Poor state of public order policing gives rise to more brutality

[Note to editors: This is an extract of a speech delivered by Dianne Kohler Barnard MP at the Public Order Policing Conference at Gallagher Estate, Midrand on 3 October 2011.]

In 1994, government took a decision which enabled the police to drop their Apartheid-era baggage and move towards becoming a citizen-friendly service; hence, the non-military ranks and the name ‘South African Police Service' (SAPS).

According to information provided by SAPS members during a Police Portfolio Committee meeting in Parliament a month ago, 13 282 public gatherings took place in South Africa last year. That is, for any nation and certainly for our SAPS, an inordinate number. 

Public order officers are specially trained to resolve conflicts and keep the peace at such gatherings. Or they should be.  In recent months, however, we've seen a move back to the aggressive crowd management style that was commonplace during the Apartheid era: the shooting, the smoke grenades, and the killing. This appears to have co-incided with the decision to change police ranks back to the Apartheid-era military ranks. It has also given rise to some confusion, to the extent that the SAPS is referred to as the South African Police Force in some quarters.

The Public Order Policing (POP) unit is a crime-preventing and crime-fighting entity that has some harsh realities to face.  We have entered an age of international crime, where syndicates know no boundaries and where the deck is stacked against those on the side of law and order.

It should then surely be of immense concern that the SAPS has not yet finalised its planning in terms of Public Order Policing.  The standing orders for  policing public gatherings, for example, have not even been compiled into a manual for those involved in the management of protest gatherings and events.

Research literature overwhelmingly supports the contention that collective conflict can emerge during crowd events as a consequence of the indiscriminate and disproportionate use of police force. 

It has become increasingly apparent that the SAPS has fallen behind in the crucial area of public order policing, which has been the focus of national training in many parts of the world.  Operational members here are time and again either being put into or finding themselves inadvertently in situations where they feel threatened, and where the subsequent retaliation is deadly.  Their role, which is to facilitate peaceful protests, allowing protestors to have their voices heard, whilst still protecting the safety and rights of others, has in the past two years been shifting towards one of aggression.

Whether crowds are inherently irrational and dangerous is a question that is being debated globally. I believe our SAPS members at grassroots level think this is the case.  This results in increased police interventions, which add fuel to the fire of those individuals in the crowds who are advocating violence.  

A more progressive school of thought holds that conflict frequently emerges or is exacerbated in a crowd from the moment there is interaction between the police and the protestors. 

As a nation we have to ask if our SAPS POP units are ready to deal with a situation like the one experienced in the UK recently, where rioters shared information, best looting sites and their experiences on Twitter.  Are our POP members ready for this?  Would they operate as an intelligence-led unit, open to the monitoring of new media - or even explore innovative new ways to engage with protestors through Twitter, Facebook or any of a dozen new social media options to ensure that protests run smoothly?

Public Order Policing management ignore at their peril the capacity of technologically empowered citizens to produce evidence that may well challenge the official version of events; they ignore at their peril the probability that the visual evidence may well be aired on television, and ignore at their peril the fact that the communication highway circles the earth in a heartbeat. The world will know of any police abuses that take place during public protests.

This is what happened when protestor Andries Tatane was killed in the Free State by South African Police on the 13th of April this year.  The fear is that we're possibly ignoring the lessons of the past - ignoring the possibility that police actions may well contribute to, or even act as the spark that sets off conflict.  And if we ignore this reality, then SAPS management may well in turn ignore the need to develop strategies, tactics and technologies to deal with these situations.

I believe that so much emphasis is placed on the need to contain crowds and to prevent damage, that the crowds are automatically identified as hostile, or at least potentially so.  If treated with hostility, they will, inevitably, respond with hostility. 

Naturally, the converse applies, and if the police interact in a positive manner - in ways that improve the relationship between the police and the crowd, then conflict may be reduced.

The jury is still out on the ‘Shoot to Kill' dictum initiated by former Deputy Minister of Police, Susan Shabangu, but the reality is that we are regularly seeing footage of our police shooting demonstrators, sometimes in the back.

The questions that must be asked relate to information and intelligence, and why it is that the police aren't better prepared for protest gatherings, especially when events are well publicised days in advance.

Successful public order policing requires consistent command-and-control, training, tactics and equipment. I look forward to an analytical interrogation of the myriad challenges created by new media, increased crowd violence in South Africa, and how public order policing can best meet those challenges. 

Issued by the DA, October 3 2011

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