Nonstate Policing: Expanding the Scope for Tackling Africa's Urban Violence (Africa Security Brief, Number 7, September 2010)

摘要

Worsening urban violence is placing increasing demands on Africa's police departments. African police forces are typically woefully underresourced, inadequately trained, unaccountable, and distrusted by local communities, leaving them ineffective in addressing these security challenges. In contrast, nonstate or community-based policing groups often enjoy local support and knowledge, accessibility, and effectiveness. Accordingly, collaborative state- nonstate policing partnerships represent an underrecognized vehicle for substantially expanding security coverage in Africa's urban areas in the short term at a reasonable cost. Programs for addressing urban crime in Africa must take into account two facts: One, the state police are too weak to undertake the task of crime prevention and investigation by themselves. Two, there are many nonstate actors who currently provide the majority of everyday policing in cities. What is needed, then, is a coordinated program of targeted assistance for community-based and commercial policing in addition to the support given to state policing. In setting up state-nonstate policing partnerships, the following steps should be taken: (1) know the actors and set benchmarks for partnership, (2) devise performance guidelines and supervisory mechanisms, and (3) police urban crime hot spots that are ripe for partnership (e.g., markets and taxi-bus parks). Police collaboration with acceptable nonstate actors offers an affordable and sustainable way to extend urban policing. Put another way, partnerships with the right nonstate actors enable African governments to extend crime protection to a larger segment of the population. Beyond enhancing local crime protection, this will increase government legitimacy, enhance social equity, and reduce the appeal of sinister organizations that prey on poverty and resentment.