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performing internal investigations of police misconduct; and
implementing effective internal disciplinary measures.
Scholars have noted that culture could also be used as a constructive tool in reforming the police (Crank, 1997; Skogan & Hartnett, 1977) as well as in regulating and preventing inappropriate police conduct (Goldsmith, 1990; Kappeler et al., 1998). Therefore, in order to eradicate police acts of torture and assault, the notion that violence and the use of force may be used in the performance of their duties should be eradicated through constructive intervention programmes.
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officials find a balance in their occupational context so that they will avoid using torture and assault when they arrest and detain suspects.
The term ‘accountability’ refers to, among other things, the conduct of individual officers in their interactions with citizens (e.g., courtesy, respect, fairness, equal protection) and the nature and quality of the general services delivered to the public (e.g., crime control, order maintenance, and miscellaneous services) (Keenan & Walker, 2005:190). Accountability means that, in a democratic society, the police should treat all people with respect, fairness and equal treatment. At the same time they should answer for their conduct, particularly in cases of alleged misconduct.
Accountability is an important element in policing. Citizens usually required that their police force is accountable; however, a gnawing question is how can the citizens of a democracy control the behaviour of the police? Herbert (2006: 482) argues that the root of debates about the power of the police lies in the question how the police should stand in relation to the citizenry. There are conflicting answers to this question. Inevitably, concerns about potential police abuse of authority often reinforce call on notions of police accountability because a state that claims to be democratic must be answerable to the public, and therefore the police must, to some extent, be rendered subservient to the citizenry and to some degree of citizen control.
Given that the police have historically modelled themselves on the military in terms of their hierarchical structure, discipline, uniforms and the potential and actual use of lethal force (Wren, 2005), they still resemble the military to some extent (Kraska, 2007).
It is not surprising that even in the most democratic of regimes there is a level of concern that the police force needs to be accountable to the citizenry and the government (Hughes & Cox, 2010:2). Stone and Ward (2000:15) argue that the police in a democratic dispensation must be accountable for how they attempt to protect the public, how they respond to reports of crime, and the results they achieve in terms of public safety. This means that the police must be accountable both for how they behave in the execution of their duties and in the protection of public safety. However, in practice police forces and individual police officers have accountability regimes that are complicated and far-reaching (Hughes & Coz, 2010). Herbert (2006:482) argues that the coercive power of the police both threatens and strengthens their legitimacy.
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (2011) accountability involves a system of internal and external checks and balances aimed at ensuring that the police perform the functions
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expected of them to a high standard and are held responsible if they fail to do so. There are different systems that apply to ensure police accountability such as civil claims and criminal and disciplinary convictions. The aim of police accountability is to prevent the police from misusing their powers, prevent political authorities from misusing their control over the police, and most importantly, to enhance public confidence and (re-)establish police legitimacy. This means that when there is a lack of police accountability, three things might happen;
The police will continue to misuse their power;
Political authorities will misuse their control over the police; and
The public will lose trust in the police.
Accountable policing means that the police accept being questioned about their decisions and actions and accept the consequences of being found guilty of misconduct, including sanctions and having to compensate victims. Not only do the police need to accept external civilian oversight, but the community needs to perceive that they are effectively held to account for their operations and actions, as well as misconduct, in a transparent and fair way (Herbert, 2006).
Police integrity is “the product of both actual police behaviour and the public perception of that behaviour” (Police Foundation, 1994:2). Public perceptions of police behaviour have been an effective instrument to measure police accountability and lawfulness. Police accountability can be thought of in terms of two issues: (i) whether the behaviour that the public views as a trust violation is acknowledged by the police agency and/or governing bodies; and (ii) whether something is being done to correct the acknowledged problem. Police accountability at any place and time is said to be strong when the answers to these two questions are in the affirmative However, the behaviour of the police is influenced by the nature of the communities they serve.
Therefore, the threat of potential danger in the occupational settings in which the police function cannot be overlooked. The police of necessity perform a variety of difficult and dangerous jobs that often put them in conflict with people. They then respond with violence and excessive use of force to protect themselves from the potential danger that exists and to fulfil their obligations to the citizens. Keenan and Walker (2005:192) argue that even though violence may erupt in perhaps only a few incidents, an important number of these situations call for the police to exercise force that is nearly always coercive and sometime deadly.
Therefore, given that the police are the only agents in society who are legally granted “the
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unique capacity to use force” as an inherent part of their job, the police are obligated to use of force under special situations (Poaline III, 2003:201).
In light of the last statement, police officers have argued against the questioning of their conduct. Keenan and Walker, (2005:190) contend that police officers argue that they “must be granted the widest latitude to exercise their discretion in handling difficult and often dangerous situations, and should not be second-guessed if a decision appears in retrospect to have been incorrect”. However, if as many as 5 500 reports of cases of police misconduct are issued to the IPID annually, then something is wrong and action must be taken. If the police are not held accountable, the number of reported cases of police criminal offences will increase and reach a point from which it will be difficult to return. In support of the last statement, Keenan and Walker (2005) argue that if police officers have a greater responsibility to conduct themselves in the most professional manner regardless of their special power to use force, then it arguably follows that they should be subject to the closest scrutiny regarding alleged acts of misconduct.
But in their defence, police officers have argued that, if this were the case, officers will be reluctant to take aggressive action to fight crime as is often necessary, and that this will result in more suffering among and victimisation of the community if officers’ decisions in the field are subject to scrutiny. However, Bovens (2002:463) argues that accountability is important as it can help to ensure that the legitimacy of the government remains intact. Loader and Walker (2001) further indicate that effective police accountability measures are pivotal in achieving the police goals of lawfulness and legitimacy.
Police officers can be violators of the human rights that they are supposed to respect, protect, maintain and uphold if they commit acts that range from the unlawful use of force or firearms, torture, to unlawful detention or arrests. Human rights violations by the police can occur in a variety of situations and in any given country. Amnesty International (2015) explains that the discretionary powers of individual police officers, as well as the operational discretion of the police, bear an additional risk of abuse of power, even though to ensure effective policing discretional powers are important. However, it is equally pivotal to ensure effective scrutiny of police conduct to prevent impunity. This is done by oversight mechanisms that serve to balance the powers of law enforcement officials and to ensure that individuals operate within the law which, in turn, will lead to the prevention of misconduct or a disciplinary or criminal response to particular incidents. It will also contribute to improving policing on a wider scale, which in turn will strengthen the legitimacy of the police agency. According to Tulloch (2017), police oversight agents, the police and the community are inextricably intertwined. The
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independent and external mechanism (the IPID) that was created in South Africa to specifically receive complaints of abuse by SAPS members thus forms an integral component of the system of accountability that should shape police reform in South Africa’s new democracy (Pigou, 2002).