You and the Police, Gunned down, Locked down, Showdown: Inside Africa

We have read seen, and watched the disconnect between the Police and the Civil population across the globe in recent months - albeit skewed towards the US.

However, Police brutality has been more pronounced in climes with limited recourse to justice and exercise of freedom of association and speech. Following the most recent demonstration of excessive use of force in South Africa's Eldorado Park, this post is a stark reminder of our thoughts based on the need to restructure the force into a service - both on and offline.

Looking back at our paper “A critical analysis of the dialogic communications potential of sub-Saharan African Police Service websites,” which investigated one of the groups designated as key workers not bound by the lockdowns – i.e. the police, our focus was on developments in Africa and the public perceptions of, and attitudes towards, the police.

At the time of writing in 2013/2014, we examined the socioeconomic development potential of sub-Saharan African Police Service engaging the general population in a dialogue built on trust. This is something that this much needed well beyond the current times of COVID-19 and the violations of the restrictions across most parts of the continent.

Our study highlighted the need for the institutionalization of collaborative efforts between the police and the general populace and the need to tone toward the use of “force” to something more appreciated such as “service.” Some key highlights from our study read as follows:

How many of Africa’s police forces have managed to label themselves police services? How effective has this been? How many of these, hopefully renamed police services, have managed to engage the citizenry across all communications touchpoints?

The latter question is instructive as the world witnesses a global lockdown and an extension across most parts of Africa – notably the leading economies of Nigeria, South Africa and Kenya among others – where most of the population have resorted to consumption of online media and virtual communications.

Parts of this article are excerpted from: Madichie, N. O., & Hinson, R. (2014). A critical analysis of the “dialogic communications” potential of sub-Saharan African Police Service websites. Public relations review, 40(2), 338-350.