Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Expectations and Encounters: Comparing Perceptions of Police Services Among the Underprivileged in South Africa and Zimbabwe

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
The Palgrave Handbook of Criminology and the Global South

Abstract

Access to basic services is most challenging in underprivileged communities in the South. In many cases, services are either deficient or unavailable. The research uses household surveys from 2010 in under-resourced urban communities from South Africa and Zimbabwe to explore how police are perceived by 200 residents from each site. Findings highlight that while the police are expected to be responsible for the prevention and fighting of crime, participants either resorted to their own devices when confronted with security threats or only referred specific concerns to the police. The research contributes to the understanding of how police services in modern, urban Africa are imagined, perceived and encountered. It sheds light on the disjuncture between the expectations placed on the police and the reality of the service provided.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    Marikana involved the killing of 34 striking miners on 16 August 2012. It has been likened to the Sharpeville Massacre, where the police fatally shot 69 anti-apartheid protestors at Sharpeville on 21 March 1960.

References

  • Baker, B. (2004a). Multi-choice policing in Africa: Is the continent following the South African pattern? Society in Transition, 35(2), 204–223. https://doi.org/10.1080/21528586.2004.10419116.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Baker, B. (2004b). Protection from crime: What is on offer for Africans? Journal of Contemporary African Studies, 22(2), 165–188. https://doi.org/10.1080/cjca0258900042000230005.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Baker, B. (2010). Security in Post-Conflict Africa: The Role of Nonstate Policing. Florida: CRC Press, Taylor and Francis Group.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bénit-Gbaffou, C., & Oldfield, S. (2011). Accessing the state: Everyday practices and politics in cities of the South. Journal of Asian and African Studies, 46(5), 445–452. https://doi.org/10.1177/0021909611403703.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bratton, M. (2007). Formal versus informal institutions in Africa. Journal of Democracy, 18(3), 96–110. https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.2007.0041.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brewer, J. (1994). Black and Blue: Policing in South Africa. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brogden, M., & Shearing, C. (1993). Policing for a New South Africa. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Buchanan, A. (1999). Recognitional legitimacy and the state system. Philosophy and Public Affairs, 28(1), 46–78. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1088-4963.1999.00046.x.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Burris, S., Drahos, P., & Shearing, C. (2005). Nodal governance. Australian Journal of Legal Philosophy, 30, 30–58.

    Google Scholar 

  • Carrington, K., Hogg, R., & Sozzo, M. (2016). Southern criminology. British Journal of Criminology, 56(1), 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjc/azv083.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chabal, P. (2007). State and governance: The limits of decentralization. SNV Publications H0702-01. The Hague: Netherlands Development Organisation.

    Google Scholar 

  • Clarke, S. E. (2010). Emerging research agendas in comparative urban research. Paper Presented to the Political Studies Association Annual Conference, March, Edinburgh.

    Google Scholar 

  • Coltart, D. (2008, March 24). A decade of suffering in Zimbabwe: Economic collapse and political repression under Robert Mugabe. Development Policy Analysis, No. 5. Retrieved from http://www.cato.org/publications/developmentpolicy-analysis/decade-suffering-zimbabwe-economiccollapse-political-repression-under-robert-mugabe

  • Connell, R. (2007). Southern Theory: The Global Dynamics of Knowledge in the Social Science. Crows Nest, NSW: Allen and Unwin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Davidson, B. (1992). The Black Man’s Burden: Africa and the Curse of the Nation-State. London: James Currey.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dixon, W. (2015). A violent legacy: Policing insurrection in South Africa from Sharpeville to Marikana. British Journal of Criminology, 55(6), 1131–1148. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjc/azv056.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Froestad, J., & Shearing, C. (2007). The Zwelethemba model: Practicing human rights through dispute resolution. In S. Parmentier & E. Weitekamp (Eds.), Crime and Human Rights (pp. 193–214). Oxford: Elsevier.

    Google Scholar 

  • Geschiere, P. (1993). Chiefs and colonial rule in Cameroon: Inventing chieftaincy, French and British style. Africa, 63, 151–175.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gibbs, P., Phillips, H., & Russell, N. (2009). Blue and Old Gold: The History of the British South Africa Police, 1889–1980. Durban: 30 Degrees South Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Grabosky, P. (1995). Using non-governmental resources to foster regulatory compliance. Governance, 8(4), 527–550. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0491.1995.tb00226.x.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Herbst, J. (2000). States and Power in Africa: Comparative Lessons in Authority and Control. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hudson, B. (2008). Difference, diversity and criminology: The cosmopolitan vision. Theoretical Criminology, 12(3), 275–292. https://doi.org/10.1177/1362480608093609.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hyden, G. (2006). Between state and community: Challenges to redesigning governance in Africa. Paper presented at Designing Constitutional Arrangements for Democratic Governance in Africa: Challenges and Possibilities, 30–31 March, Indiana University, Bloomington.

    Google Scholar 

  • InternAfrica. (2010, June 18). Du Noon township, Cape Town—The World Cup din doesn’t penetrate here. Retrieved August 24, 2011, from http://www.internafrica.org/2010/06/du-noon-township-cape-townthe-world-cup.html

  • Kynoch, G. (2005). We are Fighting the World: A History of the Marashea Gangs in South Africa, 1947–1999. Bloomington, ID: Ohio University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Loader, I. (2011). Private security: Democracy’s dirty little secret? Paper presented at Criminology at the Edge Conference, April, Centre of Criminology, University of Cape Town.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lund, C. (Ed.). (2007). Twilight Institutions: Public Authority and Local Politics in Africa. Oxford: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mahohoma, L. (2001). Unpublished Presentation to Namibian Police at the Zimbabwe Republic Police Staff College on 29 May.

    Google Scholar 

  • Marks, M. (1995). Community policing, human rights and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Paper presented to the National Secretariat of the South African Police Union, Roodeplaat Training Centre.

  • Marks, M., & Goldsmith, A. (2006). The state, the people and democratic policing: The case of South Africa. In J. Wood & B. Dupont (Eds.), Democracy, Society and the Governance of Security (pp. 139–164). New York: Cambridge University Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Mataramvura, K. (2012). An assessment of the effectiveness of community policing in curbing crime. A case study of Zimbabwe Republic Police Chiredzi District. Period June 2011–March 2012. Honours thesis, Bindura University of Science Education.

    Google Scholar 

  • Muzenda, E. (1999). Training police liaison officers in Zimbabwe. The Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy, 20(4), 216–220. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0814-723X.1999.00133.x.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nina, D., & Schwikkard, P. (1996). The ‘Soft Vengeance’ Of the People: Popular Justice, Community Justice and Legal Pluralism in South Africa. The Social Justice Resource Project.

    Google Scholar 

  • Potts, D. (2006). ‘Restoring Order’? Operation Murambatsvina and the urban crisis in Zimbabwe. Journal of Southern African Studies, 32(2), 273–291.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rakodi, C. (2001). Urban governance and poverty—Addressing needs, asserting claims: An editorial introduction. International Planning Studies, 6(4), 343–356. https://doi.org/10.1080/13563470120092368.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sachikonye, L. M. (2011). When a State Turns on its Citizens: 60 Years of Institutionalised Violence in Zimbabwe. Johannesburg: Jacana Media.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sandbrook, R., & Barker, J. (1985). The Politics of Africa’s Economic Stagnation. London: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Sawyer, A. (2005). Social capital, survival strategies, and their potential for post-conflict governance in Liberia. Research Paper 15. Helsinki: United Nations University/World Institute for Development Economics Research.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schärf, W., & Nina, D. (2001). The Other Law: Non-state Ordering in South Africa. Lansdowne, Cape Town: Juta.

    Google Scholar 

  • Simone, A. (2001). Between ghetto and globe: Remaking urban life in Africa. In A. Tostensten, I. Tvedten, & M. Vaa (Eds.), Associational Life in African Cities: Popular Responses to the Urban Crisis (pp. 46–63). Stockholm: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet.

    Google Scholar 

  • Singh, A.-M. (2008). Policing and Crime Control in Post-Apartheid South Africa. Aldershot: Ashgate.

    Google Scholar 

  • StatsSA. (2012). City of Cape Town Population Figures. Retrieved February 23, 2013, from https://www.capetown.gov.za/en/stats/Documents/City_Statistics_2012.pdf

  • Tibaijuka, A. J. (2005). Report of the Fact-Finding Mission to Zimbabwe to Assess the Scope and Impact of Operation Murambatsvina. UN Special Envoy on Human Settlements Issues in Zimbabwe. United Nations.

    Google Scholar 

  • Yoshikuni, T. (2007). African Urban Experiences in Colonial Zimbabwe: A Social History of Harare before 1925. Harare: Weaver Press.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Griffith Criminology Institute, Griffith University, Brisbane, QLD, Australia

    Tariro Mutongwizo

Authors
  1. Tariro Mutongwizo
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, QLD, Australia

    Kerry Carrington

  2. Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, QLD, Australia

    Russell Hogg

  3. Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, QLD, Australia

    John Scott

  4. National University of Litoral Santa Fe, Santa Fe, Argentina

    Máximo Sozzo

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2018 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Mutongwizo, T. (2018). Expectations and Encounters: Comparing Perceptions of Police Services Among the Underprivileged in South Africa and Zimbabwe. In: Carrington, K., Hogg, R., Scott, J., Sozzo, M. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Criminology and the Global South. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65021-0_28

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65021-0_28

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-65020-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-65021-0

  • eBook Packages: Law and CriminologyLaw and Criminology (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation