Police wars and state repression in South Africa

This article presents an analysis of police violence in contemporary South Africa and it is argued that this violence is aimed at upholding an unequal social order. Recent years have seen an alarming rise in the number of deaths and assaults at the hands of the police. Much academic, media and civil society commentary has blamed this on an apparent program of police ‘remilitarization’. Despite its critical tone much of this commentary upholds that the police should be an apolitical force of good in society, but has been led astray by bad policy. In contrast, more radical voices have suggested that the police are a brutal mechanism of state violence, targeted primarily against the black poor. This article will build on this growing critique by discussing recent theory on the links between police institutions, war and capitalist society. It will be argued that state violence and control, of which police brutality is a key force, are not aberrations but in fact are central to the upholding of the post-apartheid liberal order.