Call for contributions to SA Crime Quarterly: Do inquiries into policing matter?
Closing date: 21 March 2015
Public inquiries and investigations into structural, administrative and operational issues involving the police have a long history in South Africa. The deliberations of the Khayelitsha and Marikana Commissions of Inquiry have yet again identified challenges confronting police and policing in South Africa. The context, role and impact of commissions deserve closer scrutiny. With this objective in mind, we invite contributions to a special edition of the South African Crime Quarterly, which will be published in September 2015 and guest edited by Elrena van der Spuy. This edition will contribute to our understanding of public inquiries and the state of police and policing in South Africa.
Expressions of interest could cover (but are not limited to) the following:
- An analytical and historical article about commissions of inquiry which explores key features of select commissions, and other investigations into police and policing over the past 100 years. An historical overview may yield insight into the contexts under which such inquiries were established, the various forms they took, the discourse adopted, and the political and symbolic functions they fulfilled.
- A comparative analysis of the Khayelitsha and Marikana commissions with a view to identifying commonalities and differences in terms of mandate, working methodology, the issues covered, how the ‘problems’ were understood, and their substantive recommendations.
- An analysis of the policy implications of one or both of the Khayelitsha and Marikana commissions’ recommendations for policing in South Africa. What does a critical reading of the findings and recommendations of these two inquiries tell us regarding the challenges confronting policing in South Africa today?
- A contextual piece which analyses the structural, political and economic context within which the establishment of the two commissions needs to be appreciated.
- Reflections from the inside out – an article which brings the experiences and views of commissioners such as Judges Farlam, O’Regan and Adv Pikoli to light.
Expressions of interest: Please submit an abstract of one page or less, in which you set out the themes to be explored in your proposed article. Abstracts must be submitted to Elrena van der Spuy: Elrena.vanderspuy@uct.ac.za
Deadline for submitting abstracts: 21 March 2015
Deadline for submitting papers: 10 July 2015
