POLICE BRUTALITY: WHAT'S NEW?

Pierre de Vos in his recent blog post, http://constitutionallyspeaking.co.za/outcry-about-police-brutality-sheer-hypocrisy/, rightly points out that we should not be surprised by recent reports of police brutality. In recent years our politicians have taken a hard line approach to crime and criminals. This approach has been accompanied by calls for more hard line intervention by the police in the form of “maximum force” or more recently, “lethal force.” The high number of police members who have lost their lives in the performance of their duties has reinforced these calls for the police to act decisively and mercilessly against criminals. The public has been complicit in these calls: social media is full of calls by the public to “show no mercy” and to “shoot to kill.” We should not be shocked when the police act in the way we have been asking them to do, hence De Vos' comment at the end of his article, “Spare me the hypocrisy.”

I think however that the problem lies deeper than we care to think. Let us not forget that the SA Police Service (SAPS) was formed as an integration of the old South African Police (SAP) and the various homeland police forces. The SAP was by far the bigger and better equipped organisation and so inevitably the smaller homeland police forces were absorbed into the new SAPS. The transition was relatively smooth as the homeland police forces had been trained by the SAP and were accustomed to the structure and methods of the SAP. The SAP was a paramilitary police force. It had military ranks, used military tactics, used military weapons and received the same if not better military training than their counterparts in the SADF. SAP members themselves were subject to strict military type discipline. SAP members who transgressed the rules were dealt with in a harsh and uncompromising manner.

The SAP was the backbone of the apartheid state. It was the SAP that enforced the apartheid laws and this they did with impunity, cruel efficiency and brutality. The SAP was at the front lines of the oppression of the majority, they were the faces of the oppressors. Their powers were vast and were increased as the regime became more paranoid. Violence was a part and parcel of the SAP, both within the organisation itself and the way it executed its duties to the regime. As a child growing up in the late 60s and early 70s I will never forget the police raids to check that every black person in our white area had a “pass” and how those who did not have a valid “pass” were beaten and bundled into the back of the old big police vans. It was the SAP who were entrusted with rooting out dissenters and those who opposed the regime. Policemen like the notorious Eugene de Kock were given free rein to interrogate, torture and murder detainees. Deaths in detention were common. The names of Steve Biko and Neil Aggett immediately spring to mind but they were but two of thousands who died in police custody. John Vorster Square in Johannesburg was one of the worst places to be detained: hundreds died there in police custody either by murder or suicide. Those who dared to protest in public were dealt with decisively and with brute force. I will never forget as a student at Wits University in the late 70s and early 80s how the SAP would move onto campus with dogs and shamboks to disperse protesting students or how they would spray the “purple rain” dye onto protesters to identify them after they had been dispersed. We however were treated with kid gloves compared to how mass protests by black people were handled by the SAP. Sharpeville and the Soweto uprising are but two of many examples of how the SAP dealt with black mass protest: people were gunned down in cold blood.

The SAPS was formed in the euphoria of the new rainbow nation. The transformation of the SAPS was a priority for the new democratic government. There was a recognition at the time that the SAPS had to move away from being a paramilitary police force to a community based police service like that of the United Kingdom. There was also a recognition that the leadership and structure of the new SAPS had to reflect the demographics of the country. This process of “transformation” entailed civilian oversight of the new police service, the demilitarisation of police ranks and the restructuring of the SAPS so that it became racially representative. This latter process had its parallel in the SANDF that was also busy with its own process of transformation.

It was in this process of “transformation” that the SAPS made a fundamental and fatal error. It took over the existing structures of the SAP and erroneously believed that “transformation” merely entailed replacing military ranks with non-military ranks and by getting the racial balance right. There was never any serious attempt to transform the old SAP structures and systems. The SAP was structured in such a way to uphold an unlawful regime by force and brutality. Its methods, systems and values were to dehumanise, brutalise and subjugate people to the will and laws of that regime. SAP members themselves were subject to the same systemic brutality within the organisation. There was never a serious attempt by the SAPS to interrogate the structures, systems and values they had inherited from the SAP when the various police forces were integrated into the SAPS. There was never a serious attempt to engage and deal with the culture of violence that was inherent in the SAP. Ranks were demilitarised and military style discipline abolished, but it is obvious that these well intentioned efforts would fail while the structures that depended on military style methods and discipline remained in place. The only time there was a recognition that structures needed to change was when the now disgraced Commissioner Selebi abolished special units within the SAPS, which had in the old SAP been a law unto themselves. Unfortunately, merely abolishing parts of the old structure was never going to be enough to transform the SAPS into the Service that is envisaged by our Constitution. The SAPS was doomed while it stood on the foundations of a morally corrupt and violent SAP.

I am not surprised that the SAPS, our politicians and we ordinary citizens (by our tacit support) are turning back the clock to restructure the SAPS back into an old style SAP type organisation. It's the only way the system can work while we continue to ignore the issue of real and meaningful transformation of the SAPS. Military ranks are back. Special units are back. There are signs that old military style discipline is making a comeback. The brutality of the old SAP has already made its cruel comeback at Marikana, De Doorns, Daveyton and in other places that have not been reported.

Police brutality. What's new?