Police and Policing
- LAST REVIEWED: 30 November 2015
- LAST MODIFIED: 30 November 2015
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199846733-0024
- LAST REVIEWED: 30 November 2015
- LAST MODIFIED: 30 November 2015
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199846733-0024
Introduction
During the precolonial period, the many and diverse states and societies of sub-Saharan Africa generally did not have professional full-time law enforcement organizations. In some instances centralized rulers maintained a small group of armed men to enforce societal norms and judicial decisions. In most cases laws and rules, which were remembered and communicated orally given the lack of a written script, were enforced by community pressure and councils of elders. With the conquest of almost all of Africa by European colonial powers in the late 19th century, written laws were imposed and dedicated police forces were created to enforce them. The early colonial police forces were mostly paramilitary occupation armies, which violently enforced new requirements involving forced labor and taxation that thrust Africans into a new colonial capitalist economy. Gradually, as the colonial society and economy took shape during the 1920s and 1930s, and the system of indirect rule placed the maintenance of daily law and order in the hands of supposedly traditional African rulers, colonial police forces shed some of their paramilitary ethos and transformed into professional law enforcement organizations. This transition involved a more consensual approach, better-educated members, and an expanded crime prevention mission involving new scientific methods such fingerprinting and forensics. However, many of these police forces were incapable of fully changing in this manner, as they remained the supervisors of an oppressive and exploitative system that lacked essential legitimacy. As with colonial militaries, colonial police forces reflected the racial hierarchy of the time, with a few white Europeans in charge and black Africans forming the subordinate rank and file. Police conditions of service such as pay, food, accommodation and uniforms also reflected this racial stratification. Furthermore, African police were usually recruited from specific marginalized communities that European officials imagined as traditionally martial tribes. In the Decolonization era of the 1950s some colonial police forces in Africa returned to their paramilitary roots to suppress African nationalist protest and periodic insurgencies. Upon the relatively rapid decolonization of the late 1950s and 1960s, the former colonial police forces were transformed into the national police forces of newly independent states. Although many European officers stayed on for a time to ease the transition, the command structure of these forces was quickly Africanized and efforts were made to widen recruitment beyond certain ethnicities. However, as much of the colonial legal systems were inherited by the independent states, African police forces often continued their authoritarian and somewhat paramilitary approach to law enforcement. The rise of different types of dictatorships and authoritarian regimes meant that postcolonial African police forces became politicized and often continued their role of violently suppressing political opposition to the state. The post–Cold War democratization and liberalization of the 1990s inspired new but ultimately disappointed hopes that African police forces would become depoliticized and respect human rights. At the same time, the breakdown of some states and the increase in civil war prompted a need to recreate police forces in postconflict societies.
Journals
Although there are no specific journals devoted to police and policing in Africa, relevant articles have appeared in various journals related to African studies and other fields. African Affairs was first published by the Royal Africa Society in 1901 and continues to represent a venue for academic communication on the continent. The Journal of African History, the Canadian Journal of African Studies, and the International Journal of African Historical Studies were launched in the 1960s as African history and studies became a professional academic field. The Journal of Modern African Studies was also launched in the 1960s and remains an important publication related to policy and society in contemporary Africa. The Review of African Political Economy offers a radical perspective on African issues, and Third World Quarterly looks at development issues of global concern.
African Affairs. 1901–.
The academic journal of Britain’s Royal Africa Society, which publishes on any issues related to the continent.
Canadian Journal of African Studies. 1967–.
This interdisciplinary journal examines a wide variety of topics related to Africa.
International Journal of African Historical Studies. 1968–.
Based at Boston University, this journal publishes on any aspect of African history.
Journal of African History. 1960–.
The establishment of this journal marked an important moment in the professionalization of African history.
Journal of Modern African Studies. 1963–.
A quarterly journal focusing on current issues related to politics, economics, and society.
Review of African Political Economy. 1974–.
Offers a materialist interpretation and politically engaged scholarship on African issues and social processes.
Third World Quarterly. 1979–.
Focuses on development issues of global concern.
Users without a subscription are not able to see the full content on this page. Please subscribe or login.
How to Subscribe
Oxford Bibliographies Online is available by subscription and perpetual access to institutions. For more information or to contact an Oxford Sales Representative click here.
Article
- Achebe, Chinua
- Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi
- Africa in the Cold War
- African Masculinities
- African Political Parties
- African Refugees
- African Socialism
- Africans in the Atlantic World
- Agricultural History
- Aid and Economic Development
- Alcohol
- Algeria
- Angola
- Arab Spring
- Arabic Language and Literature
- Archaeology and the Study of Africa
- Archaeology of Central Africa
- Archaeology of Eastern Africa
- Archaeology of Southern Africa
- Archaeology of West Africa
- Architecture
- Art, Art History, and the Study of Africa
- Arts of Central Africa
- Arts of Western Africa
- Asante and the Akan and Mossi States
- Bantu Expansion
- Benin (Dahomey)
- Boer War
- Botswana (Bechuanaland)
- Brink, André
- British Colonial Rule in Sub-Saharan Africa
- Burkina Faso (Upper Volta)
- Burundi
- Business History
- Cameroon
- Cape Verde
- Central African Republic
- Children and Childhood
- China in Africa
- Christianity, African
- Cinema and Television
- Citizenship
- Cocoa
- Coetzee, J.M.
- Colonial Rule, Belgian
- Colonial Rule, French
- Colonial Rule, German
- Colonial Rule, Italian
- Colonial Rule, Portuguese
- Communism, Marxist-Leninism, and Socialism in Africa
- Comoro Islands
- Conflict in the Sahel
- Conflict Management and Resolution
- Congo, Republic of (Congo Brazzaville)
- Congo River Basin States
- Congo Wars
- Conservation and Wildlife
- Coups in Africa
- Crime and the Law in Colonial Africa
- Democratic Republic of Congo (Zaire)
- Development of Early Farming and Pastoralism
- Diaspora, Kongo Atlantic
- Disease and African Society
- Djibouti
- Dyula
- Early States And State Formation In Africa
- Early States of the Western Sudan
- Eastern Africa and the South Asian Diaspora
- Economic Anthropology
- Economic History
- Economy, Informal
- Education
- Education and the Study of Africa
- Egypt
- Egypt, Ancient
- Environment
- Environmental History
- Equatorial Guinea
- Eritrea
- Ethiopia
- Ethnicity and Politics
- Europe and Africa, Medieval
- Family Planning
- Famine
- Farah, Nuruddin
- Feminism
- Food and Food Production
- Fugard, Athol
- Fulani
- Gabon
- Gambia
- Genocide in Rwanda
- Geography and the Study of Africa
- Ghana
- Gikuyu (Kikuyu) People of Kenya
- Globalization
- Gordimer, Nadine
- Great Lakes States of Eastern Africa, The
- Guinea
- Guinea-Bissau
- Hausa
- Hausa Language and Literature
- Health, Medicine, and the Study of Africa
- Historiography and Methods of African History
- History and the Study of Africa
- Horn of Africa and South Asia
- Igbo
- Ijo/Niger Delta
- Image of Africa, The
- Indian Ocean and Middle Eastern Slave Trades
- Indian Ocean Trade
- Invention of Tradition
- Iron Working and the Iron Age in Africa
- Islam in Africa
- Islamic Politics
- Kenya
- Kongo and the Coastal States of West Central Africa
- Language and the Study of Africa
- Law and the Study of Sub-Saharan Africa
- Law, Islamic
- Lesotho
- LGBTI Minorities and Queer Politics in Eastern and Souther...
- Liberia
- Libya
- Literature and the Study of Africa
- Lord's Resistance Army
- Maasai and Maa-Speaking Peoples of East Africa, The
- Madagascar
- Malawi
- Mali
- Mande
- Mau Mau
- Mauritania
- Media and Journalism
- Military History
- Mining
- Modern African Literature in European Languages
- Morocco
- Mozambique
- Music, Dance, and the Study of Africa
- Music, Traditional
- Nairobi
- Namibia
- Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o
- Niger
- Nigeria
- Nollywood
- North Africa from 600 to 1800
- North Africa to 600
- Northeastern African States, c. 1000 BCE-1800 CE
- Obama and Kenya
- Oman, the Gulf, and East Africa
- Oral and Written Traditions, African
- Oromo
- Ousmane Sembène
- Pastoralism
- Police and Policing
- Political Science and the Study of Africa
- Political Systems, Precolonial
- Popular Culture and the Study of Africa
- Popular Music
- Population and Demography
- Postcolonial Sub-Saharan African Politics
- Religion and Politics in Contemporary Africa
- Rwanda
- Senegal
- Sexualities in Africa
- Seychelles, The
- Siwa Oasis
- Slave Trade, Atlantic
- Slavery in Africa
- São Tomé and Príncipe
- Social and Cultural Anthropology and the Study of Africa
- Somalia
- South Africa Post c. 1850
- Southern Africa to c. 1850
- Soyinka, Wole
- Spanish Colonial Rule
- Sport
- States of the Zimbabwe Plateau and Zambezi Valley
- Sudan and South Sudan
- Swahili City-States of the East African Coast
- Swahili Language and Literature
- Tanzania (Tanganyika and Zanzibar)
- Togo
- Tourism
- Trade
- Trade Unions
- Traditional Authorities
- Traditional Religion, African
- Transportation
- Trans-Saharan Trade
- Tunisia
- Uganda
- Urbanism and Urbanization
- Wars and Warlords
- Western Sahara
- White Settlers in East Africa
- Women and African History
- Women and Colonialism
- Women and Politics
- Women and Slavery
- Women and the Economy
- Women, Gender and the Study of Africa
- Women in 19th-Century West Africa
- Yoruba Diaspora
- Yoruba Language and Literature
- Yoruba States, Benin, and Dahomey
- Youth
- Zambia