
Criminal justice for the rising middle class
A new book on policing in South Africa wants to go beyond the usual call for reform. But adapting literature tuned for reform to the task of abolition is a difficult needle to thread.
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Paul T. Clarke is a PhD candidate in African and African American Studies at Harvard University.
A new book on policing in South Africa wants to go beyond the usual call for reform. But adapting literature tuned for reform to the task of abolition is a difficult needle to thread.
An examination of South African statistics reveal that the police are substantially more violent than those in the US or Canada.
Why are South Africans not in the streets against police brutality like Americans are? It has less to do with the internet or middle classes. South Africans are captured by punitive logics. Break that.
What might the fascination in displaying and seeing the body of “the criminal” tell us about South Africa today?
Can policing deliver justice in South Africa? The short answer to that question has been, decidedly, no.