29
Context of policing and solidarity and in Khayelitsha Democracy and Governance Programme Human Sciences Research Council
Context of policing and solidarity and in Khayelitsha
Democracy and Governance Programme Human Sciences Research Council
1
Interrogating the context of policing • Not merely about administra<ve law enforcement • Police secure sovereignty of the state • ‘legi<mate’ monopoly on use of force (Hobbes) • Maintains state sovereignty through its power over life and death
• Point at which law fails (Benjamin) • ‘Police’ is the ensemble of mechanisms serving to ensure order (Foucault)
• How to create ‘order’ in deeply contested environment? 2
Social order, collective ef5icacy and the ‘common good’ • Literature on crime and social disorder (social disorganisa<on theory)
• Urbanisa<on led to ‘disorganisa<on’ of social networks and higher ‘delinquency’
• Posi<ve of social networks in facilita<ng social control
• Collec<ve efficacy – ‘social cohesion among neighbours combined with their willingness to intervene on behalf of the ‘common good’’ (Sampson)
3
Social cohesion, collective ef5icacy and a common community • Social cohesion: inclusive social networks, shared values, tolerance/recogni<on
• How residents develop a willingness to act collec<vely based on rela<onships of mutual trust and solidarity.
• These theories based on Western European and North American experience. 4
Social cohesion and a common community • Explanatory power in current contexts of globaliza<on and urbaniza<on ques<onable.
• Don’t address the experience of the countries in the global south
• Implicitly refers to terms of ci<zenship in a democra<c poli<cal community founded on ‘fraternity’ and Ubuntu
• Premised on the no<on that democracy is made possible by some level of community between subjects, ‘a space for encounter’ (Balibar). 5
Understanding the context of social solidarity • What is the common good? • Where is the space for democra<c encounter?
• Assumes shared understandings of the common good, shared values, expecta<ons about social order and social control
• Trust between ci<zens themselves and ci<zens and the state
6
Context of policing and social solidarity • Community policing (as a style of policing and the ins<tu<on of CPFs) fundamentally premised on concept of a common community
• Assumes a shared commitment to and vision of social order
• Assumes self evident, bounded, homogenous community (Pelser, Friedman)
• Assumes reciprocity and norma<ve social control • Assumes posi<on of equality between social actors
7
Context of policing and social solidarity • No<on of ‘ra<onal’ dialogue, crea<ng shared understandings
• Problem of power and plurality • at the moment we run the risk of hurling insults at each other without having the data to come to ra7onal responses.
• it’s very difficult to get any kind of informed commitment to a plan however ra7onal and o<en explained it is. (Khayelitsha Comm) 8
Khayelitsha-‐lens on policing and social cohesion
• Complex, contested environment • High levels of violence • Murder rate above the na<onal average of 31 per 100 000 (between 76 and 108 per 100 000)
• High levels of fear of violence in all social spheres (above 70%) • You don’t dare scream because the guys are high and they are killers. Even if it’s a young boy who is just an appren7ce in the game he will either finish you to prove a point to the older group that he has a killer ins7nct or should you try figh7ng back the old and more experienced ones will come and finish the job. (Field report, school girls)
9
State and citizens • Ambiguous rela<on to the state • Sovereignty of state not rejected but contested • State has to engage with pre-‐exis<ng forms of social organisa<on when extending authority
• Significant social and symbolic resonance • Overlapping rings of authority and governance • Pluralisa<on of security (Shearing)
10
State and citizens
• Ambiguous rela<on to the law, legality, the Cons<tu<on
• Implica<on in apartheid and colonial history • About applica<on of the law -‐State seen to violate the law it seeks to enforce
• Also about the norm of law, values underpinning law
• Law engaged with fluidly and instrumentally 11
The state and citizens • Accept and expect the state to provide ‘services’ and ‘goods’
• Authority of the state, par<cularly the police deeply contested
• Key post-‐apartheid challenge not legi<macy (Steinberg) • Police don’t operate as a neutral, Weberian bureaucracy dispensing services equally to all
• Protec<on based on personalised rela<onships between ci<zens and the individual police members (Steinberg, Hornberger, Barolsky)
12
Policing in Khayelitsha • Charge of ‘ineffec<ve’ policing and systemic failure at the Khayelitsha Commission
• Part of a more general problem of state effec<veness • Residents show low levels of trust and dissa<sfac<on with police but also of many other government services (Seekings)
• Police portray the township as an impenetrable and un-‐policeable space (Khayelitsha Commission)
• Completely resistant to state forms of social ordering • None of the strategies proposed by the NGOs or by some witnesses will make any difference. The only solu7on is to eradicate these informal seHlements. Proper housing and proper suppor7ng infrastructure must be built in order to meet the demands of increased urbaniza7on. (SAPS, opening statement, 2014)
13
Policing in Khayelitsha • Police confront an ‘angry’ community
• Poten7ally the police are policing a community that is angry about poor service delivery including poor sanita7on, and the absence of decent living condi7ons. (SAPS, opening statement, 2014)
• Fail to intervene • ‘There is liile police can do’ (SAPS) • Ethnography -‐Stylized indifference and passivity 14
Policing in Khayelitsha • Do not intervene in gang violence or protect children at school. ‘Afraid’ of the school boy gangsters.
• Arrive ajer incidents of violence • As the police van le< people started swearing at them and saying that they know that they will drop the robbers before they reach the police sta7on. (Field report, April 2014)
• Use sirens to alert and disperse people commikng crimes, do not arrest.
• Police on the margins. 15
Social conditions of policing • How do we understand the social world the police see as ‘un-‐policeable’?
• Western literature assumes people are individualised, autonomous
• Come together as a result of an explicit decision • SA-‐tension between individualism and communitarianism • “individualism is in the head it is not in the blood” (interviewee) 16
The social conditions of policing
• In Africa many subjects begin from a posi<on of mutuality and solidarity
• Meaning of being human located in rela<on to others • Not individual actors who ‘choose’ to intervene for the ‘common good’
• This rela<on of mutuality and solidarity is inherent in the subject’s iden<ty
• Woven into the fabric of sociality 17
Informal policing • Many networks, social organisa<on • Variety of forms of informal ‘policing’ of space and society
• Stokvels, legacy of an<-‐apartheid organisa<on • Networks needed to survive, poverty and repression
• Networks conduits for friendship and support and exclusion and violence 18
Knowing the community • Indicator of social cohesion-‐do you recognise strangers in your neighbourhood?
• People in Khayelitsha ‘know’ each other but this ‘knowing’ can be a source of violent retribu<on
• Those who iden<fied as ‘criminals’ are subject to violent punishment.
• Those who report crime are known to those who commit crime.
• Tradi<onal crime preven<on approaches premised on u<lising community knowledge, however in this context ‘knowing’ can be dangerous.
19
Informal policing and social control • our utmost fear is not going to jail or dying but it’s the torture by the community should they find you. That makes one run faster than a car or be more vigilant and venomous than a snake because should the community members catch you and take the law into their own hands that’s bad news. (Former gang member)
• Neighbours act on each other’s behalf • in the evening the neighbours gathered and looked for [young boys accused of robbery] Guns and any object that anyone had were brought in for the search and they were found and were tortured, they were swollen beyond recogni7on, they had blood and observers were calling for their death. (Field report)
• Is this the ‘common good?’ 20
Informal policing and social control • Public spectacle • Enforcement of a moral community against an ‘other’
• It was roughly around lunch 7me when I saw people amalgamated in front of the Chinese 5 Rand’s store, carrying stones, umbrella’s and brooms from the toilets in the mall…People claimed that Chinese treat their workers [badly]and they…were singing that they must go back to China…. People were also angry at police [and were] accusing the police of expec7ng bribes from the Chinese. (Field Report)
• Taxi associa<ons play a key regulatory func<on • More powerful presence than police • ‘Discipline’ young people, act against criminals, police informal economic rela<ons
21
Informal policing: taxi associations • Ojen mete out significant violence
• He threw away the [stolen] duvet cover in order to raise his speed to save his life as taxi drivers are known to punish robbers in the community. Robbers in some instances run to the police and hand themselves over to them rather than get caught by taxi drivers. (Field report)
• Widespread sanc<on for the violence of taxi associa<ons and other forms of violent collec<ve ordering • This year it’s beHer because the gang wars have somewhat subsided because of the involvement of the Taxi drivers….Taxi drivers help reduce the incidences of gang war by figh7ng fire with fire and the gangs are scared of them. (School girls)
22
An alternative social order: Gangs • Youth gangs • Shaping the nature and meaning of public space (parks) and ins<tu<onal space (schools)
• Impose their own form of policing and social order • Territoriality, ownership of space, shape iden<ty • Young boys in par<cular areas obliged to join gang in the area
• A par<cular ‘language’ of violence 23
Gangs • Public display of power
• “during the gang war days last year boys who are sixteen would walk past carrying machete or just sharpen them…breathing would be so difficult because you don’t know if they will come to you to test if it’s working [use the weapons on you].” (Woman trader)
• Overturn genera<onal hierarchies (school age) • “those teachers who don’t have cars are in big trouble because they can be aHacked easily whereas even those with cars are not spared because they [gang members] throw stones at their cars.” (girl watching gang fight) 24
Gangs • Young people, boys and girls, par<cipate as an ‘audience’ to the spectacle of youth gang violence • There in the open field were boys…When I asked the other students who were also looking whilst cheering…they told me that it was rival gangs. (Field report)
Individual conflicts escalate into confronta<on between groups • A fight had broken in the boys’ bathrooms and knives were drawn…so now the boys who drew knives for each other went to their gangs and now it’s no longer one on one but gang versus gang. (Field report)
25
Gangs • In a predatory world gangs offer protec<on and status • It is also wan7ng to be part of a group of guys who are cool (amajita) because it gives you two things, status and protec7on. Those who take the other way are seen as baru (someone who is not street wise). No girl wants to be with baru, they all want skollies because they also want access to money and protec7on. (Former gang member)
26
Interpreting violent forms of ‘policing’ • No monolithic ‘culture of violence’ • Concept of a ‘culture of violence’ is both ‘reduc<ve’ and ‘infla<onary’
• Reduces the complexity of violence, ascribes ‘culture’ power to dictate social prac<ces
• No space for agency and resistance • Those who are ascribed a ‘culture of violence’ become responsible for their condi<ons
• Different historically situated prac<ces, responses to violence, norms re violence 27
Conclusion-‐the context of policing and solidarity • Khayelitsha is characterised by various forms of ‘policing’ and social ordering
• Informal policing through social networks, values of solidarity and ‘fraternity’
• Ci<zens act on each other’s behalf to impose social order
• Significant amounts of violence in the ‘policing’ of parochial forms of solidarity and social ordering
• Violence as a means of achieving ‘discipline’ and order generally accepted
28
Conclusion-‐the context of policing and solidarity • Ambiguous rela<onship to the symbolic authority of the state and law
• Police ins<tu<on has liile symbolic or prac<cal authority • Do not monopolise the means of violence • What are condi<ons of policing and social ordering in this fundamentally contested social environment?
• Whose vision of social and moral order will prevail? • Who has authority to impose and ‘police’ this social order?
29
