Scielo RSS <![CDATA[SA Crime Quarterly]]> http://www.scielo.org.za/rss.php?pid=1991-387720180001&lang=en vol. num. 63 lang. en <![CDATA[SciELO Logo]]> http://www.scielo.org.za/img/en/fbpelogp.gif http://www.scielo.org.za <![CDATA[<b>Change, continuity, challenges</b>]]> http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1991-38772018000100001&lng=en&nrm=iso&tlng=en <![CDATA[<b>Mass killings and calculated measures: The impact of police massacres on police reform in South Africa</b>]]> http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1991-38772018000100002&lng=en&nrm=iso&tlng=en Over the past two centuries, the police have perpetrated massacres in response to protest action in numerous countries. Available scholarly literature has typically focused on the circumstances that contributed to such mass killings, but rarely has there been consideration of the impact that such massacres subsequently may have had on the police organisation. Hence, this article will explore the relationship between massacres perpetrated by the police and police reform, with a particular focus on South Africa. The article concludes that, in the context of public order policing, massacres perpetuated by the police can contribute towards relatively immediate police reforms, particularly in terms of police strategies and tactics. In some circumstances, massacres have even led to some restructuring of the police organisation. The nature of the government and the policing environment appeared to be key determinants of the types of police reforms, post-massacre. <![CDATA[<b>Learning from contemporary examples in Africa: Referral mechanisms for restorative justice in Tanzania</b>]]> http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1991-38772018000100003&lng=en&nrm=iso&tlng=en Tanzania is one of the jurisdictions in Africa that follow an adversarial criminal justice system. Despite a number of problems associated with the fact that the criminal justice system over-utilises imprisonment, there is still a lack of diversionary measures to complement the system. This article investigates restorative justice as a complementary system to the Tanzanian criminal justice system, arguing that the law, including the constitution of the country, favours the application of restorative interventions. Invoking restorative justice mechanisms can, inter alia, relieve over-laden courts from the backlog of minor cases, and can help the government salvage funds by reducing the number of incarcerated offenders. It is further argued that restorative justice approaches that have been articulated in some juvenile justice systems in Africa can be adapted to suit the Tanzanian restorative approach for child and adult offenders. <![CDATA[<b>Frequency and turmoil: South Africa's community protests 2005-2017</b>]]> http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1991-38772018000100004&lng=en&nrm=iso&tlng=en This article reports on the frequency and turmoil of South Africa's community protests from 2005 to 2017, which, taken together, have been called a 'rebellion'. It defines 'community protest' as protests in which collective demands are raised by a geographically defined and identified 'community' that frames its demands in support/and or defence of that community. It distinguishes between 'violence' and 'disorder', which has produced a novel three-way categorisation of turmoil, namely 'orderly', 'disruptive' and 'violent' protests. Drawing on the Centre for Social Change's archive of media reports, the largest database of its kind, and by comparing its data with details gleaned from the police's Incident Registration Information System (an unrivalled source of protest statistics), the article reveals a rising trend in frequency of community protests and a tendency towards those protests being disorderly, that is, disruptive and/or violent. In the process of advancing this position, the authors offer a critique of other attempts to measure the number and turmoil of community protests. <![CDATA[<b>Testing the judiciary's appetite to reimagine protest law: A case note on the SJC10 case</b>]]> http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1991-38772018000100005&lng=en&nrm=iso&tlng=en Judgment in the long-awaited SJC10 case was handed down on 24 January 2018. This case marks a victory for the collective bane on civil society - that of the criminalisation of a convener of a protest for the failure to provide notice. It goes a long way to opening the space for more serious engagement on the legitimacy of the Regulation of Gatherings Act 1993 and its possible reformulation to give effect to section 17 of the Constitution - the right to peaceful and unarmed assembly. This appeal to the high court was brought by the SJC on very limited grounds, focusing only on the requirement to provide notice - a strategy that has paid off, as the contested section of the Regulation of Gatherings Act was declared unconstitutional. This case note dissects some of the key arguments raised by the SJC and by the state, and analyses the court's reasoning in reaching this finding. <![CDATA[<b>Talking about Day Zero and beyond: The impact of the water crisis on questions of vulnerability, risk and security</b>]]> http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1991-38772018000100006&lng=en&nrm=iso&tlng=en Few Capetonians would argue against the claim that the City has been rocked by the current water crisis that many have dubbed the most severe in modern history. Discussions about water saving techniques, membership of the 'Water Warriors' club, dinner party comparisons of family daily usage figures, discussion of toilet habits (to flush or not to flush?) and frenzied buying to secure 25-litre water containers have become part of daily life for those of us faced by the imminent (but previously unconscionable) threat of our taps running dry. Even the 'proudly oily'1 premier of the Western Cape has boasted that she only showers every three days to help beat back Day Zero. But the water crisis has not only raised important questions about residents' rights to, and responsibility for, the water they use. It has also brought to the surface interesting issues about criminality and crime control, and our individual and collective relationship to water. Stories of violence and incivility at water collection points and in supermarkets have captured attention on social media, and city dwellers have hotly debated the threat of organised crime, laws against rebottling and reselling of municipal water, and the Western Cape government's Water Disaster Plan, which gives the police and army responsibility for maintaining safety and order at water collection points. Of course, while questions of water saving, risk and safety feel quite new to many Capetonians, scholars, activists and policymakers (including criminologists) have been writing about these issues for much longer. The Centre for Law and Society approached two scholars/activists to discuss the water crisis and its impact on questions of vulnerability, risk and security. Nick Simpson, an environmental and human development consultant (and post-doctoral scholar at the University of Cape Town), discussed questions of criminology in the age of the Anthropocene, and Vivienne Mentor-Lalu, a researcher/facilitator for the Women and Democracy Initiative at the Dullah Omar Institute at the University of the Western Cape, spoke to us about the gendered impact of the drought. Nolundi Luwaya, Kelley Moult, Diane Jefthas and Vitima Jere contributed to this piece.