1 Policing in Mitchell‟s Plain

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Urban Violence, Crime and Perceptions on Police-Citizen Relations in Mitchell’s Plain Author: Laurie Visser

Supervisor Rijksuniversiteit Groningen: dr. Joost Herman Supervisor University of the Western Cape: Marion Keim Date: 31-12-2011

Abstract:

This research explores the police-citizen relations in Mitchell‟s Plain, one of the largest townships of Cape Town and South Africa. Drawing on fieldwork conducted in this community, I will explain the perceptions of both community members and police officers of the South African Police Service (SAPS). South Africa in general and Mitchell‟s Plain in specific, is a place that suffers from a great amount of violence and crime. A lot of the crimes are related to drugs and the strong presence of gangs, who are controlling large parts of Mitchell‟s Plain. Recently, the SAPS remilitarized their forces in an effort to deal with the rising crime and violence. This is in stark contrast with the initial police reforms after apartheid and not in line with the concept of community policing, that was introduced to strengthen the relationship between the police and the community. Police citizens relations are further affected by corruption, the SAPS‟ inability to deal with high levels of crime and the strong power the gangs have in the community. Furthermore, the negative perceptions on the police are influenced by incompetency of the court and prisons. Many people see remilitarization of the police and the use of force as a solution to deal with the crime problem in South Africa. However, a deeper look into the problems of a specific community and to what influences their relationship with the police shows this will not solve the problems. Police reforms as part of Security Sector Reforms (SSR) need to be accompanied by changes in the justice system for them to be successful. Corruption, especially in the higher ranks needs to be addressed properly. Consequently, perceptions of both community members and the police needs to be taking into account to address problems with policing and the relationship between the community and the SAPS to tackle crime issues in Mitchell‟s Plain.

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Preface

In the months of July, August and September of 2011 I conducted research in the Mitchell‟s Plain one of Cape Town‟s and South Africa‟s largest townships. The research was part of my Master‟s in Humanitarian Action at the University of Groningen and in cooperation with the University of the Western Cape. I am very grateful for this very unique opportunity, and like to thank a few people who assisted my during my research period.

First of all I would like to thank all of the police officers of the South African Police Service at the Mitchell‟s Plain police station. In particular I like to thank all the members of the Crime Prevention Unit B-shift. These brave policemen and women took me along on their patrols, taught me everything about policing and made sure I was always safe. More importantly, they invited me into their lives which allowed me to get to know the persons behind the badge and their personal struggles.

Second, I would like to thank all of the community members of Mitchell‟s Plain who provided me with lots of information and discussed very sensitive topics on the issues of crime, policing and security with me. For safety and privacy reasons I will not use any names of community members or police officers throughout this thesis, with the exception of public persons who expressed no problems with their name being used. Although, I cannot mention their names here, the people who participated in my research know their contribution has been of great value and that I am very thankful for everything they helped me with.

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List of Abbreviations

AVR Armed Violence Reduction

CPF Community Policing Forum

CPU Crime Prevention Unit

PAGAD People Against Gangsterism and Drugs

SAP South African Police

SAPS South African Police Service

SSR Security Sector Reform

UN United Nations

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1. Introduction

In 1995 South Africa‟s biggest police force, the South African Police (SAP) was transformed into the South African Police Service (SAPS). This establishment of the new police service was supposed to mark the end of the Apartheid era, and the beginning of a more democratic South Africa. In the years that followed, SAPS went through a process of reforms, which focused on a more civilian police, demilitarization and respect for human rights by police members.

The current situation of crime and violence in South Africa is however still problematic. The numbers of murder and rape and property-related crimes are remarkably high for a country which is considered to be a relatively stable democracy. Recently, the security situation has led to a reversal in government policies, leading to a re-militarization of the police forces and increasing their authority to use deadly force. This zero-tolerance approach has caused a lot of resistance, especially in the townships of South Africa where residents feel victimized by this approach. It places the police in a difficult position with high crime rates and the demand for a zero-tolerance approach on the one hand, and the respect for human rights on the other hand.

1.1 Aim and Relevance of the Study

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What are the perceptions of community members and police officers on police-community relations and how can these be explained in the context of crime and violence in South Africa?

In this thesis I will elaborate on the concepts of policing, trust and violence in the theoretical framework. I will explain the different concepts and see how they are relevant in the South African context. Subsequently in the empirical part chapters I will apply the theoretical concepts to the specific case of Mitchell‟s Plain. To answer my central research question, the empirical part of my thesis is divided into four different sections. The first section looks at the problems of crime and violence in Mitchell‟s Plain, explaining the most common crimes and its implications for the community. These are important to keep in mind because of the impact they have on the police-citizen relations. The second section will look at the perception of community members on the police, by analyzing the main problems related to the concept of trust in policing literature. When I identified the problems on the side of the community, the third section will look at the perception of the police on the same problems. The chapter offers an explanation on the issues the community members encounter from a police perspective and describes the difficulties they face to cooperate with the community. Furthermore, presenting the views of police members enables an inside view in the police organization and the troubles they have in dealing with high levels of crime. Both perspectives together provide a way to analyze the police-citizens relations, and to identify the gaps of understanding between the two groups. Furthermore, their perceptions lead to understanding

1.2 Methodology

My research took place in the months of August and September in 2011 in the city of Cape Town, in the Western Cape province of South Africa.

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sometimes used. More importantly, working together with the Crime Prevention Unit, created a mutual relationship of trust between me and the police members. This is something very valuable in qualitative research, and allows for an interview to transform into a dialogue and will enhance information gathering.

I took the same approach when it came to interviewing community members. During my research I stayed mainly in Mitchell‟s Plain, getting involved in the community and getting to know the community members. I attended community meetings and visited people at their work or during their daily activities. Many conversations were informal and provided me with a lot of valuable information, with some of the community leaders with whom I had more formal interviews. This included people of the Community Police Forum or Neighborhood Watch. Getting involved in the community also meant getting to know the gangs and drug dealers, who were very important players in the area. One of my key informants arranged several meetings with gang members, drug dealers and drug users. Other alleged criminals I met during my shifts with the police, and finally a meeting with a vigilante group in Mitchell‟s Plain made my research population complete in order to draw a complete picture.

Being so closely involved in the community with the different actors certainly was not easy, because of the tensions between the different groups. Being associated with the police could have been a problem for getting closer to my other informants. However, through meeting the right key informants I was able to create a relationship of trust with the other groups as well, without putting them in any danger.

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2. Policing Urban Violence in

Post-Conflict Countries; a Theoretical

Framework

Recently police reforms and policing in post-conflict societies have become tied to the broad framework of Security Sector Reform (SSR). These practices enhance state capacity to deal with security issues in the post-conflict context and accompany the country in their transition to sustainable peace and democracy. Within this framework, transforming the police force is an enormous challenge, in which not all efforts always lead to a successful transition.

2.1 Post-conflict policing

Reforming police forces is often problematic. Depending on the type of police force during the previous regime, the police should be demilitarized or different groups should be merged into one police force. In some cases there is even necessity for the establishment of a whole new police force. Police reforms are therefore likely to receive a lot of resistance amongst their members. Restructuring police forces implies that power will shift and some high rank officials might perceive the reforms as a threat (O‟Neill, 2005:2).

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sense the police as an organization has to be hold accountable for its‟ actions and needs to be transparent in its policies and practices.

2.2 Police reforms and community policing

Rebuilding trust between citizens and the police in the theory of a democratic police comes in practice with the concept of community policing. Post-conflict policing often incorporates the practice of community policing to reestablish the valuables ties between the police and the community. This type of policing steps away from traditional ways of law enforcement to control crime. As opposed to mere problem-oriented policing, community policing is a decentralized approach that tries to incorporates the community members when it comes to crime solving. Besides the involvement of the community to control crime, community policing should be a sustainable. Engaging with citizens will eventually lead to a change in community norms and through which citizens are capable to solve their own crime problems and check on police activities (UNODC, 2011:28). Community policing is as context-specific as security sector reforms are but adheres to certain principles to guarantee good practices. The following five fundamental principles can be distinguished:

1 Policing by consent, not coercion.

2 The police as part of the community, not apart from it.

3 The police and community working together to find out what the needs are in the community.

4 The police, public and other agencies working together in partnership. 5 Tailoring the business of policing to meet community needs. (Groenewald & Peake, 2004:2).

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2.3 Policing rising crime and violence in post -conflict countries

An additional problem in policing in post-conflict countries is the increase in crime and violence rates that often characterize countries in transition. Rising crime rates can be explained by the unstable political, economical and security situation in post-conflict countries. These situations create space for criminal groups to operate and increase illegal activity. The link between political transition and crime is however way more complex than often is assumed. Shaw (2002:2) argues that certain types of crime might grow, while other forms do not necessary grow, but only become more visible for the public in the period after political transition. Also, it is often difficult to find reliable crime statistics of the period before transition and during the rule of an authoritarian regime. Therefore it is not always possible to compare before and after transition crime rates.

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poor urban areas. In the confrontation with crime the police finds itself on a crossfire between the demand for the use of force to combat crime on the one hand, and the respect for human rights and civil liberties on the other hand. These two opposites are reinforced by the lack of trust amongst civilians in the police forces. Initially the trust in the police forces is fragile because of their role in the conflict and their participation in human rights violations. However, trust can even become less in the situation of a not functioning police service and prevailing crime and insecurity. Moreover, the lack of trust can lead to the worrisome developments of privatization of justice and security.

According to Goldsmith (2005:444) police reform thinking requires a much deeper understanding of the notion of trust and its relationship to policing. He states that since the use of force has become more visible, the way how police use force in public is fundamental to changing public attitudes (Goldsmith, 2005:459). Besides the use of force, neglect, indifference, incompetence, venality, extortion, discrimination, inconsistency, intimidation, excessive force, brutality (both torture and death) also contribute to the lack of trust in police forces (ibid: 454-456). Trust in itself is an abstract concept. Goldsmith argues that the roots of trust can be found in the experience of people, past experiences with other people or institutions create expectations about the future (Mishler and Rose, 1998 in: Goldsmith, 2005:447). Moreover, he states that trust in public institutions is also linked to interpersonal trust and civil society. When both are low, trust in public institutions such as the police, is also low. Conditions as such gives rise to what Fukuyama (1995) calls „delinquent communities‟, in which criminal gangs take advantage of the fact that communities are weak and do not have any trust in the state. Foundations of this trust and coherences in communities are important to discover in order to address and transform citizens frustrations into a constructive approach to reforms.

2.4 Urban Violence

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discourages investments, erodes social cohesion, limits access to education and employment and weakens government institutions.

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A very often cited framework for understanding violence is provided by Moser and McIlwaine who distinguish between three different categories of violence: political violence, economic violence and social violence (1999:4). Each of the different forms of violence is motivated by a desire, conscious or unconscious, to obtain or maintain power. Political violence is often manifested in political assassinations or guerrilla or paramilitary violence. Economic violence has its manifestation in property crimes, drug trafficking or kidnapping. Finally, social crime is understood as interpersonal violence such as child abuse or sexual abuse of women. The three different forms of violence are not mutually exclusive and a perpetrator of violence may apply different forms which can overlap. So can armed groups might apply political violence, but still participate in economic violence in order to finance their struggle. Moser and McIlwaine stress the importance of using such a framework, because it views the impacts and causes of violence in a holistic way including the different motivations of the actors (1999:4). It also explains why tackling one category of violence will not be effective to reduce violence in one area. The model identifies four different levels on which violence can take place: structural, institutional, interpersonal and individual (Figure 1).

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2.5 Conclusion

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3. Context: South Africa’s Apartheid

Legacy and Police reforms

In 1994 apartheid in South Africa officially came to an end with the democratically elected African National Congress (ANC). The largest police force, South African Police (SAP) was transformed to South African Police Service (SAPS) in 1995. The new police force was established to be more civil to rebuild confidence, legitimacy and accountability. Previous military ranks were changed, for example General became Commissioner and Colonel became Senior Superintendent. Also the issue of equality was addressed, not only to assure to there was an equal amount of blacks in general, but also that they were equally divided over the ranks. One of the central efforts of the South African government to transform the police was the establishment of community-policing forums (CPFs) in 1995.

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violent communities, puts them into more concentrated violent and high crime environments, and then eventually releases them back into their communities, which generally have not changed in the interim” (2010:292).

Recently, the reversal in government policies has become even more clear. Since April 2010, the „police service‟ has been replaced by „police force‟, and it has been publicly declared that the police ranking system will be remilitarized (Marks & Wood, 2010:312). The term Commissioner is thus again replaced by General. Besides organizational reforms and centralizing state bodies, there has been made an important change in legislation. The requirement of firing warning shots has been replaced by a „shoot to kill‟ license, increasing their authority to use deadly force (ibid). The Independent Complains Directorate (ICD) reported that in the years 2008/2009 568 people were shot dead as the result of police actions in South Africa.1 The other side of the story is that the SAPS works in a very violent environment, and many police officers get injured and killed in the line of duty. Since January this fifty-eight police officers have been murdered. Fear could therefore be one of the factors that feeds into the overhasty use of force that might have been unnecessary looking back at the situation (Bruce, Newham & Masuku, 2007:137). Furthermore the guidelines on when and how to apply force is vaguely defined.2

All these development greatly contradict the documents that officially binds the South African police to the „community policing‟ (Marks & Wood, 2010:320). As mentioned earlier, the CPFs are intended to be the link between the community and the police and should rebuild trust in the forces amongst the population. However, CPFs do not seem to function in South Africa and appear to be a failure. According to Samara (2010:290) CPFs do not work because they are built on the already fractured relationship between police and community.

1

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportID=92619

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This point to the primarily problem concerning the South African police forces, the lack of trust in the police by the communities (ibid). Another problem of CPFs is that instead of being the link between civil society and the police, they will serve to legitimize police policies instead of serving civilians (Neild, 2003:291).

However, community policing in South Africa is more broad than just the CPFs. Both residents and the private sector are supposed to participate in the community approach to supplement to police when necessary. Bénit-Gbaffou (2008:95) distinguishes two different practices: the privatization of policing by delegating task to the private sector and „civilianization‟, the participation of local residents in a community. The concern of the author is with the latter, considering this process is often driven by private interests and creates inequalities along the lines space, race and income (ibid). The ideas behind street patrols and informal justice as practices of civilianization in community policing are not shared by all township residents. Furthermore these practices encourage the illegitimate use of violence and vigilantism.

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4. Crime and Violence in Mitchell’s Plain

Mitchell‟s Plain is one of the largest townships of South Africa, situated in the suburbs of Cape Town in the Cape Flats area. The Cape Flats were a dumping ground for mixed race or “coloured” South African, who were forcibly removed from central Cape Town in the 1970s during Apartheid. The coloured populated suburbs make up for about half of Cape Town‟s population, and Mitchell‟s Plain alone is home to more than a million residents. The area is dived into sub-sections in which the Western part of the township is home to the relatively more wealthy population than the poor western part of the area. Mitchell‟s Plain appears to be in city in itself with a town centre and two big shopping malls. The township that mainly exist out of small brick houses and only a few informal settlements struggles with: poverty, one of the highest unemployment rates, drug use, and high incidences of crime and violence.

Mitchell‟s Plain has one of the highest crime rates in the Western Cape. Based on the most recent crime stats Mitchell‟s Plain is considered to be the most dangerous suburb when it comes to sex crimes, drug-related crime, burglary, child abuse and aggravated robbery. Only murder rates are comparatively low compared to other townships in the Western Cape with 64 murders reported last year, while the highest number was 198 in Nyanga.3

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4.1 Drugs

In Mitchell‟s Plain most people perceive drugs to be the main problem in their neighborhoods and furthermore the cause of most other crimes in the area. Robbery, theft and burglary are often mentioned as crimes related to the drug problem. Drug users are often unemployed and depended on heavy drugs such as „tik‟ (crystal meth) and „unga‟ (heroin), „dagga‟ (cannabis) and mandrax. They will commit crimes such as robbing people to get money for their next hit. Other than that contact crimes such as assault, domestic and sexual violence were also mentioned, and are in a lot of cases also linked to drug problems.

Drugs is thus perceived to be the main problem by most of the community members, it is also a problem in which they don‟t expect rapid changes. It has been a problem for many years in Mitchell‟s Plain and the whole of the Cape Flats area. Most of the people are directly affected by this problem, and have either been a victim of drug related crimes or have to deal with somebody in their family who uses drugs. Often everybody knows one or more persons in his family who is an user, and in most cases they steal from them as well in order to get drugs. A community member of Mitchell‟s Plain illustrates this problem:

“My cousin uses drugs. He had a job and a nice wife, now he lost everything. My wife and I agreed to take him into the house, then we started to notice things were missing. He stole from us to buy drugs. So tell me, how must I feel if I’m not even safe in my own house anymore with my own family?”5

Another community members shows her frustration with the drugs problem in her neighborhood Eastridge:

“In Eastridge there are no big crimes like murder or rape. There are more crimes such as housebreaking. It’s the kids that are on tik or unga. They break into your cars and houses to steal something and then buy drugs. Crime shouldn’t even be here. It is not that we expect it to be perfect. It’s not like Hannover Park that there are gang shootings here. We didn’t have that for a long time here in Eastridge. Maybe it’s because we have a lot of police here in Eastidge. They stop and search. The real evil here is drugs.” 6

The problem of drugs goes beyond related crimes such as burglary or robbery, another main concern of the community that goes hand in hand with the drugs demand is gangs. They are

5_{Interview with a community member of Mitchell’s Plain on 8 September 2011} 6

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the main suppliers of drugs in Mitchell‟s Plain and they constitute for a big part of the problems in most of the areas.

4.2 Gangs

Most of the drug market in Mitchell‟s Plain is controlled by different gangs who all have their own „turf‟ which belongs to them and where they deal the drugs. There are 18 different main gangs identified in Mitchell‟s Plain, one of the biggest is the Americans gangs. Other gangs are the Dixie Boys, the Fancy Boys, Sexy Boys, the Mongrels, the Jakkies, the Hollanders. There are many other gangs each controlling different parts of the township. There are also some smaller street gangs which can exists out of a few young kids who are not involved in drug trafficking but only in robberies for example.

The municipality of the Western Cape is also home to the notorious Numbers gangs, and found its origin in Polsmoor Prison in Cape Town. The Numbers gang is divided into three different camps, the 26s, 27s and 28s, based on a ancient myth of a man called Nongolaza. Each of the three camps is like an army with his own hierarchical structure, uniforms and ranks. Officially members were recruited in prison, were new prisoners are being observed by senior members of the ranks. Becoming a member of one of the numbers often means you have to “take blood” of another inmate or a warden by stabbing him. The Number gang has many other violent rituals and has his own rules and punishment. Both gang members and non-gang members are subject to sexual violence in prison by high ranking numbers (Steinberg, 2004).

Until the 1980s the Number gangs was strictly separated from the streets gangs of Cape Town. Being a high ranking street gang member did not mean anything in prison, and being a high ranking number had no value on the street. After the 1980s the Number gang spilled over to the streets. By the 1990s, two of the major gangs in Cape Town, the Firm and the Americans had adopted Number-gang rituals. One of the reasons for the spill-over was the expanding drug market and the influx of new kinds of drugs, which resulted in rich and powerful new players. This was the time crack cocaine and heroin were introduced to the Cape Flats, together with the rise of powerful multi-millionaire gangsters in the underworld of Cape Town.

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become depended on the drug dealers because of their drug addiction. Some even argue that gang and drug leaders sometimes give free drugs to people to make them addicts and depended on them.7 Another problem that comes with the enormous power is their control over the community, often so strong that the police has become powerless. Not all drug merchants are necessarily gang members, but most of the times they have to affiliate with a gang in order to be protected or to get permission to deal in a certain area.

4.3 Property-related crimes and contact-crimes

Robbery, burglary and theft or of daily concern in Mitchell‟s Plain, with several thousands of cases a year.8 People try to protect themselves from robbery by not walking on the streets at night or at least not alone. Most houses are surrounded by small gates and windows have burglary bars. Also, most people have watch dogs in their yards to prevent burglary. A majority of the people has a first-hand experience with this type of crime:

“I have high fences, 1.9 meters. Still criminals managed to jump over it and they took my stuff. People saw this happening, but they don’t want to make a statement in court. They robbed everything, and I’m the loser. They should kill them, knock them senseless, but we can’t. People don’t want to witness because they are afraid of the gangsters.”9

“I don’t feel unsafe where I live. Sure there is gangsters living here, but if you only greet them that makes a big difference. And once they get to know you, they will respect you. At night you can forget about it. It’s unsafe, there is a lot of theft.”10

Besides property crimes and contact-related crimes such as robbery, other contact related crimes are also a reason of concern in Mitchell‟s Plain. In 2011 a total of 480 sexual crime was reported, next to more than three thousand cases of assault. Michael Jacobs states that domestic violence is one the main priorities now in the police, and a lot of time is spend on family disputes.11 However, many cases are withdrawn afterwards by spouses or by the

7_{Interview with Anton Peacock, 6 August 2011} 8_{See Appendix I}

9_{Interview with a community member on 17 August 2011} 10_{Interview with community member on 3 September 2011} 11

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women who are victims of this crime themselves. Most domestic violence is directly related with the widespread use of drugs and alcohol abuse in the community.

4.4 Conclusion

Crime doesn‟t affect everybody in Mitchell‟s Plain in the same way. As described there are some poorer and richer areas. People who in areas such as Strandfontein and Westridge in general feel safer and deal less with crime. In some areas people indicated that crime there is pretty much under control, and the neighborhood is safe for them to live. Criminals usually come from outside their neighborhoods and only come there to buy drugs.

In all communities drugs is seen as the main crime and problem in their neighborhood. The problem of drugs is related to the gangs that exercise control over the streets of Mitchell‟s Plain and other crimes such as robbery. Most families deal with a multitude of this problems, as many have first-hand experiences with these crimes in their own homes. Whether it is the experience of being robbed or having a family member who is a drug user or part of a gang, escaping the violence seems impossible in most cases.

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5. Perceptions of Community Members

on the Police

“The police here is very poor, actually it is one of the worst here. You see, we are fighting a losing battle”12

The South African Police Service (SAPS) has undergone a lot of changes in the years since the end of apartheid. Police reforms have taken place to make the police a democratic institution after apartheid, but more drastic changes have taken place recently with a re-militarization of the forces. This response came after a continuing spread of violence and crime, but also as an reaction to the violence directed against its own police people. The SAPS does not enjoy a great deal of popularity and trust by South African citizens, which makes it difficult for the police to operate.

As explained in the theoretical framework police reform thinking requires a much deeper understanding of the notion of trust and its relationship to policing (Goldsmith, 2005:444). Goldsmith distinguishes the use of force, neglect, indifference, incompetence, corruption, extortion, discrimination, inconsistency, intimidation, excessive force, brutality (both torture and death) as factors that contribute to the lack of trust in police forces (ibid: 454-456). In this chapter I will look at the most important factors into more detail by explaining the perspective of the community members of Mitchell‟s Plain, taking into account its‟ specific problems with crime and violence.

1.1 Neglect and incompetence

Many complains concerning the functioning of the police include neglect and incompetence of the forces. Reaction time of the police for example is often mentioned as a concern, that could either be attributed to neglect or to the incompetence to be there on time. Often it is not only about the fact that the criminal gets away when response is low, but also the feeling of being ignored and not protected. This is illustrated in the following quote:

“I worked in a shop opposite to the police station. We were robbed at gunpoint at 8.15 in the morning. They stole more than 80.000 rand. The police arrived at 14.00 in the afternoon. Just coming would have meant a lot already to me. That’s the day I lost my faith in them completely. I can’t take my trust in them they are not trustworthy

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people.”13

Other people explain that police response depends on the person in charge of the sector, and of the knowledge the police has of the area. Police officers get changed to other shifts in other areas all the time. If they do not know the area very well, it is difficult to find your way in Mitchell‟s Plain, and this will influence the response time. In addition, neglect is also expressed in the visibility of the police. Many community members wish to see the police more often. One community member noticed a change in his sector and expressed his frustration towards the current situation:

“They usually come. Most of the times they come immediately, we had a good sector commander. They took her away, that’s too bad. She would stop on the road and talk to you and listen. Where’s the police now? We don’t see them anymore.”14

Neglect and incompetence is also related to forensic research of the police. Many cases go unsolved because there is not a proper forensics team in place to do the research. Michael Jacobs indicates that there is a lack of experience and manpower when it comes to forensics. This results in the fact that only thirty percent of the cases mentioned in the crime statistics lead to a conviction. In the cases in which people get got with drugs, the evidence must be send to the lab, which can take between the 6 and months. In the meantime the court will withdraw the case, and people get out without being convicted.15 A community member gave the following example to illustrate his perception on the incompetence of the police:

“I like watching crime shows, you know the ones where they try to commit the perfect murder, hide all the evidence, and they then solve the crime in the show with their forensics. You will see that there is never a perfect murder. The funny thing is in South Africa there are thousands!”16

This last example was also mentioned in the light of corruption. Committing a perfect murder is easy when good forensic research is inexistent, but even easier when corruption is widespread in the police forces.

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5.2 Corruption and inconsistency

I will discuss corruption and inconsistency in the same section since both acts create a situation in which not everybody is equal for the law. During my research people most of the time refer to the police as being corrupt to express their main concern. Corruption takes place in many forms, but the most common form is the acceptance of bribes offered by drugs merchants or gang leaders. Inconsistency is frequently a result of corruption and results in the fact that not everybody is treated equally by the police. However, inconsistency is not necessarily linked with corruption, it can also be causes by incompetence or the unwillingness to arrest somebody.

Most community members refer to corruption through the fact that drug dealers have certain police members on their payroll. Police officers get paid to leave them alone, or in case of house raids they will be paid to make a phone call and warn them, so the drug merchant can make sure nothing will be found. This suspicion of the community was confirmed by both police officers and gang members. As powerful as the gangs are, gang leaders can often get away with drug dealing and even murder, especially if you‟re in a gang that enjoys special protection from the police. The fact that the police never catches the so-called high-flyers, or that these people will never appear for court, but will be released after two days, also confirms this suspicion. Most of the times the dockets “disappear”, leaving no evidence and no case for the court to deal with and results in the release of the alleged criminal.

A gang member, recently released from prison explains how a rivaling gang killed his wife one night when shooting her through the head. Everybody knew the guys who shot his wife, and they got arrested. However, two days later the guys were released and he was arrested instead. Because he was in prison, he could not be in court to appear as a witness for his wife‟s murder. The case was closed because nobody else wanted to testify, probably because they were too afraid of reprisals.17

Because of the multitude of cases of corruption and the amounts of money that are involved in it, many people do not only distrust the police but also lost faith in the government:

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“I think if the government puts more pressure on merchants we’ll have a better society. Sorry to say it, but I believe in freedom of speech, and I think the government is involved. How else do drugs come here? Officials are involved in this. How else can drugs cross the borders? There is not enough police on the borders and if there are, they are paid off. Police are vulnerable to this , they accept pay offs because of their low salary”18

A member of one of street committees and active community member, also suspects government officials to be part of the whole corruption.

“There is no political will to do anything about the corruption. I think top guys are involved in there. They (politicians) were freedom fighters when they got in the government, now they are

multi millionaires. Where did they get all this money from?”19

That the corruption on high levels in Mitchell‟s Plain is not the only factor that creates mistrust in the police force is clear. During the time of my research national police commissioner General Bheki Cele, the highest in command of the SAPS, was under investigation of alleged corruption for the procurement of two building leases of new police headquarters.20 Other acts of corruption committed by police officers are fraud and extortion. All of the police officers I talked to confirmed the practices of corruption, and refer to it as something that is not only upsetting for the community, but also for them as it becomes difficult for them to perform their duties properly. A constable explains:

“The law stops at a certain point in Mitchell’s Plain. Or it will favor them (drug merchants) in a way”.21

More details about the perspective of police members will be provided in the next chapter.

5.3 The use of force and police brutality

One of the most controversial and frequently debated topics when it comes to the South African police is the use of force. It was also a topic the community was heavily divided upon. Furthermore the use of force, and in specific the use of lethal force became a national debate during the time of my research. Controversial speeches held by General Cele to encourage his police personnel to “shoot to kill” or to “meet fire with fire”, symbolizes a war-like strategy to combat crime in the country. As outlined in the previous chapter,

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policing is a dangerous job in South Africa, and the police as targeted in violent attacks in which many officers already died in the past years. Furthermore, people are fed up with violence in their communities and demand the police to take action. The use of force can therefore lead to more trust in the police for some people, while it leads to a lack of trust for the people being victimized by increasing police violence. The Independent Complaints Directorate investigates every year hundreds of assault investigations of citizens who made a case against police officers.

In Mitchell‟s Plain, the community members expressed their concern with the change in the police forces, allowing them to use more force. Some compare it with the force that was used during apartheid. “If you give policemen a shoot to kill license, they will shoot”, according to Peacock. He argues that shoot to kill is not a solution, but rather a vicious cycle in which you will evoke criminals to use more violence, which will result in more police deaths. He states that ever since the police in Mitchell‟s Plain decided to use more force to crack down on violence, crime has gone up. “It is important for people to trust the police, so they can help them to reduce crime. They don’t trust them if they raid their houses”.22

Michael Jacobs expresses a similar opinion:

“We don’t need to give the police more power, or to act like animals. You must arrest

the people but not beat them up, that is the only task of the police. They don’t need to discipline people or install fear.”23

While various community members confirmed that using more force is not a solution to deal with the crime problem in the area, many others supported the increase in power to use force by the police. People reported to be sick and tired of all the crime in their neighborhoods, and did not see any other possible solution for the problem. They explain that criminals are not scared of the police anymore as they used to be during the old apartheid days. According to them people should fear the police again, and the only way people can fear the police is if they are given more power to use force. Also, several community members supported more radical measures such as the death penalty and corporal punishments. One community member was still not satisfied with the increasing power of the police to use force, and argued:

22_{Interview with Anton Peacock, 6 August 2011} 23

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“Police men should shoot to kill, human rights are our worst enemy. How can you arm a policeman with an ordinary gun, when you know a gangster is carrying around an AK- 47. You’re allowing your people to get killed!”24

Not surprisingly many people in Mitchell‟s Plain support the vigilantes group PAGAD (people against gangsterism and drugs), which I will explain more about in the next chapter. Other people think there is no other way for the police to do their work:

“We in Mitchell’s Plain are used to the fact that the cops use a lot of force, it normal. They stop you for no reason and search you. We just go along with it. We don’t argue with them. Otherwise they beat you up, or put you in a cell for no reason. I’ve never been in jail my whole life, and I like to keep it that way. I don’t know if there is another way for the police to do their work. If they don’t use force people will laugh at them, they won’t take them serious anymore.”25

Consequently, policing in Mitchell‟s Plain becomes very difficult. They find themselves in a situation in which some people demand for more use of force, while at the same time they face many charges of human rights violations. This is comparable to the phenomenon that Glebbeek (2003) describes as the “the crossfire of democracy”. Or as Michael Jacobs and some others put it: the police is like a rock in hard place.

5.4 Conclusion

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6. The Police, the Community and “the

Myth of Community Policing

”:

Perceptions of Police Members

“Community policing is a myth.”26

The feeling that community policing is not working, is expressed by numerous police officers working with the community on daily basis. As explained in the theoretical framework, community policing depends on trust between the police and the community. The previous chapter showed the perceptions of community members and how this affected their trust and relation to the police. However, establishing trust and a working relationship to engage in activities such as community policing requires the cooperation of both parties. It is not only the community members who need to have trust in the police, cooperation from the side of the community is also important for the police in order to conduct their duties. This chapter will therefore elaborate on the perceptions of the police members in Mitchell‟s Plain on their problems with crime and violence and their relation with the community .

As mentioned in the previous chapter the police in Mitchell‟s Plain is like a rock in a hard place, basically meaning it is difficult for them to do anything right. The lack of trust in the forces make it difficult for the police to cooperate with the community, and they often face a lot of resistance when trying to do their jobs. Furthermore, police officers are part of the same community, they have the same problems at home, and sometimes even have the same problems when it comes to policing.

6.1 The good, the bad and the power of the Number

One of the main reasons policing in Mitchell‟s Plain is perceived to be difficult by police officers, is the fact that a lot of people are more willing to cooperate with the gangs and drug merchants than with the police. The widespread support of the violent gangs can be explained by their power, their money and not least important their drugs. Who wants to cooperate with the police if that means your supplier is going to be arrested and you depend upon his drugs? More importantly drug merchants, have a lot of money, a thing that both the SAPS and the community is lacking. Providing people with money is a popular method to create support amongst the members of the community. A drug merchant would for example offer to pay,

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somebody‟s rent of the house, if he is incapable of doing so and risks the change of eviction. In exchange the drug merchant will ask the person in question to store some stuff at their house and to keep quit to the police. The same goes for, paying school fees for children when parents are not capable to do so, or provide people with loans making them dependable on them and their conditions. With the high levels of poverty and unemployment in Mitchell‟s Plain, people tend to agree with these terms most of the times. Also, the drug business provides many youth with a job as runner or they get paid something to be on the lookout and warn when the police arrives. A lot of people do not even get paid in money by the gangs, but because of their addiction on heavy drugs such as mandrax and tik, they agree on only some drugs in exchange for work. The fact that this is not fair is made clear by a community member:

“Vicky (a drug merchant) is in business for eighteen years now, he never got convicted, only the guys who work for him did. How can you allow him to have all the money, and you end up in jail? Merchants sometimes pay your bail to get you out of prison, but most of the times they won’t help you if you get caught.”27

In the poorer areas in Mitchell‟s Plain, where more people are depended on gangs for drugs and money, you can see that there is a lot of resistance against the police. When the police vehicle stops at some place to check upon a house or information, big groups of people gather around the car and the police. They shout at the police and tell them they should leave their community alone and that they do not want any police. Sometimes they do actually prevent the police from getting to a crime scene, or distract them if they are chasing a person. Moreover people try to protect their family members, and will cover up for them in any given way. One of the police officers explains that:

“It’s hard to serve and protect when people who you want to protect don’t want you to protect them. It’s not about winning or losing a battle. It’s about people that you’re

supposed to help, that don’t support you.”28

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crime. Also, finding witnesses will almost be impossible, as people support the drug gangs, or they are too afraid of reprisals because of the power of the gang. In the past people participating in the witness protection program to testify against powerful drug merchants have been murdered.29 The power of gangs is thus a problem that the police is not capable of dealing with, not only because of corrupt police officials who cooperate with the gangs, but moreover because of the strong ties gangs have with the community.

6.2 Multi-tasking and the limits of police service

“One day this woman came to the police station with a broken cup. She told me she bought her cup yesterday in town centre, but it’s broken already. She went back to the shop to ask her money back, but the shop owner refused to do so. Now she shows up at the police station, what does she expect we will do?”30

Another problem police officers indicate when working with the community, is that they are not good educated about what the police is supposed to do. Examples are plenty, one police officers once received a call about a broken water pipe, while yet another had to mediate between a couple in which a woman was complaining about the lack of attention she got from her husband begging him to take her out at least once. Even as most of the stories might sound entertaining, the problem becomes more severe when people do not understand the actual limits the police deals with.

This is the case for the justice system. A policeman can go as far to arrest a person and file a case against him, in the hope the case will be dealt with in court. Unfortunately, the justice system in South Africa is consistently failing the people. Conviction rates are low, and many people get out on bail. Bail alone, is already a confusing concept for people. Many community members do not understand how it can be that a criminal gets arrested over the weekend and walks freely on the street again on Monday. At that point there is only one possible reason for the release of the suspect: the police is corrupt. While none of the police members denies the existence of corruption in the forces, they also blame the justice system for a big part of the corruption that is taken place and what keeps gang leaders unpunished.

“Nowadays people can get out on bail for attempted murder. It’s the justice system that is not working. Here even the court magistrate accepts bribes.”31

29_{Interview with Michael Jacobs, 13 September 2011} 30_{Interview with police officer, 4 August 2011} 31

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As noted earlier by a police officer, the law stops at a certain point in Mitchell‟s Plain, or even worse will favor the criminal instead. Criminals, especially high ranking leaders of gangs or drug merchants know the law and their rights better than any other community member. Drug dealers for example, will only carry a certain amount of drugs with them, making sure if they get caught, they will only be charged for drug possession and not dealing. People in higher positions will never be found with drugs, not on their body and not in their house, they make sure nothing will be traced back to them.

Other than that, criminals will use the law in a way that benefits them:

“Two guys try to rob a car. The owner of the car comes back to his car to find to guys trying to get into his car. The man fires a warning shot. Later, the two criminals make a case of attempted murder against the man. They get away with it, and the innocent man is in jail. Criminals are clever. They couldn’t get the tape of the car , so they went to the police. They know their rights. They guy has to pay all the extra expenses now for a lawyer.”32

Frustrations about the limits of their power over crime control were expressed by many police officers.

“Police can only do that much… Basically nothing, it’s hopeless. You can only attempt to catch a dealer, but you cannot control what happens next”.

In many cases it is thus not only frustrating for the community members to see that an alleged drug dealer walks on the street again after a few hours in jail, but also for the police officers. They know how much power certain gang members have and that they will be outside in no time once their attorney arrives. That is why sometimes they do not bother anymore to run after high flyers.

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on the street is consequently affected by these limits. The following section will look at other measures that also have a negative influence on police-citizen relations.

6.3 Unpopular measures and the use of force

“What do cops do if they are not lucky? They revert to a far cruder form of policing; they drive around neighborhoods searching for people on the street who look like they might be on their way to or from robbing a house. They stop and search them. If they find a weapon and it’s illegal, bingo…[I]t means essentially that to be young and black and walking the pavements of a good neighborhood is to stand a certain chance of humiliation; at some point a stranger’s grubby pair of hands will riffle through your bags and pat your testicles. That is something that was suffered with dear and bitterness under apartheid. Here and now, it escalates resentment, triggers displaced violence, and deepens mutual hostility.”

(Steinberg, 2007:123-124).

Policing on the ground and the police members who are most in touch with the community often suffer from unpopular measures implemented by management. Unpopular measures include the use of force, torture, stop and search, counter protests and meeting daily targets. Community policing is not easy to combine with the delegated and unpopular measures. Conducting stop and searches, as described in the quote of Steinberg, is one of the unpopular measures that I observed many times when on patrol with the crime prevention unit. It basically means that every suspicious looking person on the street can be stopped by the police and thoroughly searched. This often include people have to strip down on the middle of the street, taking their shoes and socks off and most of their clothing.

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morning they are back on the street again. One policeman told me that it often happens that they arrest the same guy again on the day he got out. Obviously, this approach is in no way sustainable, and the community gets angry about the fact that the police does not go after the “big guys” instead of their family. Nevertheless, the policemen who have to meet their targets and know from experience that getting gang leaders behind bars is difficult, go for the easy victims. Regularly, these are people from the poorer areas of Mitchell‟s Plain where unemployment and alcohol and drug addiction are rampant.

An example recalled by one of the policemen was when they were tasked to arrest a popular opposition leader of the Democratic Alliance, Helen Zille. She was participating in a protest against drug lords in the Cape Flats. Other than Zille, they had to arrest other people as well, such as a Muslim priest. Others recalled they were also forced to apply torture to their capturers that day, as some were suspected to be a member of the vigilante group PAGAD. According to them torture was carried out more often by the general of the station, as they witnessed him pulling plastic bags over people‟s heads until they started choking together with other methods such as waterboarding.

As discussed in the section on the perceptions of community members on the police, the use of force has an impact on the trust civilians have in the police. Remilitarization of the police forces has led to a wide debate in South Africa, that police officers in Mitchell‟s Plain have not been oblivious to. The dilemma of making a decision, especially when it comes to the use of lethal force is presented by a police officer:

“No one can say what minimal force is, or how do you define it. It’s better to use a bat or your hand. But every situation is different. You can’t prepare police men for the situation they will get in. An attack can always happen…You have to decide whether you shoot to kill if somebody points a gun to you. But it’s just in a split second that you have to make this decision Afterwards people will judge you for this, but they have enough time to analyze whether or not your decision was right. … If a criminal gets killed by the police it is front page news and news for three days. When a policeman gets killed it’s in a small column on page 3 of the newspaper. They portray the devil in the newspaper.”33

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referred to as one of their tasks by many officers, I asked them if they did not think it should be more the role of prisons to give people discipline. One policeman explained to me his vision:

“In the prisons here people get only taught gang discipline of the Number. This does not count on the streets. We need to go back to the old apartheid policing. We need to beat them up and discipline them. Gangsters need to be dominated”.34

Also the feedback they get from people from the community encourages them to use force. As seen in the previous chapters many civilians do believe that force is a solution to the rampant crime and violence in their streets. Furthermore, not only the community members, but also their superiors encourage them to apply force.

6.4 Conclusion

The point of view on police-community relations according to the police members is affected by the power of gangs, unpopular measures and the limits of policing that community members are unaware of. The police can arrest one person, but it is not in their control to make sure to person gets convicted. Many community members perceive this as the police being corrupt. Unpopular measures delegated by higher ranks also affects police on the ground, and does not support to idea of community policing. Furthermore, many people prefer to cooperate with the gangs instead of the police, and because the police is very dependent on a good cooperation with the community this affects effective policing.

The next chapter will focus on the consequences of both the perception of the community members and the police members. It shows that both their perceptions influence the police-citizen relations in such as way that people will use violence themselves to deal with crime.

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6. The Consequences of Poor

Police-Citizen Relations and the Impact on

Security

Both community and police members‟ perceptions on policing in Mitchell‟s Plain and the relation between the two groups has certain consequences. As stated in the theoretical framework, effective policing needs a certain amount of trust from the community members. If the community members do not trust the police they are less likely to cooperate which makes policing and especially community policing a lot harder. Also mentioned in the theoretical framework is the fact that poor policing and high crime and violence rates lead to the privatization of security and justice.

The privatization of security is very limited in Mitchell‟s Plain compared to other parts in Cape Town where mainly white families reside behind their big gates with advanced security systems. In Mitchell‟s Plain people do not have this amount of money to spend on security, and the most common purchase for security purposes is a dog to protect the house. On the other hand the privatization of justice is more widespread in Mitchell‟s Plain. While “traditional” ways of lynching or mob justice such as necklacing (putting a tyre with petrol over somebody‟s head and burn it) or stoning are more common in the black townships, Mitchell‟s Plain is mostly known for the vigilante group PAGAD (people against gangsterism and drugs).

7.1 PAGAD

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“Some time ago PAGAD wiped out most of the big guys. They petrol bombed the houses, shot them. The leaders of PAGAD got long sentences although they were never physically involved. The big drug lords never get sentenced. The government puts breaks on PAGAD. Wherever there is PAGAD, the police is there. But the community cries out to PAGAD to come and help them.”35

“When merchants hear PAGAD is coming, they’ll close down, they fear them. They don’t fear

the police. The police calls them vigilantes, but people are sick and tired. They shouldn’t take the law into their own hands, but these criminals need to fear something .“36

A former PAGAD member also expresses his thoughts on the issue and explains his point of view on the role of PAGAD:

“The police does not assist the people, they don’t come, but when PAGAD is there the police will come. They protect the drug merchants. I had some problems with the police when I was in PAGAD. They frequently searched my house, for guns. I would take them to the drug merchants house and tell them to look there for guns. 99 percent of the PAGAD people in jail are innocent. We are not vigilantes, we are simply trying to protect our children from this drugs. PAGAD is the solution. There are a lot of people now turning to PAGAD, because they now the police don’t do anything. They can make an arrest and then dockets will disappear, because they are corrupt. During apartheid it was better, the police wasn’t corrupt…. [T]he PAGAD leaders have to be released, and then they’ll fight again. Gangsters can’t fight back, they’re too weak. PAGAD is bigger than all of them. It will become better, just as before, a lot of drug merchants gave up back then. You won’t get rid of them , they have to die, that’s the only way.”37

Nowadays the power of PAGAD is a lot smaller than it used to be, there were however still houses petrol bombed in 2011. Some police members even expressed their support for PAGAD, saying the organization is able to do respond to crime in a way that they cannot. PAGAD‟s popular form of justice has however a downside as explained by one of the police officers. Their petrol bombs on houses of alleged gang leaders are indiscriminately. In one of the last petrol bomb attacks in Mitchell‟s Plain the wife and children of the alleged gang leader were killed, and there are more incidences in which innocent bystanders are shot by the vigilante group. Consequently, the police had to step in as it is their task to protect

35_{Interview with community member, 12 September 2011} 36_{Interview with community member, 2 September 2011} 37

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civilians. This angered many community members, who got the feeling that the police are protecting criminals but not them.

7.2 Eye for an eye

Although as mentioned lynching is not as big in Mitchell‟s Plain as in other townships in Cape Town, some forms of an eye for an eye justice do exist. This is not only carried out by PAGAD but also by individuals. In the first place there is gang justice who control areas and can command for people to be shot or stabbed. This often involves other gang members however, but it obviously results in more violence and has a huge impact on the security. Second, families also believe in eye for an eye justice and expressed if the police is not doing anything they have to protect their own families. So it will happen that a member of a family will get robbed or stabbed, and they demand for other family members to take revenge and “take blood”. These forms of violence are only more likely to increase of police-citizen relations are poor, but also makes it difficult for the police to do their jobs. If people do not report crimes, there is not much they can do to serve the community.

Third, Neighborhood Watches, street committees or other groups that are meant to assist the police sometimes resolve problems with violence while they are not suppose to. This problem was already referred by Bénit-Gbaffou (2008:95). Giving too much power to certain community members can results in vigilantism.

7.3 Conclusion

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8. Conclusion

This thesis focused on police-citizen relations in the community of Mitchell‟s Plain, South Africa. By looking at both the perceptions of the police and community members I aimed to identify the problems the police copes with in an environment of high crime and violence. Mitchell‟s Plain suffers from high incidences of crime such as assault, theft, robbery, drug-related crimes and murder. Most violence is drug-related to drug-abuse and the gangs who deal these drugs and control large parts of Mitchell‟s Plain. As illustrated in the theoretical framework of Moser and Mcllwaine (2004) violence should be understood by taking into account structural, institutional, interpersonal and individual factors. Mitchell‟s Plain is a marginalized community that has to cope with structural and institutional problems such as racism, unemployment and poverty. It are these factors exactly that make an approach to the current situation difficult, as the crime is not merely the cause of problems but also the result.

Community members in general have a negative perception on the police. This is causes by corruption, neglect, incompetence, inconsistency and the use of force. These are essential factors according to Goldsmith (2005:459) when it comes to a lack of trust in the police. People are less willing to trust and cooperate with the police, because of these factors. Perceptions on the use of force are diverse and a lot of people in Mitchell‟s Plain are so fed up with all the crime and violence, that they would actually like SAPS to use more force. The legacy of apartheid policing is however sensitive, and the fact that the police remilitarized and is able to use more force frightens people.