Simon Howell

Finding solid ground: law enforcement, key populations and their health and rights in South Africa

Sex workers, people who use drugs, men who have sex with men, women who have sex with women and transgender people in South Africa frequently experience high levels of stigma, abuse and discrimination. Evidence suggests that such abuse is sometimes committed by police officers, meaning that those charged with protection are perpetrators. This reinforces cycles of violence, increases the risk of HIV infection, undermines HIV prevention and treatment interventions and violates the constitutional prescriptions that the police are mandated to protect. This paper explores how relationship building can create positive outcomes while taking into account the challenges associated with reforming police strategies in relation to key populations, and vice versa.

Cops, drugs and interloping academics: an ethnographic exploration of the possibility of policing drugs differently in South Africa

Abstract This article presents an ethnographic exploration of the policing of illegal substances in a city in South Africa. Situated contextually, we show how specific illegal drug policing practices are reinforced both institutionally and in the daily practices and activities of law enforcement officials. We explore the tension resulting from the demand for police officers to enforce punitive forms of regulation, despite their own awareness of the ineffectiveness of such strategies. Drawing on the experiences of the officers we engaged with, we show that policing aimed more at harm reduction than tough enforcement is possible. This, we argue, is the result of shifts in the structural field of policing (particularly at the policy level) and contradictions in the basic assumptions that police officers have about drug users, drug markets and what constitutes ‘real’ police work.

‘We have to start showing who is boss now’: Constructing methamphetamine use and users in the South African print media

This paper critically engages with media representations of the use and users of methamphetamine, or ‘tik’, in South Africa. It makes two primary claims. First, the paper argues that the media has drawn on the themes of criminality, pathology and victimhood in articulating the ‘tik’ phenomenon. Second, it is argued that these themes intersect with much deeper discourses, discourses that are especially pertinent to the South African context – such as race, sex and HIV/AIDS – in order to make meaning. The resulting moral framework encourages punitive approaches to the regulation of ‘tik’, while undermining reductive or rehabilitation-orientated regulation strategies. This occurs despite punitive efforts having never been consistently effective in the country. Consequently, the paper argues that media constructions of ‘tik’ oversimplify a complex socio-political, economic and historically rooted phenomenon, frequently encouraging stigma and the exclusion of the ‘tik’ user from society. This not only prevents more effective measures being thought possible, but frequently also serves to exclude those who already live at the very margins of society.

West Africa and the transnational trade in illegal drugs: physical properties, policing, and power

This paper focuses on the role that physical properties play in the production and distribution of illegal drugs. Using the primary examples of cocaine, cannabis, and heroin, the paper argues that there is a causal relationship between the physical properties of a drug and the manner in which it will be produced and distributed. By explicitly borrowing concepts frequently found in studies concerning resource creation and conflict, the paper uses a transdisciplinary conceptual framework with which to examine some of the factors and mechanisms that have helped to shape the contemporary trade in illegal drugs, with specific reference to West Africa. We have further highlighted some of the means and modes of transport now employed by drug smugglers, showing how they can be situated in relation to policing measures and tactics. By taking into account these physical properties, as well as by focusing on the demand for and value of individual drugs – not to mention the risk calculations that frequently inform different patterns and methods of distribution – we argue that a more nuanced approach to drug policing and legislation is not only possible, but necessary. While the role that the physical properties and ascribed value of specific resources play can be used to show how they contribute to conflict patterns, little explicit attention has been given to how these same features may influence the transnational trade in illicit substances. The need for more nuanced understandings are becoming increasingly important, especially in areas such as West and Southern Africa, where the prescriptions of the now failed ‘war on drugs’ found little use or traction, and have failed to adequately reduce the production, distribution, or consumption of various illicit drugs.

Prisons, Tourism, and Symbolism: Reflecting (on) the Past, Present, and Future of South Africa

Hope is widely acknowledged as a desirable state of individual being, but less attention has been paid to its potential as a collective sentiment that can be steered in various directions by governing agencies. (Shearing and Kempa 2004: 62) South Africa’s negotiated transition from autocratic rule to democratic dispensation has been widely presented as a “miracle,” a remarkable counterpoint to a stylized history of Africa in which it is inescapably seen as the “dark” continent (for further detail, see Waldmeir 1998; Friedman and Atkinson 1994; Sparks 2009). As problematic and factually incorrect as this is, such imagery is still frequently invoked in the popular press and media. Such understandings, moreover, frame tourist expectations by both misconstruing and romanticizing many of the destinations on the continent.

The private security complex and its regulation in Africa: select examples from the continent

ABSTRACT This article aims to provide an overview of the primary trends and developments of the domestic private security industry in select countries in Africa, while also further reflecting on a selection of operational challenges and obstacles inherent to the industry and its regulation. In particular, field research was conducted in Uganda to explore the nature of the state ownership of private security companies so as to further highlight the regulatory difficulties. Our findings raise a number of questions pertaining to the theorising of private security regulation answers of which, we conclude, may find utility in drawing on the concept of “hybridity” as an alternative heuristic tool to engage with the realities of state regulation in the Global South.

Using respondent-driven sampling (RDS) to recruit illegal poly-substance users in Cape Town, South Africa: implications and future directions

BackgroundSouth Africa continues to witness an increase in illicit poly-substance use, although a precise measurement continues to be compounded by difficulties in accessing users. In a pilot attempt to use respondent-driven sampling (RDS)—a chain referral sampling method used to access populations of individuals who are ‘hard-to-reach’—this article documents the feasibility of the method as recorded in a simultaneously run, multisite, poly-substance study in Cape Town. Here we aim to a) document the piloting of RDS among poly-substance users in the three socio-economic disparate communities targeted; b) briefly document the results; and c) review the utility of RDS as a research tool.MethodsThree cross-sectional surveys using standard RDS procedures were used to recruit active poly-substance users and were concurrently deployed in three sites. Formative research was initially conducted to assess the feasibility of the survey. To determine whether RDS could be used to successfully recruit poly-substance users, social network characteristics, such as network size was determined.ResultsA 42.5 % coupon return rate was recorded in total from 12 initial seeds. There were vast differences in the recruitment chains of individual seeds—two generated more than 90 recruits, and 2 of the 10 recruitment chains showing a length of more than 10 waves. Findings include evidence of the use of 3 or more substances in all three sites, high levels of unemployment among users, with more than a third of participants in two sites reporting arrest for drug use in the past 12 months.ConclusionsOur results indicate that RDS was a feasible and acceptable sampling method for recruiting participants who may not otherwise be accessible. Future studies can use RDS to recruit such cohorts, and the method could form part of broader efforts to document vulnerable populations.

Systemic Vulnerabilities on the Internet and the Exploitation of Women and Girls: Challenges and Prospects for Global Regulation

The Internet, as a global phenomenon, has increasingly become host to pervasive forms of cybercrime, ranging from financial fraud to sexual abuse. Often as a result of underlying socio-economic and political disparities, women and girls may be more vulnerable to many of these forms of cybercrime. This is especially true in least-developed countries, some of which have seen a dramatic rise in Internet usage not matched by educational campaigns.. Using examples drawn from Africa, the chapter argues that global regulation is both urgent and needed, but that the development of such a framework will continue to be fraught with difficulties. In thinking beyond these difficulties, it is argued that the development of any regulatory framework will need to be contextually and strategically specific to the areas and places in which it is applied. As such these responses, whether domestic or international, will need to draw on the intellectual capital and resources of multiple state and non-state actors, ranging from local police forces to transnational regulatory agencies such as the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).