NCJ Number
130748
Journal
Policing and Society Volume: 1 Dated: (1991) Pages: 257-268
Date Published
1991
Length
12 pages
Annotation
This article examines conflicting approaches within white South African political elites toward policing policy and operations.
Abstract
The conflict arose form a combination of growing popular unrest since 1984 and regime departures from traditional apartheid police policies. Parties to the left and right issued diametrically opposed criticisms of the police and the regime's law and order policies. The central features of these divergent policing doctrines of these political parties are described, and the impact of pressures from liberal and conservative parties is assessed. Data are drawn from parliamentary debates during the 1980-1990 period, newspaper reports, and in-depth interviews with selected political elites in June 1990. The positions analyzed indicate mostly distinctive party interests in constraining or encouraging certain types of police practices. These positions have been remarkably consistent over time, although some ideological and structural changes can be discerned since the advent in 1989 of the new reformist president, Frederick De Klerk. These reforms include promotion of greater contact between police and blacks, greater black representation in the force, removal of legislation that had police enforcing apartheid laws, and depoliticization of the police. 50 notes and 21 references (Author abstract modified)