Home Institution
Syracuse University
Publication Date
Fall 2012
Abstract
Policing in South Africa has a long, twisted history that is still evident in some current police practices and especially in the public’s perceptions of the police. In addition to historical factors such as colonial rule and apartheid, people’s perceptions of the police are also affected by their race, class, gender, and geographic location. Although these factors’ can be considered to have an individual effect on perceptions, it is through a complex understanding of how they relate to one another that a true understanding of a person’s perception can be reached. The inspiration for this study stemmed from these concepts and its goal was to discover perceptions women in Cape Town have of the police and how these perceptions relate to race, class, gender and location. In order to determine this, two focus groups were conducted – one in Langa that included 7 women and one in Stellenbosch that included 5 women. The focus groups revealed four main themes: women’s perceptions of their overall safety, the way that class, as it relates to income, can be used to procure added security measures, that the police are perceived to be completely ineffective, and that race and its connections to gender have a great impact on perceptions of the police and of police treatment. Although the expected outcome of the study was that women would perceive they were treated poorly on the basis of their gender and further, that women in Stellenbosch, as the white upper class, would have a more positive perception of the police than women in Langa, as the black working class, this was not demonstrated by the findings. Instead, the focus groups revealed that all of the women felt unsafe in their areas, regardless of the location and that they believed the police to be totally ineffective, albeit for a variety of different reasons.
Disciplines
Community-Based Research | Family, Life Course, and Society | Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies | Gender and Sexuality | Inequality and Stratification | Other Public Affairs, Public Policy and Public Administration | Politics and Social Change | Race, Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies | Social and Cultural Anthropology
Recommended Citation
Moore, Ellen, "Accessing Justice, Evaluating Agency: How 12 Women in Cape Town Perceive Their Local Police Services With Respect to Their Race, Class, Gender, and Geographic Location" (2012). Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection. 1407.
https://digitalcollections.sit.edu/isp_collection/1407
Included in
Community-Based Research Commons, Family, Life Course, and Society Commons, Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons, Gender and Sexuality Commons, Inequality and Stratification Commons, Other Public Affairs, Public Policy and Public Administration Commons, Politics and Social Change Commons, Race, Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies Commons, Social and Cultural Anthropology Commons
Program Name
South Africa: Multiculturalism and Human Rights