Police/ policing model globally

from clarity to confusion?

Elrena van der Spuy
Centre of Criminology
UCT
 Types of police systems
• Historical angle: Evolution of ideas and
systems –epicycles – fads and fashions

• Comparative angle: differences/ similarities

• Contemporary angle: brand names –

commercial trade – adopt and adapt
 Police models

Models as ideal types

Abstraction / Analytical device

In practice messier/ ambiguous/ complex

 Models: Key distinctions
Structure Centralised
Organisational Decentralised
design

Function Order maintenance

Crime control
Law enforcement
Crime prevention

Strategies
Legitimacy The Constitution
The party
The people
 Models of police: Example 1

MILITARY MODEL PROFESSIONAL MODEL

• No sharp juxtaposition in real life

• Co-existence of traits
• Re-militarisation of policing – war on terror/drugs
 Example 2
American scholar: David Bayley (1982)

Authoritarian Community based Anglo Saxon

Military style Community-based Specialised

 Example 3: Political geography
Continental Europe
More centralised
More militarised
Closer to government

Colonial
Centralised
Militarised
Public order
Administrative tasks
Closer to government

Communist
Regime maintenance

North American

Far East
 Example 4
Political control Professional Model Community problem
solving model

Structure
Organisational design
Function
Strategies
Technologies
External relationships
Legitimacy
 Policing models in the NEW ERA
• Internationalisation and transnationalism - police convergence

• Fundamental changes in global context : insecurity, uncertainty, complexity

• New harms and new threats: organised crime, cybercrime, terror, mass
migration, environmental disasters – far beyond street crime

• New challenges: New powers, new agencies, new techniques

• Fusion of high (political) and low (ordinary) policing

• Police increasingly displaced by other agencies - private police; emergency and

welfare agencies; new security network

• Fluidity and complexity require flexibility and innovation

 A look into the future
‘The twenty-first century has brought new challenges for
police, in Australia as in other Western democracies.
Terrorism, globalisation, large-scale population movements,
and entrenched social problems pose crime control threats
that are increasingly seen as beyond the scope and
capabilities of traditional policing. New agencies have been
established, private policing has boomed, and governments
have sought to make individuals, businesses, and community
organisations increasingly responsible for their own safety. To
maintain, or regain, their leadership of this new agenda,
police agencies need first to recognise and understand the
changing environment and its challenges.’
Ransley and Mazerolle 2009 ‘Policing in an age of Uncertainty’ Police Practice
and Research, 10 (4) :365–381
 Example 5
Political control Professional model Community based Homeland security
model model
Structure
Organisational
design

Function

Strategies
Technologies

External
relationships

Legitimacy
 Police models in Africa?
• Colonial history - regime security

• Post Cold War: The third wave of democratisation - 1990

• New Discourse/Gospel: ‘Democratic Policing’

• Key features: Citizen security; Human rights; Procedural justice;

Accountability; Effectiveness; Partnership

• The diffusion of COMMUNITY POLICING philosophy mix and

combine with military tradition of policing

• Model superimposed on political system characterised by Big Men;

Shallow democracies; Nepotism
Models of policing? The South African
case
• Colonial roots

• Authoritarian tradition under Apartheid: security of the state; counter-

insurgency

• Democratic transition: Democratic policing; Community based

policing; BUT Re-militarisation

• Late democracy - the NDP: The ‘Professional’ model?

• The talk has been sweet and eloquent and the reality has been
confusing and demanding
 Police models in South Africa 2010+
Global environment

Complexity of local context – from Houghton to Nyanga

The delicate matter of state capture - independence and

impartiality of SAPS

Role and function of SAPS in wider security and safety

field

Back to Basics framing our search for Police Models?