NCJ Number
144081
Date Published
1991
Length
124 pages
Annotation
In the light of continuing allegations of torture of political suspects at the hands of South African police, the Institute of Criminology at the University of Cape Town undertook a study in 1990 to determine how pervasive this malpractice had become. Data were gathered through interviews with defense lawyers, prosecutors, and a magistrates as well as information from the Advice Offices in the Boland area and the rural districts on the West Coast.
Abstract
The findings dealt with allegations of torture; the nature of the allegations, which involved physical assaults, wet bags, and third force through the use of animals and/or electric shock; the nature of injuries; the identification of culprits; the trials of political suspects; and the incidence of torture which was affected by a lack of control mechanisms, police complicity, inadequate independent access, and the suspects' ignorance and helplessness. Several factors favoring police brutality and the use of torture were identified: political repression in South Africa, procedural pitfalls, and judicial attitudes. Case studies of the control of police powers and the protection of suspects' rights in the U.S., U.K., and Germany were used to illustrate possible solutions to the problem in South Africa. The author recommends, inter alia, that authorities remove the cloak of secrecy and subterfuge around the police, that flaws in the law which facilitate and encourage abuse be eliminated, that criminal suspects receive full briefings on their rights, and that the exclusionary rule be adopted in South Africa.