Drawing on Walter Benjamin, this paper discusses the relationships between law, violence, and pun... more Drawing on Walter Benjamin, this paper discusses the relationships between law, violence, and punishment. The main argument I make is that state punishment is BOTH a violent and logically contradictory practice and that the state's legal right to punish often spills over into extralegal penal violence, perpetrated by a range of actors against the racialized poor. I use the term penal violence to refer to all forms of violence which are aimed at enforcing law or punishing a perceived transgression of law or norms. The paper focuses on the infliction of penal violence in South Africa on/in three different scales and jurisdictions: Makwanyane and violence in prisons; police and prosecutorial violence; and extralegal civilian violence.
British Journal of Criminology - these are the proofs if you want final version email me, 2023
Drawing on Walter Benjamin, this paper discusses the relationships between law, violence, and pun... more Drawing on Walter Benjamin, this paper discusses the relationships between law, violence, and punishment. The main argument I make is that state punishment is BOTH a violent and logically contradictory practice and that the state's legal right to punish often spills over into extralegal penal violence, perpetrated by a range of actors against the racialized poor. I use the term penal violence to refer to all forms of violence which are aimed at enforcing law or punishing a perceived transgression of law or norms. The paper focuses on the infliction of penal violence in South Africa on/in three different scales and jurisdictions: Makwanyane and violence in prisons; police and prosecutorial violence; and extralegal civilian violence.
License: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY 4.0) CrimRxiv Cars, compou... more License: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY 4.0) CrimRxiv Cars, compounds and containers: Judicial and extrajudicial infrastructures of punishment in the 'old ' and 'new' South Africa
While there is an established literature on the relationship between political economy and state ... more While there is an established literature on the relationship between political economy and state punishment, there is less work on how punishment is constituted from below in contexts of inequality. This article analyses the discourse around incidents of lethal collective violence that occurred in 2015 in a former black township in South Africa. I use this as a lens for examining how punitive forms of popular justice interact with state punishment. Whether via the slow violence of structural inequality or the viscerally corporeal high rates of interpersonal violence, my interviewees were intimately acquainted with violence. Although they supported long-term imprisonment, none of them came across as stereotypical right-wing populists. Instead, they adopted complex positions, calling for a type of punitive welfarism, which combined harsh solutions to crime with explicit recognition of the importance of dealing with ‘root causes’. I argue that when the state is perceived to be failing ...
This paper asks how punitive forms of non-state punishment play out on the margins of the state, ... more This paper asks how punitive forms of non-state punishment play out on the margins of the state, in informal (shack) settlements in South Africa. My focus is on the practice of forcing those who are suspected of certain offences to leave their homes in informal settlements. I refer to this as ‘banishment’ and argue that it is a ‘penal phenomenon’ which is intimately tied to the general precarity that residents experience on a daily basis. The paper examines the ways in which these formally illegal, but nonetheless legitimate practices, draw on and reconfigure liberal state punishment. I use my study to make a broader theoretical point about the interplay between lawful state punishment and unlawful punishment on the periphery of the state. The blurred boundaries between legal (state) violence and illegal (but nonetheless legitimate) violence are particularly ‘visible’ in situations of ‘precarious penality’ – a term that I use to describe the unstable, violent and exclusionary penali...
This article aims to clarify the relationship between state authority, vigilantism and penal powe... more This article aims to clarify the relationship between state authority, vigilantism and penal power. I ask how shifting political contexts shape the construction of the ‘vigilante’ and the legitimation (or not) of vigilante violence. Based on a historical analysis of how the terms ‘vigilante’, ‘vigilantism’ and ‘mob justice’ are used in mainstream discourse in South Africa the article tracks the political transformations that took place in the South African state in the late 1970s, the mid-1980s and post-1994. I use the term ‘precarious penality’ to describe penality on the periphery—both geographically, in marginalized poor black townships—and symbolically, to denote spaces where the boundaries between what is ‘state’ and what is not are blurred. Spaces of ‘precarious penality’ pose specific problems for the liberal principles of due process and human rights that are enshrined in the South African Constitution but often distorted in practice.
Contents: Prologue Starting the conversation The spectacle of crime in the a "newa (TM) Sout... more Contents: Prologue Starting the conversation The spectacle of crime in the a "newa (TM) South Africa Explanations for crime Constructions of criminality Crime prevention and the turn to community Punishment and the body Epilogue and concluding thoughts Appendix Bibliography Index.
This article discusses the apparent contradictions, and consequences, of the state’s embracing of... more This article discusses the apparent contradictions, and consequences, of the state’s embracing of democratic ‘community’ based criminal justice initiatives, in tandem with long-term imprisonment, in the context of vigilantism in Khayelitsha, a black township on the outskirts of Cape Town. I argue that vigilante practices are part of a continuum of community-based crime prevention and punishment practices, where the legal and illegal are blurred, and with which the state is complicit. Looking back, from the vantage point of 2014 to the time when South Africa emerged from apartheid rule and held its first democratic elections, in April 1994, it is clear that mass democracy has had an uneasy relationship with the liberal values enshrined in the Constitution. I argue that punitive punishment is one of the consequences of the state’s turn toward democratic localism and its embracing of a discourse that encourages communities to take responsibility for crime prevention. The danger of rall...
We chased the witchdoctor away from Khayelitsha. We went in his house, saw lots of medicine, snak... more We chased the witchdoctor away from Khayelitsha. We went in his house, saw lots of medicine, snakes. He lived in E block. We told him: you can't stay in Khayelitsha so he left.IntroductionThe incident described in the quotation above occurred at the start of 2013. It was related to me by a taxi driver who, at the time, was the head of a local anti-gang initiative. In Khayelitsha the words "gangster" or "gangs" refer to young people, boys. This initiative involved a group of taxi drivers who, at the request of teachers and community members, broke up fights between rival gangs. In this instance, the children were armed with both pangas1 and amulets, the latter having been allegedly provided by the "witchdoctor." The taxi drivers, armed with sjamboks,2 beat the children, confiscated their weapons and warned them not to fight again. After that 50 taxi drivers, in five mini bus taxis, drove to the witchdoctor's house. They forced him to leave the area.BackgroundKhayelitsha, meaning "new home" in Xhosa, is situated approximately 30 km from Cape Town's city centre. Established in 1983, it was the last area of the city to be formally reserved for black people, prior to the repeal of the 1945 Native Urban Areas Act. This legislation required urban authorities to establish separate residential locations (townships) for "natives" and to exercise control over "native immigration" into urban areas. Its peripheral location was characteristic of apartheid planning and it was developed as a "dormitory suburb," consisting of low-income people who commuted to Cape Town for work. At the time of its establishment a tin hut was erected for each family, along with a bucket toilet, one tap per four plots, high-mast street lighting and, a refuse removal service (O'Regan and Pikoli 2014: 30-33).Khayelitsha is ethnically and linguistically homogenous with 98.7 percent of the population being black and speaking isiXhosa. Youth unemployment is more than 50 percent and most residents have not completed grade 12 (ibid.). Almost half of Khayelitsha's households live below the food poverty line and there is a significant difference between income distribution within Khayelitsha vis a vis the Cape Town population.3 More people in Khayelitsha live in shacks than in formal dwellings (O'Regan and Pikoli 2014: 37) and it is more crowded than other townships (Frith 2013).4 Informal settlements, many of which are situated in low-lying flood prone land, exist alongside established suburbs (Affordable Land and Housing Data Centre, undated: 91). Residents live in tin shacks, with many accessing electricity illegally, sharing communal water taps and relying on inadequate sanitation arrangements (such as outside portable toilets).The air in Khayelitsha is punctuated by the pungent aroma of meat cooking on outside fires, coupled with the stench of blocked drains and overflow pipes. Thin dogs, seeking out food-scraps, roam the pedestrian crowded streets. Minibus taxis, spaza shops, shebeens5 and other small businesses (offering services such as tyre repair, hair braiding and fruit vending) add to the sense of hustle and bustle. The infamous porterloos and outside toilets that line the perimeters of the informal settlements, together with mounds of uncollected garbage, contribute to a general sense of vibrant decay, what the Western Cape provincial government refers to as a "zone of poverty and unemployment" (Department of Community Safety 2009: 20).The three police stations in Greater Khayelitsha-Lingelethu West, Harare and Site B-have far less than the average 283 police personnel per 100,000 residents. At 111.32, Harare has the lowest number of police personnel to population in the Western Cape. Camps Bay and Wynberg, both predominantly white middle to upper class suburbs, have a police to population ratio of 959.51 and 852.57 per 100,000, respectively (Redpath, cited in O'Regan and Pikoli 2014: 315). In 2012-2013, there were 354 murders in "Greater Khayelitsha"6-the highest numbers of murders for any township in South Africa. …
This article examines how the ideology of ‘community’ is deployed to govern crime in South Africa... more This article examines how the ideology of ‘community’ is deployed to govern crime in South Africa, both by marginalised black communities and by the government. Although the turn to ‘community’ started under the National Party government in the late 1970s, there is no doubt that as a site, technology, discourse, ideology and form of governance, ‘community’ has become entrenched in the post-1994 era. Utilising empirical data drawn from ethnographic research on vigilantism in Khayelitsha, as well as archival materials in respect of ANC policies and practices before it became the governing party, I argue that rallying ‘communities’ around crime combatting has the potential to unleash violent technologies in the quest for ‘ethics’ and ‘morality’. When community members unite against an outsider they are bonded for an intense moment in a way that masks the very real problems that tear the community apart. Because violent punishment is one of the consequences of the state’s turn towards ...
Abstract: This dissertation asks how South Africa's transition to democracy affected the gov... more Abstract: This dissertation asks how South Africa's transition to democracy affected the governments perceptions and treatment ofcriminals', and how crime control concerns have changed or not changed between 1976 until 2004. I trace both continuities and changes, ...
This article examines expulsions in and around the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla and in i... more This article examines expulsions in and around the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla and in informal settlements in former black townships in South Africa. These violent bordering processes expose the violent injustices that constitute the boundaries of lawful (liberal) law, and the violence that sovereigns use to secure territories. Drawing on Walter Benjamin we make three main theoretical arguments. First, that the bordering processes in our case studies are instances of law (and State) preserving violence. Second, that absence and responsibilization are central techniques for invisibilizing the role of violence in preserving law, and that abdication of jurisdiction is key to the exercise of state sovereignty. Third, that when the State preserves itself through sharing its monopoly over violence the fictitious distinction between law and violence collapses. We use the term 'borderline lawful violence' to highlight the precarious nature of the boundary between lawful and unlawful violence.
This paper examines non-state infrastructures of vigilante violence in marginalized spaces in Sou... more This paper examines non-state infrastructures of vigilante violence in marginalized spaces in South Africa. I argue that car trunks, shacks, containers, and other everyday receptacles function as the underside of official institutions, such as prisons and police lock-ups, and bear historical imprints of the extrajudicial punishments inflicted on black bodies during colonialism and apartheid. I focus on two techniques: forcing someone into the trunk of a vehicle and driving them around to locate stolen property, and confinement in garages, shacks, containers, or local public spaces. Whereas in formerly 'whites only' areas, residents have access to insurance, guards, gated communities, fortified fences, and well-resourced neighbourhood watches, in former black townships and informal settlements, this is not the case. Here, the boot, the shack, the shed, the car, and the minibus taxi play multiple roles, including as vectors and spaces of confinement, torture, and execution. Thus, spatiotemporality affects both how penal forms permeate space and time, and how space and time constitute penal forms. These vigilante kidnappings and forcible confinements are not mere instances of gratuitous violence. Instead, they mimic, distort, and amplify the violence that underpins the state's unrealized monopoly over the violence inherent in its claims to police and punish.
This paper looks at official discourse on imprisonment under the apartheid and post-apartheid gov... more This paper looks at official discourse on imprisonment under the apartheid and post-apartheid governments, comparing the ways that both regimes have justified the existence of the prison in South Africa. The period covered is from 1976 to 2004. The author shows how the ANC government has attempted to reinvent the prison as a means of establishing order in post-apartheid South Africa and that the demise of apartheid and advent of democracy have been accompanied by an exponential increase in long-term imprisonment. The paper tracks how the process of reform embarked on by the Nationalist Party Government from the late 1970s impacted upon prison practices. In the ‘new ’ South Africa, a neo-liberal penality coexists with older disciplinary and sovereign strategies of penal governance in an unstable, contingent and erratic way. The old is very much part of the new.
This paper analyses official discourse about punishment in South Africa, from 1976 to 2004. It fr... more This paper analyses official discourse about punishment in South Africa, from 1976 to 2004. It frames punishment as a form of governance which is both connected to, and separate from, the Anglo/American/European examples that are generally referred to in the literature. The shift from corporal and capital punishment to the use of long-term imprisonment is discussed within a framework that emphasizes how both the apartheid and post-apartheid state explained and attempted to justify punishment policies during times of great upheaval and change. Penality under apartheid was a complex entity, and the punishment regime under the Nationalist Party government was starting to reform during the period analyzed. This liberalization was accompanied by a lengthening of terms of imprisonment, a trend that has continued in the 'new' South Africa. The prison in post-apartheid South Africa speaks to both humanism and punitivism. This duality has contributed to its enduring nature and endl...
Drawing on Walter Benjamin, this paper discusses the relationships between law, violence, and pun... more Drawing on Walter Benjamin, this paper discusses the relationships between law, violence, and punishment. The main argument I make is that state punishment is BOTH a violent and logically contradictory practice and that the state's legal right to punish often spills over into extralegal penal violence, perpetrated by a range of actors against the racialized poor. I use the term penal violence to refer to all forms of violence which are aimed at enforcing law or punishing a perceived transgression of law or norms. The paper focuses on the infliction of penal violence in South Africa on/in three different scales and jurisdictions: Makwanyane and violence in prisons; police and prosecutorial violence; and extralegal civilian violence.
British Journal of Criminology - these are the proofs if you want final version email me, 2023
Drawing on Walter Benjamin, this paper discusses the relationships between law, violence, and pun... more Drawing on Walter Benjamin, this paper discusses the relationships between law, violence, and punishment. The main argument I make is that state punishment is BOTH a violent and logically contradictory practice and that the state's legal right to punish often spills over into extralegal penal violence, perpetrated by a range of actors against the racialized poor. I use the term penal violence to refer to all forms of violence which are aimed at enforcing law or punishing a perceived transgression of law or norms. The paper focuses on the infliction of penal violence in South Africa on/in three different scales and jurisdictions: Makwanyane and violence in prisons; police and prosecutorial violence; and extralegal civilian violence.
License: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY 4.0) CrimRxiv Cars, compou... more License: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY 4.0) CrimRxiv Cars, compounds and containers: Judicial and extrajudicial infrastructures of punishment in the 'old ' and 'new' South Africa
While there is an established literature on the relationship between political economy and state ... more While there is an established literature on the relationship between political economy and state punishment, there is less work on how punishment is constituted from below in contexts of inequality. This article analyses the discourse around incidents of lethal collective violence that occurred in 2015 in a former black township in South Africa. I use this as a lens for examining how punitive forms of popular justice interact with state punishment. Whether via the slow violence of structural inequality or the viscerally corporeal high rates of interpersonal violence, my interviewees were intimately acquainted with violence. Although they supported long-term imprisonment, none of them came across as stereotypical right-wing populists. Instead, they adopted complex positions, calling for a type of punitive welfarism, which combined harsh solutions to crime with explicit recognition of the importance of dealing with ‘root causes’. I argue that when the state is perceived to be failing ...
This paper asks how punitive forms of non-state punishment play out on the margins of the state, ... more This paper asks how punitive forms of non-state punishment play out on the margins of the state, in informal (shack) settlements in South Africa. My focus is on the practice of forcing those who are suspected of certain offences to leave their homes in informal settlements. I refer to this as ‘banishment’ and argue that it is a ‘penal phenomenon’ which is intimately tied to the general precarity that residents experience on a daily basis. The paper examines the ways in which these formally illegal, but nonetheless legitimate practices, draw on and reconfigure liberal state punishment. I use my study to make a broader theoretical point about the interplay between lawful state punishment and unlawful punishment on the periphery of the state. The blurred boundaries between legal (state) violence and illegal (but nonetheless legitimate) violence are particularly ‘visible’ in situations of ‘precarious penality’ – a term that I use to describe the unstable, violent and exclusionary penali...
This article aims to clarify the relationship between state authority, vigilantism and penal powe... more This article aims to clarify the relationship between state authority, vigilantism and penal power. I ask how shifting political contexts shape the construction of the ‘vigilante’ and the legitimation (or not) of vigilante violence. Based on a historical analysis of how the terms ‘vigilante’, ‘vigilantism’ and ‘mob justice’ are used in mainstream discourse in South Africa the article tracks the political transformations that took place in the South African state in the late 1970s, the mid-1980s and post-1994. I use the term ‘precarious penality’ to describe penality on the periphery—both geographically, in marginalized poor black townships—and symbolically, to denote spaces where the boundaries between what is ‘state’ and what is not are blurred. Spaces of ‘precarious penality’ pose specific problems for the liberal principles of due process and human rights that are enshrined in the South African Constitution but often distorted in practice.
Contents: Prologue Starting the conversation The spectacle of crime in the a "newa (TM) Sout... more Contents: Prologue Starting the conversation The spectacle of crime in the a "newa (TM) South Africa Explanations for crime Constructions of criminality Crime prevention and the turn to community Punishment and the body Epilogue and concluding thoughts Appendix Bibliography Index.
This article discusses the apparent contradictions, and consequences, of the state’s embracing of... more This article discusses the apparent contradictions, and consequences, of the state’s embracing of democratic ‘community’ based criminal justice initiatives, in tandem with long-term imprisonment, in the context of vigilantism in Khayelitsha, a black township on the outskirts of Cape Town. I argue that vigilante practices are part of a continuum of community-based crime prevention and punishment practices, where the legal and illegal are blurred, and with which the state is complicit. Looking back, from the vantage point of 2014 to the time when South Africa emerged from apartheid rule and held its first democratic elections, in April 1994, it is clear that mass democracy has had an uneasy relationship with the liberal values enshrined in the Constitution. I argue that punitive punishment is one of the consequences of the state’s turn toward democratic localism and its embracing of a discourse that encourages communities to take responsibility for crime prevention. The danger of rall...
We chased the witchdoctor away from Khayelitsha. We went in his house, saw lots of medicine, snak... more We chased the witchdoctor away from Khayelitsha. We went in his house, saw lots of medicine, snakes. He lived in E block. We told him: you can't stay in Khayelitsha so he left.IntroductionThe incident described in the quotation above occurred at the start of 2013. It was related to me by a taxi driver who, at the time, was the head of a local anti-gang initiative. In Khayelitsha the words "gangster" or "gangs" refer to young people, boys. This initiative involved a group of taxi drivers who, at the request of teachers and community members, broke up fights between rival gangs. In this instance, the children were armed with both pangas1 and amulets, the latter having been allegedly provided by the "witchdoctor." The taxi drivers, armed with sjamboks,2 beat the children, confiscated their weapons and warned them not to fight again. After that 50 taxi drivers, in five mini bus taxis, drove to the witchdoctor's house. They forced him to leave the area.BackgroundKhayelitsha, meaning "new home" in Xhosa, is situated approximately 30 km from Cape Town's city centre. Established in 1983, it was the last area of the city to be formally reserved for black people, prior to the repeal of the 1945 Native Urban Areas Act. This legislation required urban authorities to establish separate residential locations (townships) for "natives" and to exercise control over "native immigration" into urban areas. Its peripheral location was characteristic of apartheid planning and it was developed as a "dormitory suburb," consisting of low-income people who commuted to Cape Town for work. At the time of its establishment a tin hut was erected for each family, along with a bucket toilet, one tap per four plots, high-mast street lighting and, a refuse removal service (O'Regan and Pikoli 2014: 30-33).Khayelitsha is ethnically and linguistically homogenous with 98.7 percent of the population being black and speaking isiXhosa. Youth unemployment is more than 50 percent and most residents have not completed grade 12 (ibid.). Almost half of Khayelitsha's households live below the food poverty line and there is a significant difference between income distribution within Khayelitsha vis a vis the Cape Town population.3 More people in Khayelitsha live in shacks than in formal dwellings (O'Regan and Pikoli 2014: 37) and it is more crowded than other townships (Frith 2013).4 Informal settlements, many of which are situated in low-lying flood prone land, exist alongside established suburbs (Affordable Land and Housing Data Centre, undated: 91). Residents live in tin shacks, with many accessing electricity illegally, sharing communal water taps and relying on inadequate sanitation arrangements (such as outside portable toilets).The air in Khayelitsha is punctuated by the pungent aroma of meat cooking on outside fires, coupled with the stench of blocked drains and overflow pipes. Thin dogs, seeking out food-scraps, roam the pedestrian crowded streets. Minibus taxis, spaza shops, shebeens5 and other small businesses (offering services such as tyre repair, hair braiding and fruit vending) add to the sense of hustle and bustle. The infamous porterloos and outside toilets that line the perimeters of the informal settlements, together with mounds of uncollected garbage, contribute to a general sense of vibrant decay, what the Western Cape provincial government refers to as a "zone of poverty and unemployment" (Department of Community Safety 2009: 20).The three police stations in Greater Khayelitsha-Lingelethu West, Harare and Site B-have far less than the average 283 police personnel per 100,000 residents. At 111.32, Harare has the lowest number of police personnel to population in the Western Cape. Camps Bay and Wynberg, both predominantly white middle to upper class suburbs, have a police to population ratio of 959.51 and 852.57 per 100,000, respectively (Redpath, cited in O'Regan and Pikoli 2014: 315). In 2012-2013, there were 354 murders in "Greater Khayelitsha"6-the highest numbers of murders for any township in South Africa. …
This article examines how the ideology of ‘community’ is deployed to govern crime in South Africa... more This article examines how the ideology of ‘community’ is deployed to govern crime in South Africa, both by marginalised black communities and by the government. Although the turn to ‘community’ started under the National Party government in the late 1970s, there is no doubt that as a site, technology, discourse, ideology and form of governance, ‘community’ has become entrenched in the post-1994 era. Utilising empirical data drawn from ethnographic research on vigilantism in Khayelitsha, as well as archival materials in respect of ANC policies and practices before it became the governing party, I argue that rallying ‘communities’ around crime combatting has the potential to unleash violent technologies in the quest for ‘ethics’ and ‘morality’. When community members unite against an outsider they are bonded for an intense moment in a way that masks the very real problems that tear the community apart. Because violent punishment is one of the consequences of the state’s turn towards ...
Abstract: This dissertation asks how South Africa's transition to democracy affected the gov... more Abstract: This dissertation asks how South Africa's transition to democracy affected the governments perceptions and treatment ofcriminals', and how crime control concerns have changed or not changed between 1976 until 2004. I trace both continuities and changes, ...
This article examines expulsions in and around the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla and in i... more This article examines expulsions in and around the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla and in informal settlements in former black townships in South Africa. These violent bordering processes expose the violent injustices that constitute the boundaries of lawful (liberal) law, and the violence that sovereigns use to secure territories. Drawing on Walter Benjamin we make three main theoretical arguments. First, that the bordering processes in our case studies are instances of law (and State) preserving violence. Second, that absence and responsibilization are central techniques for invisibilizing the role of violence in preserving law, and that abdication of jurisdiction is key to the exercise of state sovereignty. Third, that when the State preserves itself through sharing its monopoly over violence the fictitious distinction between law and violence collapses. We use the term 'borderline lawful violence' to highlight the precarious nature of the boundary between lawful and unlawful violence.
This paper examines non-state infrastructures of vigilante violence in marginalized spaces in Sou... more This paper examines non-state infrastructures of vigilante violence in marginalized spaces in South Africa. I argue that car trunks, shacks, containers, and other everyday receptacles function as the underside of official institutions, such as prisons and police lock-ups, and bear historical imprints of the extrajudicial punishments inflicted on black bodies during colonialism and apartheid. I focus on two techniques: forcing someone into the trunk of a vehicle and driving them around to locate stolen property, and confinement in garages, shacks, containers, or local public spaces. Whereas in formerly 'whites only' areas, residents have access to insurance, guards, gated communities, fortified fences, and well-resourced neighbourhood watches, in former black townships and informal settlements, this is not the case. Here, the boot, the shack, the shed, the car, and the minibus taxi play multiple roles, including as vectors and spaces of confinement, torture, and execution. Thus, spatiotemporality affects both how penal forms permeate space and time, and how space and time constitute penal forms. These vigilante kidnappings and forcible confinements are not mere instances of gratuitous violence. Instead, they mimic, distort, and amplify the violence that underpins the state's unrealized monopoly over the violence inherent in its claims to police and punish.
This paper looks at official discourse on imprisonment under the apartheid and post-apartheid gov... more This paper looks at official discourse on imprisonment under the apartheid and post-apartheid governments, comparing the ways that both regimes have justified the existence of the prison in South Africa. The period covered is from 1976 to 2004. The author shows how the ANC government has attempted to reinvent the prison as a means of establishing order in post-apartheid South Africa and that the demise of apartheid and advent of democracy have been accompanied by an exponential increase in long-term imprisonment. The paper tracks how the process of reform embarked on by the Nationalist Party Government from the late 1970s impacted upon prison practices. In the ‘new ’ South Africa, a neo-liberal penality coexists with older disciplinary and sovereign strategies of penal governance in an unstable, contingent and erratic way. The old is very much part of the new.
This paper analyses official discourse about punishment in South Africa, from 1976 to 2004. It fr... more This paper analyses official discourse about punishment in South Africa, from 1976 to 2004. It frames punishment as a form of governance which is both connected to, and separate from, the Anglo/American/European examples that are generally referred to in the literature. The shift from corporal and capital punishment to the use of long-term imprisonment is discussed within a framework that emphasizes how both the apartheid and post-apartheid state explained and attempted to justify punishment policies during times of great upheaval and change. Penality under apartheid was a complex entity, and the punishment regime under the Nationalist Party government was starting to reform during the period analyzed. This liberalization was accompanied by a lengthening of terms of imprisonment, a trend that has continued in the 'new' South Africa. The prison in post-apartheid South Africa speaks to both humanism and punitivism. This duality has contributed to its enduring nature and endl...
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