Perceptions that South African police treat people disrespectfully, lack impartiality or transparency, and are prone to brutality
undermine public confidence in them.
Police officers from Kenya’s General Service Unit get ready to disperse demonstrators protesting against police brutality in Nairobi in July 2020.
Tony Karumba/AFP via Getty Images)
Douglas Lucas Kivoi, The Kenya Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis (KIPPRA)
Police reforms have long been on the agenda of Kenya’s independence regimes, but progress remains painfully slow.
Rethinking what we mean by police sustainability, how we measure it and how we hold the police accountable for outcomes, may create the opening for a more viable path to reform.
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The continued reliance on outdated indicators of police performance reinforce conventional ideas of police sustainability rather than align with the concerns of “defund the police” advocates.
Young Nigerians holding up a banner at the 1-year memorial of the Lekki shootings.
Pius Utomi Ekpei/AFP/Getty
Young people’s use of technology such as Twitter shows that they are interested in politics and governance and have found a way to participate.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady celebrates after defeating the Kansas City Chiefs in the NFL Super Bowl 55 football game in February, 2021.
(AP Photo/Ashley Landis)
One year after the #EndSARS protests, not much has come out of the investigations into the shootings and deaths that occurred across the country.
Sojourner Truth, born in 1797, was an escaped slave who became an abolitionist, civil and women’s rights campaigner, and met with Abraham Lincoln.
Massachusetts Office of Travel & Tourism/Flickr
Escaping slavery did not result in unconditional freedom.
According to experts, specialist police stations (such as women’s police stations) will need to be appropriately staffed by Indigenous and non-Indigenous officers trained to work from both gender and culturally sensitive perspectives.
Dean Lewins/AAP
Establishing specialist women’s police stations has been suggested as a solution to violence against women in Australia. However research does not cover racial and gender inclusion in this policing.
Leetona Dungay, the mother of the late David Dungay Jr, announces she will go to the United Nations to hold the federal and NSW Government to account for their failure to protect the right to life of David Dungay Jr. and for their failure to take action to stop First Nations deaths in custody.
Dan Himbrechts/AAP
The conviction of police officer Benjamin Monk for the manslaughter of Dalian Atkinson is a very rare case.
A group of policemen in Marseille, France, pass in front of a bus shelter featuring a poster from the television series ‘Paris Police 1900’.
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New research confirms that unfair police treatment is psychologically damaging and that the consequences are decidedly worse for certain racial and ethnic groups.
Protests against police brutality in New York following the killing of George Floyd in 2020.
Robert K. Chin/Alamy
Video evidence can be powerful at a trial – but it does not always lead to a fair rendering of justice.
People cheer after a guilty verdict was announced at the trial of former Minneapolis police Officer Derek Chauvin for the 2020 death of George Floyd.
(AP Photo/Morry Gash)
In the wake of the conviction of the police officer who killed George Floyd, recent court decisions against what’s known as “qualified immunity” are promising.
Police in riot gear line up against protesters during clashes in Kenosha, Wis., in August 2020 following the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man, two days earlier.
(AP Photo/David Goldman)
We need to clarify the role of the police, to promote a more justice-oriented style of police leadership and to put in place long-term mechanisms of accountability to support and sustain change.
South African Police Service march to disperse students blocking traffic in Johannesburg, in March.
Michele Spatari / AFP via Getty Images
South Africans deserve a fuller picture of the extent of police brutality, and the level of accountability, especially when people die at the hands of police.