Policing in intimate crowds: Moving beyond 'the mob' in South Africa

Abstract

A growing scholarship on policing and security has given us valuable insights into the workings of private security firms, state police, and citizen-led policing organisations across Africa. In contrast, few have explored 'mob justice'-the policing performed by less organised, more transient formations of citizens. In academic and popular accounts, mobs are depicted as anonymous, sovereign entities, acting in a space that the state will not, or cannot, enter. Focusing on the township of KwaMashu in Durban, South Africa, I challenge this homogenous depiction. Although anonymous mobs punctuate the township's history, residents often find themselves within 'intimate crowds', navigating the ties that frequently bind them to their suspects, and negotiating a space in which they can act without fear of repercussion, legal or otherwise. The state police often play an important role in shaping the parameters of this policing, even when no case is formally opened. This reappraisal of policing formations consolidates and extends our understanding of statehood, society and sovereignty in postapartheid South Africa.

Behind Closed Gates: Everyday Policing in Durban, South Africa

“…This was particularly true when participation involved violence: ‘taking the law into your own hands’, many argued, was something that happened elsewhere. Implicitly and explicitly, this ‘elsewhere’ was the country's black townships, which were still associated with the ‘mob violence’ and ‘kangaroo courts’ of apartheid (Buur 2008a; Cooper-Knock 2014). In contrast, the white residents of Berea portrayed themselves as privileged, elitist and isolationist but not civically active, nor unlawful or violent.…”

Volatile Sovereignty: Governing Crime through the Community in Khayelitsha

“…Just as there are linkages between the police and the mob (Cooper‐Knock ), so too are there linkages between the mob and the community: at times the very same people constitute both and, as such, the term “community” is a problematic concept. I have shown how, when suspected criminals are released on bail, the police and courts are perceived to be acting ineffectively, thus necessitating more permanent forms of expulsion—such as the destruction of shacks, or even death.…”

“…Formations are much more labile than organizations, enabling the latter to maintain a form of “public authority” (Lund ), which does not come at the expense of violent forms of popular justice. This entails a process of identity shifting (Cooper‐Knock ), or “code switching” (Anderson : 132): when my interviewee shifts from being a SANCO office bearer, to a member of the “community,” she can participate in “street justice” (Anderson : 10). This works to maintain a violent specter of order, paying lipservice to state law.…”

“…We made the job easier.” This is ironic, considering that in fact the law is patently not taking its course. Instead, what we are seeing, is the balancing of an ideal “law” that Khayelitsha's residents desire—one which involves the police cracking down on criminals, locking people up for more than the requisite 48 hour period, making communities safer and, returning stolen property—with the one that they expect—that the law will not assist them because its agents are corrupt, inefficient and “on the side of criminals.” (See also Cooper‐Knock ). One only has to peruse the record of the Commission to find overwhelming references to police and overall criminal justice system inefficiency.…”

How Well Does Theory Travel? David Garland in the Global South

“…And it appeared to share with the state the task of punishing an alleged offender. It deputised a woman to beat him on its behalf in the knowledge that once the beating was done the criminal justice system would be summonsed to take him into custody (see also Cooper‐Knock ; Cooper‐Knock and Owen ).…”