the Netherlands and the East, which was a relevant trading route for the Dutch East India Company, a leading Dutch business venture. It found that the first people of South Africa had a palpable sense of societal safety. Our concept of “policing”, therefore, did not only arrive in South Africa as we know it today with the arrival of white people from Europe.

The study has found that the systems brought to South Africa by the Dutch, and later the British, were very different to the first people’s perception of societal safety. In fact, it was totally foreign to them. These imported systems would become the basis of colonial policing practices, and later of post-colonial policing practices (such as practised during the Apartheid era).

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Of particular interest though, is the fact that these same practices (derived from the colonial and Apartheid regimes) are currently used by the (so-called “democratic”) ANC-controlled government in South Africa, which party has an interest in declaring everything colonial and Apartheid as a crime against the people of South Africa.

The study contends that politicians in South Africa cannot be entrusted alone with the development of policing policy (and therefore policing practices). Policy should rather be developed in a co-creative/co-productive/co-operative manner from a KL perspective.

KL aims to influence policing policy development through ethical, effective, peer- reviewed research, rather than through popular politically expedient decisions by a political party with dominant status.

The study recommends the development of a “southern epistemology” of policing rather than the use of a “northern epistemology” alone, to be utilised together in a Hegelian dialectic approach.

The study recommends that the term “police culture” be seen as contrary to the form of state found in South Africa, that is, the constitutional democracy under the rule of law, since the “culture” concept denotes another culture, parallel to the national culture as prescribed by the imperatives of the constitutional democracy under the rule of law negotiated for South Africa post 2 February 1990. Rather, as “sub-” denotes “part of”, South Africa should choose to develop a “police sub-culture” that would reflect the national culture of a constitutional democracy under the rule of law within the police.

5.3.2 Recommendations for The Promotion of Knowledge Leadership

South Africa’s history has shown amply that the policy decisions made on a popular political census caused much damage to the people and to the country.

This study recommends that policy decisions (and therefore the policing practices emanating from the policies) be made based on ethical and effective peer-reviewed research.

This recommendation has governance implications also: It demands a co-creative/co- productive/co-operative governance decision that honours the imperatives of a constitutional democracy under the rule of law. This recommendation implicitly rejects

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the current dispensation in South Africa, where policy is developed through knee-jerk popular political decisions that are not derived from steadfast foundations.

However, this shift would entail a positive political will, which is unfortunately not expected under the current ANC-dominated government in South Africa, since it would not support its state capture needs. This issue (of a non-responding government) will need further advocacy and activism, which is sure to be met with antagonism by the authoritarian, police-state look-alike government that South Africa currently has.

5.3.3 Identification of Areas for Future Research

It is a submission of this study that more research is needed in several of the areas it covered. These are:

• The societal safety issues practised by our first people. This is necessary to provide us with more information on the pre-1652 societal safety issues in our country, 1652 being used so often as the time frame-start date of policing in South Africa, in actual fact presupposing that no order was present in pre-1652 societies in South Africa.

• The development of a southern policing epistemology that can be used in the manner of Hegelian dialectics, together with the much-publicised northern policing epistemology. This could help us to understand even better when we have discourses on societal safety in Africa, and therefore also in South Africa.

• The police, as the most visible agent of governance in South Africa, and therefore as the agency taking the brunt in the community for poor governmental policy decisions. Research in this area should be supported in an advocacy manner, with the view of supporting the police-community relationship and police accountability to the community and to the other established civilian oversight structures. This is in contrast to a dominant political party-subservient policing style, where that dominant party’s interests are the only interests of importance to the policing agency.

• Academically honest writing on the carry-through effect of policing systems under colonial and Apartheid rule into the so-called “democratic” system of government. An aim of this research would be to inform the ordinary people that the current government is neither democratic in the true (peer-reviewed research) sense of the

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word, nor there for the people’s benefit – the current government is only in power because it is their time to eat. Of course, “academically honest writing” refers to effective and ethical peer-reviewed academic research. In this sense, the UNISA lesson as highlighted by Jansen (above), that academics should not be appointed for academically downgraded black economic empowerment reasons, but for critical research-based academic prowess, should be a future research area.

• KL applications provide for exciting areas of further research: We can muster KL in case studies, role plays and activities in andragogic mode to the benefit of adult learners in the world of societal safety. Storytelling, one of the threads that binds all people in South Africa together since we are all storytellers, can be studied and incorporated here. The advantages go beyond policing education, training and development: They have the potential to counter the cognitively challenged, divisive politics of some South African politicians, who are aiming to drive the different peoples of South Africa apart for dubious self-centred political reasons.

5.4 Insights

Some insights can be highlighted. These are:

• The relationship between the prominent findings in the literature and the results of the analysis of the primary data; and • The links between the results of the literature review and the themes uncovered from the primary data.

5.4.1 Comparing Primary and The Secondary Data

The main results found in the literature review, as described in Chapter 2 of this minor dissertation, can be summarised as follows:

• Result 1: A history of “policing” in South Africa is evident before the arrival of people from other continents on the African continent. This historiography shows a different policing system from the systems that became visible during the colonial and post- colonial eras on the continent of Africa, and therefore also in South Africa.

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• Result 2: Post-colonial policing systems on the continent of Africa do not differ from the colonial policing systems. • Result 3: The post-1994 policing system in South Africa does not differ from the colonial and Apartheid policing systems. • Result 4: Professional policing is the anti-thesis of colonial, Apartheid and post-1994 policing systems. • Result 5: KL is an imperative for professional policing as it works against ineffective, unethical, politically interfering leadership that is bad for the policing organisation. • Result 6: Political and belief systems, sometimes in tandem, can influence the police culture and policing systems negatively. • Result 7: Policing is a collective community responsibility, combining “the police” and “private policing” in accountable policing beyond policing by consent. • Result 8: Governments are not the only role players in accountable policing. During situations of extreme unhappiness, or extreme agitation, or possible unlawfulness, the police are not the only authority. The role players should include those with capacity and knowledge outside of the police, and the unhappy, agitated and possibly unlawfully minded, should also be involved. The police are then only partners in the process. But the police remain the only partner with legal coercion capabilities. • Result 9: An equal partnership between the police and the community allows the community at the local level to lawfully address “policing problems” in the community before requesting formal police interference.

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At this stage, it may be useful to display results 1 to 9 at a glance:

Table 5.2: Results from The Literary Review at A Glance.

RESULT RESULT NUMBER

1 A history of “policing” in South Africa is evident before the arrival of people from other continents on the African continent. This historiography shows a different policing system as the systems that would become visible during the colonial and post-colonial eras on the continent of Africa, and therefore also in South Africa.

2 Colonial policing systems on the continent of Africa, and post-colonial policing systems do not differ from each other.

3 The post-1994 policing system in South Africa does not differ from the colonial and Apartheid policing systems.

4 Professional policing is the anti-thesis of colonial, Apartheid and post-1994 policing systems.

5 KL is an imperative for professional policing, as it works against ineffective, unethical, politically interfering leadership that is bad for the policing organisation.

6 Political and belief systems, sometimes in tandem, can influence the police culture and policing systems negatively.

7 Policing is a collective community responsibility, combining “the police” and “private policing” in accountable policing beyond policing by consent.

8 Governments are not the only role players in accountable policing. During situations of extreme unhappiness, or extreme agitation, or possible unlawfulness, the police are not the only authority. The role players should include those with capacity and knowledge outside of the police, and the unhappy, agitated and possibly unlawfully minded, should also be involved. The police are then only partners in the process. But the police remain the only partner with legal coercion capabilities.

9 An equal partnership between the police and the community allows the community at the local level to lawfully address “policing problems” in the community before requesting formal police interference.

5.4.2 Linking the Literature Review with The Themes

Based on the above results, it was possible to cluster the findings into a typology. This typology is detailed in Table 5.3 below.

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Table 5.3: A Typology Of Categories, Results From The Literature, And Findings Of The Primary Data

Category Results from the literature Primary data findings (numbers 1-9) (numbers 10-23) History of policing. 1, 2, 3 15, 23 Professional policing. 4, 5, 7, 9 13, 14, 16, 17, 18, 20, 21, 23 KL. 5 10, 11, 12, 13 Politics. 6 12-21, 23 Policing. 7, 8, 9 10 Police culture. 6 22, 23

Some interesting conclusions may be made from this typology. These are:

• all categories are found in both primary and secondary data; and • the categories depicting KL, politics, and policing are visible in both primary and secondary data. This will be discussed further in section 5.5 below, where the findings that emerged are compared to the research questions.

5.5 Research Questions

• The main research question: To what extent can knowledge leadership influence the relationship between politics and policing in South Africa?

To answer this question conclusively, it was broken up into three sub-research questions:

• Sub-research question 1: What are the imperatives of the current relationship between politics and the police in South Africa? • Sub-research question 2: What is knowledge leadership? • Sub-research question 3: Can knowledge leadership influence the formulation of policing policy in South Africa?

The sub-research questions will now be addressed, after which a decision can be made as to the answer to the main research question.

5.5.1 Sub-Research Question 1: What Are the Imperatives of The Current Relationship Between Politics and The Police in South Africa?

The current relationship between politics and policing in South Africa is toxic, adverse, and reminiscent of the politics-policing relationship during the colonial and Apartheid

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eras. It is also a strong feature of South Africa’s existential crisis, where the police are styled as a paramilitary force, used to keep a criminal regime in power, oppress legitimate opposition to the regime, and support the regime’s capture of the state.

In this relationship, the South African political elite is using northern epistemological systems of societal safety (so-called “Western” epistemology), inherited from colonialist times and Apartheid, with scant (if any) regard for traditional, pre-colonial African systems of societal safety. For instance, the system of customary laws observed by traditional South African authorities smacks of the dual legal system utilised during colonialism and Apartheid for adverse political purposes. The need to develop a southern epistemology is therefore emphasised.

The divisive, red-herring-creating and corruption-racket-protective political elite’s rantings in the public domain cause immense damage to honest police officials, who must take the brunt of public indignation about poor political service delivery. Because of its dominant party status, the current government overrules or adversely influences the available accountability structures in the country to a simple majority benefit, also by influencing policing adversely.

The designation of a constitutional state under the rule of law is a lie, a smokescreen and a handy tool used in populist political diatribes.

The police culture is outside the cultural characteristics of a constitutional democracy under the rule of law, and rather an authoritarian culture reminiscent of a police state. It has not dawned on the political elite that the police subculture is part of the culture expounded by a constitutional democracy under the rule of law – or perhaps the political elite knows it, but simply ignores it.

Of most importance, is that the new regime in South Africa, in spite of diatribes denouncing colonialism and Apartheid (which should be denounced by democratically minded people) is actually perpetuating policing under those same rejected systems.

I submit that the current relationship between politics and the police in South Africa has been adequately shown in this minor dissertation to be adverse and toxic.

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5.5.2 Sub-Research Question 2: What is Knowledge Leadership?

KL was discussed in chapter 2 of this minor dissertation. It focuses on effective and ethical peer-reviewed research as the basis for policing policy and practices in a non- partisan, democratic, professional policing ontology.

A conceptual clarification of KL was presented, where KL was defined as “authentic influence on all levels of the organisation based on valid reality, seeking to integrate knowledge development processes and knowledge management initiatives, and to create value to the benefit of an envisaged future” following Botha (2017, p. 36).

The concept is also explained in terms of its pure inevitable parts, namely explicit knowledge, tacit knowledge and the sequential arrangement of knowledge. In this sense, KL plays an enormous part in the development and dissemination of the policing body of knowledge (POLBoK). POLBoK should be augmented by more policing research on the African continent, by Africa’s people for Africa. It was argued that reference to African policing researchers does not only refer to black African researchers, but to all researchers on the continent who are in a position to produce ethical and effective peer-reviewed research within the African context. In fact, a case was made in favour of the development of a southern policing epistemology, developed and grown in the different territories in Africa, Asia, Oceania and Latin America. The terms “pracademics” (practice minded academics) and “acapracs” (academic minded practitioners) were introduced to the POLBoK.

This was followed by a contextual analysis of KL, which has not, as far as I could ascertain, previously been done in policing-specific literature in the specific mode or structure used in this minor dissertation.

Apart from answering the existential question (in other words, “what is KL”?) attention was also given to the applicative value of KL. This is reflected in the argument that professionalism in policing (rather than dominance by dominant-party populist politics) is the foundational requirement for the eventual deployment of KL. KL is the prerequisite for the design of policing policy and practices based on knowledge rather than on populist, dominant-political-party considerations. It was further argued that professional KL-based policing is the only plausible road to take if we want to prevent the total collapse of our state by a criminally minded political dispensation, abusing policing for the benefit of a political elite. Some necessities for professional policing as

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the foundation for KL were presented. Life-long academic prowess was an important part of the discussion.

I submit that the sub-research question “What is KL?” was adequately covered in this minor dissertation, and that KL was described conceptually (thereby answering the existential question), while some inroads were made into the contextual application thereof.

5.5.3 Sub-Research Question 3: Can Knowledge Leadership Influence the Formulation of Policing Policy in South Africa?

The short answer to this sub-research question is simply that KL can indeed influence the formation of policing policy in South Africa. However, it should be embraced by current political policymakers. Against this background, it is a moot point whether KL will indeed be utilised to formulate policing policy.

The “yes” answer is influenced by the obvious advantages of having policing policy (and therefore the resultant policing practices) developed by making use of evidence provided by effective and ethical peer-reviewed research. This research provides the policymaker with evidence-based possibilities for more effective and ethical policing, supporting a police sub-culture that fits into a constitutional democracy under the rule of law.

The possibilities provided by knee-jerk, populist, political decisions for the benefit of the political elite do not fit into our constitutional democracy under the rule of law. Such political decisions lead to the development of a police culture reminiscent of the policing policy and practices under colonialism and Apartheid. The rejection of both of these political systems was the reason for the introduction of an alternative political system, namely South Africa’s constitutional democracy under the rule of law.

Whether KL will in fact be used is open for debate, since it requires political will to move away from a populist political mode of determining policing policy, to a KL-based mode of policy development. In the latter mode, the government is but one of the role players, with no veto right based on a simple majority and politically dominant overpowering attitudes, known under Apartheid as Baasskap. Under a KL-based system, government is part of a cooperative, co-creative or co-productive effort to create policing policy. Such a situation would be difficult to accept by politicians

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working within an authoritarian political paradigm. In fact, it would erode the police- state style of authoritarian, dominant political party rule, and would make it more difficult to adapt policy to corruptive and other criminal needs by the political elite.

The answer to the sub-research question is therefore, at this stage, not conclusive. I maintain that the KL-based system is the promotable system for policing policy development. However, and given the various politics-policing discussions in this minor dissertation, I do not have overpowering faith in the current government to promote a KL-based policing policy development system. Perhaps, for purposes of augmenting the point, P12’s remark as presented in Chapter 4 is worth repeating: “The Ramaphosa Presidency seems to have other intentions and is seemingly attempting to move away from the calamitous disastrous precipice of the total destruction of the professional intentions we had for the SAPS, however the battle may be a bridge too far. We will observe with anxious anticipation and prayers for – an against [sic] the odds – possible positive outcome of a normalised professional SAPS rather than the current disastrous South African Police Force” (P12).

Although there is trepidation, I can at least submit that the sub-research question “Can KL influence the formulation of policing policy in South Africa?” was covered and that it received critical evaluation in this minor dissertation.

5.6 Summary

It is the opinion of this researcher that this study has been a journey into his innermost soul. This was because of the participant observer status of the researcher, as well as because of the memories the results invoked after nearly five decades spent in the world of societal safety.

It is hoped that this minor dissertation will be of some worth to both pracademics and acapracs in that world of societal safety. Hopefully, apart from all other considerations, this minor dissertation will ignite a flame in some reader that will lead to action – action that will benefit the peoples of our country, so that the beloved country does not cry any more (with recognition to beloved fellow South African, Alan Paton).

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ANNEXURES

ANNEXURE A: NARRATIVE DATA COLLECTION SCHEDULE

POLITICS AND POLICING IN SOUTH AFRICA: A KNOWLEDGE LEADERSHIP INQUIRY

6 June 2018

Dear participant

INTRODUCTION

My name is Chris Botha. I served in the former South African Police (SAP), the University of South Africa (Unisa) as a Police Science lecturer in the Department of Criminology and in the South African Police Service (SAPS) until retirement at the end of June 2006. I am a qualified assessor and moderator of outcomes based education, training and development, has three books in print, is the author of several academic articles and chapters in books and is a peer reviewer for international as well as South African publications. I am also a moderator for Umalusi, the South African quality assurer for general and further education on the National Certificate (Vocational): Safety in Society. Presently, I have the pleasure to be a professional associate at the School of Public Leadership (SPL) at Stellenbosch University (SU).

THE RESEARCH

My interest:

I am interested in the relationship between politics and policing in South Africa. In particular I am interested in the following:

• Politicised and professional policing in South Africa; • The politics / police relationship in South Africa; and • Whether Knowledge Leadership can influence the politics / police relationship in South Africa.

Why this interest?

In terms of Banks’ Taxonomy of Participant Observer Researchers, I see myself as an Indigenous Outsider in South African policing. I am still involved and still interested. My work on the history of policing on our continent, which should be published as a chapter in a policing textbook by Pearson in July 2018, has prompted me to investigate this particular relationship in South Africa. Coupled to this are the results of a study on

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policing leadership in South Africa, which should also appear during 2018, this time through LexisNexis. The leadership study has led to an article which can be referenced as follows:

Botha, C.J. 2017. Can knowledge leadership be useful to policing? An exploratory conversation. Just Africa: All-Africa Journal of Criminal Justice, 3 (1): 18-46.

Results so far:

I have completed the prescribed modules for the degree MPhil (Personal and Professional Leadership) at the University of Johannesburg. This research project represents the minor dissertation to be submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree. My supervisor is Professor Magda Hewitt, who can be reached at [email protected].

I am already quite advanced with the literature review. For the gathering of data, I have decided to approach academics at South African universities who are mentioned in a list of South African researchers, drafted during April 2016 by Dr Johan Burger of the ISS in consultation. The list consists of individuals who have worked, or are still working, in the environment of societal safety. I decided to focus on individuals in the academic rank of Professor (all levels). I chose people from this advanced academic rank because of proven research ability, ability to disseminate knowledge and visibility in academic discourses on policing in the broadest definition of the term.

You, and all others identified through this process, have some relationship with societal safety in South Africa. Therefore, you have a story to tell – a story about you and policing.

MY REQUEST TO YOU

Part A:

Part A of this data collection schedule contains some biographical information. I will appreciate the biographical data for inclusion in the minor dissertation.

Part B:

Part B simply asks for your story. Obviously, I do not want to restrict you in terms of the length of your answer. However, I am acutely aware of the fact that your time is precious. Therefore, I will appreciate any contribution of whatever length that you can realistically offer.

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PART A

Kindly fill in the following table:

Highest qualification

Experience as an academic (in years)

Academic discipline

Experience of policing (in years)

Age

Gender

Race group

PART B

Will you kindly write me your story here?

ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS

The typical guarantee of confidentiality is offered. Given that the individual responses will be returned to me via technological means, I may well be able to identify a given individual’s response, but promise not to do so publicly. I will provide feedback at the appropriate time in the study.

Of course, the decision to participate or not, is exclusively yours.

CONTACT PARTICULARS

I will appreciate your return of the completed document to [email protected]. I can be reached at 082 312 1156 should you need to speak to me.

APPRECIATION

Your participation will be valued and appreciated. Please accept my thanks and, indeed, my gratitude.

With professional regards, Chris OoO

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ANNEXURE B: COLLEGE OF BUSINESS AND ECONOMICS (CBE)

RESEARCH CONSENT FORM

Politics and Policing in South Africa: A Knowledge Leadership Inquiry

Please initial each box below:

I confirm that I have read and understand the information letter dated 6 June 2018 for the above study. I have had the opportunity to consider the information, ask questions and have had these answered satisfactorily.

I understand that my participation is voluntary and that I am free to withdraw from this study at any time without giving any reason and without any consequences to me.

I agree to take part in the above study.

______

Name of Participant Signature of Participant Date

Chris J Botha ______Name of Researcher Signature of Researcher Date

Original signed and kept on file at 9 Edenpark, Witteboom Street, Hartenbos. 18 June 2018

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ANNEXURE C:

Table 2.1:

Independence dates of Belgium’s (Francophone) colonies.

FORMER COLONY DATE OF INDEPENDENCE

1 Democratic Republic of the Congo 30 June 1960 (Kinshasa)

2 Republic of Burundi 1 July 1962

3 Republic of Rwanda 1 July 1962

Table 2.2: Independence dates of Britain’s (Anglophone) colonies.

FORMER COLONY DATE OF INDEPENDENCE

1 Republic of South Africa Although the Union of South Africa was created on 31 May 1910, it became the Republic of South Africa on 31 May 1961.

2 The Arab Republic of Egypt 28 February 1922

3 Lybia 24 December 1951

4 Democratic Republic of Sudan 1 January 1956

(Egypt was a co-coloniser here)

5 Republic of Ghana 6 March 1957

6 Democratic Republic of Somalia 1 July 1960

7 Federal Republic of Nigeria 1 October 1960

8 Republic of Sierra Leone 27 April 1961

9 United Republic of Tanzania 9 December 1961

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10 Republic of Uganda 9 October 1962

11 Republic of Kenya 12 December 1963

12 Republic of Malawi 6 July 1964

13 Republic of Zambia 24 October 1964

14 Republic of the Gambia 18 February 1965

15 Republic of Botswana 30 September 1966

16 Kingdom of Lesotho 4 October 1966

17 Mauritius 12 March 1968

18 Kingdom of Swaziland 6 September 1968

19 Republic of Seychelles 29 June 1976

20 Republic of Zimbabwe 18 April 1980

Table 2.3: Independence dates for France’s (Francophone) colonies.

FORMER COLONY DATE OF INDEPENDENCE

1 Kingdom of Morocco 2 March 1956

2 Republic of Tunisia 20 March 1956

3 Republic of Guinea 2 October 1958

4 Republic of Cameroon 1 January 1960

5 Republic of Senegal 4 April 1960

6 Republic of Togo 27 April 1960

7 Republic of Mali 22 September 1960

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8 Democratic Republic of Madagaskar 26 June 1960

9 Republic of Benin 1 August 1960

10 Republic of Niger 3 August 1960

11 Popular Democratic Republic of Burkina Faso 5 August 1960

12 Republic of the Ivory Coast 7 August 1960

13 Republic of Chad 11 August 1960

14 Central African Republic 13 August 1960

15 Republic of the Congo (Brazzaville) 15 August 1960

16 Republic of Gabon 17 August 1960

17 Islamic Republic of Mauritania 28 November 1960

18 Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria 3 July 1962

19 Federal Islamic Republic of the Comoros 6 July 1975

20 Republic of Djibouti 29 June 1976

Table 2.4: Independence dates of Portugal’s (Lusophone) colonies.

FORMER COLONY DATE OF INDEPENDENCE

1 Republic of Guinea-Bissau 24 September 1973, by way of a Unilateral Declaration of Independence, today celebrated as Independence Day. Independence was however only formally

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recognised by Portugal on 10 September 1974 as a result of the Algiers Accord of 26 August 1974.

2 Republic of Mozambique 25 June 1975

3 Republic of Cape Verde 5 July 1975

4 Democratic Republic of Sao Tomé and Principe 12 July 1975

5 People’s Republic of Angola 11 November 1975

Table 2.5: Independence dates of Spain’s (Lusophone) colonies.

FORMER COLONY DATE OF INDEPENDENCE

1 Republic of Equatorial Guinea 12 October 1968

2 Western Sahara 28 February 1976

Table 2.6: Independence date of Italy’s colony (Italian, but no real language influence).

FORMER COLONY DATE OF INDEPENDENCE

1 People’s Democratic Republic of Ethiopia 5 May 1941

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