POLICE BRUTALITY IN SOUTH AFRICA
The Special Assignment telecast by the South African Broadcasting Corporation on November 7, 2000 showed six white policemen setting their dogs on three black persons suspected to be illegal immigrants. The video footage showed that while the dogs were savagely mauling the unarmed defenceless suspects, the policemen were laughing and cheering sadistically and simultaneously kicking the victims. The savagery of the ferocious dogs combined with the sadistic barbarity of the policemen and the supine defencelessness of the victims made it a gruesome and a pathetic sight. Even to the South Africans, who are attuned to witnessing very high levels of violence, brutality and criminality, the sight must have been shocking. The South African Minister of Safety and Security, Steve Tshwete, said he was “horrified and outraged” on seeing the footage.
The incident is reported to have taken place in 1998. The fact that the BBC in 1999 showed film footage of police officers beating suspects and stubbing a cigarette on one man’s head shows that torture in its worst form continues to be practised by the South African Police Service (SAPS) against hapless persons in their custody. The Amnesty International in its reaction to the incident involving six members of SAPS’ East Rand Dog Unit mentioned that the alleged abuses by the security forces in South Africa include the “use of electric shock, suffocation tortures, forced painful postures, suspension from moving vehicles and helicopters, and severe and prolonged beatings”.
Police brutality in South Africa is a legacy of the past. The apartheid regime had built up for its support and survival a system of policing which was militaristic in its structure and training and highly authoritarian in its culture. The police functioned as an instrument of control, guided essentially by the main consideration of meeting any challenge to the apartheid structure. That is why in 1994, when the change occurred, 74% of the police stations were situated in areas inhabited by whites or business districts. Even the limited police resources stationed in black areas were meant more to deal with law and order problems than to provide security to the citizens. The majority of South Africans looked upon the police as an “oppressive enemy”, while the police also viewed some communities as a source of major threat.
The mindset resulting from this legacy should have been changed as a result of various initiatives taken by the government as well as the police themselves. The Police Act of 1995 concretized the policy directions stated in the Green Paper issued by the new Government in 1994, which put emphasis on three key areas- “democratic control, police accountability and community participation in issues of safety and security”. The Constitution of the country in 1997 made it a part of the “political responsibility” to inter-alia “promote good relations between the police and the community,” and investigate any complaint of “breakdown in relations between the police and any community.” By this time, the SAPS had declared the adoption of “community policing” as its operational philosophy, with emphasis on building partnerships between the police and communities. In 1998, the government came out with a White Paper on Safety and Security (1999- 2004), suggesting how it proposed to meet “the challenge of enhancing the transformation of the police so that they are able to function effectively within the new democracy; and enhancing social crime prevention activities to reduce the occurrence of crime.”
It is obvious that the desired transformation of the police has not occurred. The new philosophy of policing has not been fully internalised. There appears to be a resistance to change from many in the 1,30,000 strong police force. This is not surprising. There are hardly any examples in history where the police forces have succeeded in making the type of “radical transformation that the police in South Africa are being asked to make” and that too in so short a period. After all, the new democratic system is only six years and the SAPS in its present form only five years old. It has taken much longer than that even in the democratically advanced countries to break resistance to reforms in their police forces. A very heavy barrier to change is the increasing trend of crime, particularly violent crime in South Africa. The failure of the criminal justice system to deal effectively with the problem has given rise to public fear of crime and criminals. Citizens are increasingly taking law in their own hands and delivering instant ‘lynch justice’ to those who commit crime or are suspected to be criminals. The public fear of crime and criminals and the climate of lawlessness, which it produces provide a license to the police to sometimes indulge in vigilante activities themselves.
Public vigilantism in any form, organised or spontaneous, should never be tolerated. This is a major threat to the establishment of rule of law in South Africa. The White Paper on Safety and Security is unfortunately silent on this issue.
Wednesday, December 17, 2003
Sunday, December 7, 2003
MORAL OF THE STORY: REFORM OR PERISH
THE TELGI SCAM- NEED FOR URGENT POLICE REFORMS
The news about the arrest of some senior Indian Police Service officers of the Maharastra cadre for their involvement in the Telgi scam, though tragic and depressing, does not come as a major surprise. This only confirms what has been distinctly noticeable over the last few years- the trend towards increasing criminalisation of the police force in this country.
The Padmanabhaiah Committee on Police Reforms in its report ( August 2000) admitted that the criminalisation of the police force was growing and considered the existence of linkages between the policemen and the organised criminal gangs as most pernicious, threatening the national security. Some evidence of this is seen in the Teligi case.
This case also provides ample evidence of what Director, Central Bureau of Investigation had reported to the Vohra Committee on Corruption a few years ago: “ All over India, crime syndicates have become a law unto themselves.. ..….The nexus between the criminal gangs, police, bureaucracy and politicians has come out clearly in various parts of the country.” The Vohra Committee report mentioned that the nexus was “ virtually running a parallel government, pushing the state apparatus into irrelevance”. Telgi definitely succeeded in doing this by making the currency and postal departments of the government irrelevant to some extent.
Till a few years ago, deviance was associated with only the lower ranks in the police. The general perception in the police as well as the public was that the senior ranks were by far above reproach. This is no longer true.
To take examples from a small state like Haryana, the record of past few years shows that an officer of the rank of Director General of Police was caught red handed while accepting bribe and another was involved in getting a person in custody killed. A third one was accused of molesting a teen-aged girl who later committed suicide. An officer of the rank of Inspector General was arrested on a charge of getting a woman journalist murdered and another one was arrested for running a smuggling operation. Two officers of the rank of SP were sentenced to imprisonment for committing perjury by filing false affidavits. There is no use in multiplying such instances, which have come to notice from other states too.
The process of criminalisation of politics that has occurred in this country so rapidly and on such a big scale has already shaken the faith of the public in politics and politicians. The loss of public faith gets accentuated when the process of criminalisation engulfs the law enforcement officers too. A police officer committing a crime not only dishonours himself and his department but causes loss of public faith in the system of law and justice which he represents. It is this loss of public faith in the system of law and justice that shakes the foundations of a democratic system and turns a country into a banana republic.
The police are a hierarchical organization where messages emanating from top travel very fast to the bottom. The seniors are supposed not only to control but also to inspire. The effectiveness of the leadership gets undermined when its weaknesses get exposed. This, in fact, makes the entire force vulnerable to wrong illegitimate influences and the functionaries at different levels start looking elsewhere for protection and rewards. Besides breeding indiscipline in the force, it promotes a climate in which impunity flourishes. A small time travel agent like Telgi could not have become such a big time crook and extended his illegal activities to about ten states in less than ten years unless he enjoyed patronage of people in positions of power and this patronage could not have come to him unless those who extended it were sure of keeping the system subverted. It is this politicised culture of patronage and impunity prevailing in the country that ensures that the corrupt officers, particularly those of senior ranks, do not come to grief.
One important lesson to be drawn from the Telgi case is to recognize that police reforms are too important to neglect and too urgent to delay. The idea of police reforms has to be pursued in two directions simultaneously. Steps have to be taken for both internal reforms and external oversight. The internal reforms package should include measures that lead to improvement in recruitment, training and leadership standards, besides raising the status of policeman and improving his working and living conditions. The external oversight should come in the form of statutory institutional arrangements that help in insulating the police from outside illegitimate pressures and influences and in constantly monitoring police performance, with a view to identifying their inadequacies and shortcomings and suggesting corrective measures from time to time, and that hold the police officers accountable for what they do and sometimes for what they do not do. What is required is to develop a culture of openness and accountability that is intolerant of wrong doers and supports good officers, of which there is no shortage in the police force in this country even now.
(Original version of article published in the Indian Express dated 7.12.2003)
The news about the arrest of some senior Indian Police Service officers of the Maharastra cadre for their involvement in the Telgi scam, though tragic and depressing, does not come as a major surprise. This only confirms what has been distinctly noticeable over the last few years- the trend towards increasing criminalisation of the police force in this country.
The Padmanabhaiah Committee on Police Reforms in its report ( August 2000) admitted that the criminalisation of the police force was growing and considered the existence of linkages between the policemen and the organised criminal gangs as most pernicious, threatening the national security. Some evidence of this is seen in the Teligi case.
This case also provides ample evidence of what Director, Central Bureau of Investigation had reported to the Vohra Committee on Corruption a few years ago: “ All over India, crime syndicates have become a law unto themselves.. ..….The nexus between the criminal gangs, police, bureaucracy and politicians has come out clearly in various parts of the country.” The Vohra Committee report mentioned that the nexus was “ virtually running a parallel government, pushing the state apparatus into irrelevance”. Telgi definitely succeeded in doing this by making the currency and postal departments of the government irrelevant to some extent.
Till a few years ago, deviance was associated with only the lower ranks in the police. The general perception in the police as well as the public was that the senior ranks were by far above reproach. This is no longer true.
To take examples from a small state like Haryana, the record of past few years shows that an officer of the rank of Director General of Police was caught red handed while accepting bribe and another was involved in getting a person in custody killed. A third one was accused of molesting a teen-aged girl who later committed suicide. An officer of the rank of Inspector General was arrested on a charge of getting a woman journalist murdered and another one was arrested for running a smuggling operation. Two officers of the rank of SP were sentenced to imprisonment for committing perjury by filing false affidavits. There is no use in multiplying such instances, which have come to notice from other states too.
The process of criminalisation of politics that has occurred in this country so rapidly and on such a big scale has already shaken the faith of the public in politics and politicians. The loss of public faith gets accentuated when the process of criminalisation engulfs the law enforcement officers too. A police officer committing a crime not only dishonours himself and his department but causes loss of public faith in the system of law and justice which he represents. It is this loss of public faith in the system of law and justice that shakes the foundations of a democratic system and turns a country into a banana republic.
The police are a hierarchical organization where messages emanating from top travel very fast to the bottom. The seniors are supposed not only to control but also to inspire. The effectiveness of the leadership gets undermined when its weaknesses get exposed. This, in fact, makes the entire force vulnerable to wrong illegitimate influences and the functionaries at different levels start looking elsewhere for protection and rewards. Besides breeding indiscipline in the force, it promotes a climate in which impunity flourishes. A small time travel agent like Telgi could not have become such a big time crook and extended his illegal activities to about ten states in less than ten years unless he enjoyed patronage of people in positions of power and this patronage could not have come to him unless those who extended it were sure of keeping the system subverted. It is this politicised culture of patronage and impunity prevailing in the country that ensures that the corrupt officers, particularly those of senior ranks, do not come to grief.
One important lesson to be drawn from the Telgi case is to recognize that police reforms are too important to neglect and too urgent to delay. The idea of police reforms has to be pursued in two directions simultaneously. Steps have to be taken for both internal reforms and external oversight. The internal reforms package should include measures that lead to improvement in recruitment, training and leadership standards, besides raising the status of policeman and improving his working and living conditions. The external oversight should come in the form of statutory institutional arrangements that help in insulating the police from outside illegitimate pressures and influences and in constantly monitoring police performance, with a view to identifying their inadequacies and shortcomings and suggesting corrective measures from time to time, and that hold the police officers accountable for what they do and sometimes for what they do not do. What is required is to develop a culture of openness and accountability that is intolerant of wrong doers and supports good officers, of which there is no shortage in the police force in this country even now.
(Original version of article published in the Indian Express dated 7.12.2003)
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