Security, development, and force: Revisiting police reform in Sierra Leone

African Affairs

Volumn 111, Issue 443, 2012, Pages 261-280

  Krogstad, Erlend Grøner ^a,b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD   (United Kingdom)

^b Norwegian Institute for International Affairs   (Norway)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

COLONIALISM; EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS; NATIONAL SECURITY; POLITICAL REFORM; POLITICAL RELATIONS; STATE ROLE;

SIERRA LEONE;

EID: 84859642673     PISSN: 00019909     EISSN: 14682621     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/afraf/ads004     Document Type: Article

References (97)

1. Lisa Denney, 'Reducing poverty with teargas and batons: the security-development nexus in Sierra Leone', African Affairs 110, 439 (2011), pp. 1-20.
2. Jane Chanaa, 'Security sector reform: issues, prospects and challenges' (Adelphi Papers No. 344, Institute of International Strategic Studies, Oxford, 2002).
3. Nicole Ball and Dylan Hendrickson, 'Trends in security sector reform (SSR): policy, practice and research' (Paper prepared for International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Ottawa, 2006).
4. Denney, 'Reducing poverty', p. 15.
5. 'In Africa', Alice Hills argued in a comparative study, 'there has been no fundamental evolution of police systems since independence.' The fact that 'the police are a major force for repression', she claims, is a 'truism'.
6. Alice Hills, Policing Africa: Internal security and the limits of liberalization (Lynne Rienner Publishers, London, 1992), p. 5.
7. See also James Opolot, 'The resilience of the British colonial police legacies in East Africa, Southern Africa and West Africa', Police Studies 15, 2 (1992) pp. 90-9.
8. The recent reform of the Afghan National Police, where police officers were increasingly used as 'little soldiers' in the frontline of counterinsurgency, is a case in point.
9. Robert Perito, 'Afghanistan's police: the weak link in security sector reform' (Special Report 227, United States Institute of Peace, Washington, DC, August 2009).
10. See also David H. Bayley and Robert M. Perito, The Police in War: Fighting insurgency, terrorism, and violent crime (Lynne Rienner Publishers, Boulder, CO, 2010).
11. Finn Stepputat, Louise Andersen, and Bjørn Møller, 'Introduction: security arrangements in fragile states' in Louise Andersen, Bjørn Møller, and Finn Stepputat (eds), Fragile States and Insecure People? Violence, security and statehood in the twenty-first century (Palgrave Macmillan, New York, NY 2009), p. 4.
12. Robert H. Jackson and Carl G. Rosberg, 'Why Africa's weak states persist: the empirical and the juridical in statehood', World Politics 35, 1 (1982), pp. 1-24.
13. Their diagnosis provided a powerful argument for the tendency to focus on state security forces at the expense of commercial and other non-state security providers.
14. See Rita Abrahamsen and Michael Williams, 'Security sector reform: bringing the private in', Conflict, Security and Development 6, 1 (2006), pp. 1-23.
15. Bruce Baker, 'Who do people turn to for policing in Sierra Leone?', Journal of Contemporary African Studies 23, 3 (2005), pp. 371-90.
16. Bruce Baker, Security in Post-Conflict Africa: The role of nonstate policing (CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL, 2010).
17. Global Conflict Prevention Pool, 'Security sector reform strategy' (DfID, FCO, and MoD, London, 2004-2005), p. 4.
18. DfID, 'Why we need to work more effectively in fragile states' (DfID, London, January 2005).
19. Robert Rotberg, 'The failure and collapse of nation-states: breakdown prevention and repair' in Robert Rotberg (ed.), When States Fail: Causes and consequences (Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 2004), pp. 1-50.
20. The Banya report found that the 'actual force' had an establishment of 11,155 and a strength (that is, operational size) of 9,364. The SSD was reported to consist of 1,844 officers. 'Report of the Dr Banya Committee on the Republic of Sierra Leone Police Force, August, 1996' (Adrian Horn, private document).
21. 'The situation in Sierra Leone, a security and operational perspective: a "mismatch" of policies and reality', 8 August 2004 (Ray England, private document).
22. Mitchell Dean, Governmentality: Power and rule in modern society (Sage, London, 1999).
23. Michel Foucault, Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1977-78, edited by Michel Senellart, (Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2007).
24. Colin Gordon, 'Governmental rationality: an introduction' in Graham Burchell, Colin Gordon, and Peter Miller (eds), The Foucault Effect: Studies in governmentality (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL 1991), pp.1-48.
25. Mark Duffield, Global Governance and the New Wars: The merging of development and security (Zed Books, London, 2001), pp. 12ff.
26. David Anderson and David Killingray (eds), Policing and Decolonisation: Nationalism, politics and the police (Manchester University Press, Manchester, 1992).
27. Georgina Sinclair, At the End of the Line: Colonial policing and the imperial endgame, 1945-80 (Manchester University Press, Manchester, 2006).
28. 'Record of the Second Conference of Commissioners of Colonial Police Forces' (National Archives, CO 885/124).
29. Sinclair, At the End of the Line, p. 67.
30. David Killingray, 'The maintenance of law and order in British colonial Africa', African Affairs 85, 340 (1986), pp. 411-37.
31. Commissioner Fforde, quoted in Anthony Clayton, The Thin Blue Line: Studies in law enforcement in late colonial Africa (Oxford Development Records Project Oxford: Oxford, 1985)
32. Georgina Sinclair and Chris Williams, '"Home and Away": the cross-fertilisation between "colonial" and "British" policing', 1921-85', Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 32, 2 (2007), pp. 221-38.
33. Mike Brogden, 'The emergence of the police: the colonial dimension', British Journal of Criminology 7, 1 (1987), pp. 4-14.
34. It is revealing that, in the otherwise turbulent year of 1948, 'nothing of consequence' with regard to intelligence was reported from Sierra Leone or Gambia. For Sierra Leone it was noted that 'remarkably little interest has been shown in the press in world politics'. 'Colonial Political Intelligence Summaries, 1948' (National Archives, CO 537/2677).
35. This was supported by a centralized policy stating that: 'The fact that there is no evidence of immediate threat to public order or security should not stand in the way of [creating intelligence machinery].' See 'Record of the Second Conference'.
36. 'Testimony of Commissioner W. G. Syer to the Commission of Enquiry into Disturbances in the Provinces' (CE M/2, Sierra Leone National Archives, date unknown).
37. Thomas Cox, Civil-Military Relations in Sierra Leone: A case study of African soldiers in politics (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1976).
38. 'Commission of Enquiry. Miscellaneous Background Material' (CE M/2, Sierra Leone National Archives).
39. David Keen, Conflict and Collusion in Sierra Leone (James Currey, Oxford, 2005).
40. The annual report of that year stated that 'The need to provide riot units at short notice is undoubtedly the greatest problem the Force has to face. During the last few years, units have been drawn from Freetown when assistance is required in dealing with disturbances in the Protectorate. This interferes with normal policing and the question of a centralized mobile force is under consideration' ('Annual Report of the Police Force, 1957', Freetown Public Library).
41. Numbers compiled from Sierra Leone Colonial Report 1939 and Sierra Leone Colonial Reports of 1961 (Freetown Public Library).
42. Sinclair, At the End of the Line.
43. Mathieu Deflem, 'Law enforcement in British colonial Africa: a comparative analysis of imperial policing in Nyasaland, the Gold Coast and Kenya', Police Studies 17, 1 (1994), pp. 45-68.
44. Charles Jeffries, The Colonial Police (M. Parrish, London, 1952), p. 213.
45. Charles Jeffries, quoted in Ronald Hyam, 'Bureaucracy and "trusteeship" in colonial empire' in Judith M. Brown and William Roger Louis (eds), The Oxford History of the British Empire: The twentieth century (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1999), p. 278.
46. 'Africa: the next ten years' (National Archives (UK), CAB 129/98, June 1959).
47. Jeffrey Herbst, 'Responding to state failure in Africa', International Security 21, 3 (1996), pp. 120-44.
48. See also Christopher Clapham, Africa and the International System: The politics of state survival (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1996).
49. 'Record of the Second Conference'.
50. 'Speech to be delivered by the Inspector General of Police on Tuesday 28 March 2000 to the Commonwealth Institute' (Adrian Horn, private document).
51. Adrian Horn, Funmi Olonisakin, and Gordon Peake, 'United Kingdom-led security sector reform in Sierra Leone', Civil Wars 8, 2 (2006), pp. 109-23.
52. Sarah Meek, 'Policing Sierra Leone' in Patrick Coker, Jeremy Ginifer, Mark Malan, and Sarah Meek (eds), 'Sierra Leone: Building the road to recovery' (Institute for Security Studies, Monograph No. 80, March 2003).
53. Osman Gbla, 'Security sector reform under international tutelage in Sierra Leone', International Peacekeeping 13, 1 (2006), pp. 78-93.
54. Peter Albrecht and Paul Jackson, Security System Transformation in Sierra Leone, 1997-2007 (Global Facilitation Network for Security Sector Reform, Geneva, 2009).
55. 'Commonwealth Police Development Task Force Sierra Leone, Interim Report', September 1998 (Adrian Horn, private document).
56. DfID, 'Fighting poverty to build a safer world: a strategy for security and development' (DfID, London, March 2005).
57. Espen Barth Eide and Tor Tanke Holm (eds), Peacebuilding and Police Reform (Frank Cass, London, 2000), pp. 2ff.
58. The Sierra Leone Policing Charter, quoted in Albrecht and Jackson, Security System Transformation.
59. Commonwealth Police Development Task Force Sierra Leone, 'Interim Report', September 1998 (Adrian Horn, private document).
60. OECD, 'OECD DAC handbook on security sector reform: supporting security and justice' (OECD, Paris, 2007), p. 171.
61. William O'Neill, 'Police reform in post-conflict societies: what we know and what we still need to know' (Policy Paper, International Peace Academy, New York, April 2005), p. 3.
62. Interview, Keith Biddle, Crewe, 27 October 2009.
63. 'A report on the situation in the Sierra Leone Police as of 17 December 1999' (Ray England, private document).
64. Interview, anonymous DfID ex-consultant, London, 3 February 2011.
65. Denney, 'Reducing poverty'.
66. See also Albrecht and Jackson, Security System Transformation.
67. Quoted in Denney, 'Reducing poverty'.
68. See also Claire Short, An Honourable Deception? New Labour, Iraq, and the misuse of power (Free Press, London, 2004).
69. Interview, Ray England, London, 3 February 2011. England remembers that at the time of his arrival in Freetown in the early summer of 1999, there was a 'general feeling in the government that they should be disbanded'.
70. I. J. Vandy, 'History of the Special Security Division' (Adrian Horn, private document).
71. Interview, M.S. Dumbuya, former commander of the SSD, Freetown, 4 June 2010.
72. Interview, David Sesay, Assistant Inspector General, Bo, Sierra Leone, 21 April 2010.
73. Interview, Dumbuya.
74. Interview, Thomas Kamara, former commander of the SSD, Freetown, Sierra Leone, 29 April 2010.
75. Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Sierra Leone (TRC), 'Witness to Truth: Report of the Sierra Leone Truth and Reconciliation Commission (GPL Press, Accra, 2004), (13 April 2011).
76. 'A report on the Special Security Division of the Sierra Leone Police, 16 October 1999' (Ray England, private document).
77. 'Report of the Dr Banya Committee'.
78. 'A report on the situation in the Sierra Leone Police'.
79. Graham Ellison and Conor O'Reilly, 'From empire to Iraq and the "war on terror": the transplantation and commodification of the (Northern) Irish policing experience', Police Quarterly 11, 4 (2008), pp. 395-426, p. 395.
80. DfID's limited means of imposing operational constraints on the reform team is indicated by the fact that they did not establish a country office in Sierra Leone until 2005.
81. Sinclair, At the End of the Line.
82. Interview, Keith Biddle.
83. Interview, Mark White, DfID adviser, Freetown, 30 March 2010.
84. Interview, Ray England.
85. 'A report on the Special Security Division'.
86. Interview, Ray England.
87. 'Sierra Leone Community Safety and Security Project 5-11 July 2002, Output-to-Purpose Review' (Adrian Horn, private document).
88. See for example, Mark White, 'The security and development nexus: a case study of Sierra Leone 2004-2007' (Working Paper Series, Global Facilitation Network for Security Sector Reform, Geneva, 2008).
89. See Tania Murray Li, The Will to Improve: Governmentality, development, and the practice of politics (Duke University Press, Durham, NC and London, 2007) for an excellent analysis of such varied governmental assemblages in Indonesia.
90. Interview, Morie Lengor, Assistant Inspector General, Freetown, 1 December 2009; Interview, Kellie Conteh, National Security Coordinator, Freetown, 2 June 2010; Interview, Francis Munu, Assistant Inspector General, Freetown, 3 June 2010; Interview, Mark White, Freetown, 3 March, 2010.
91. The establishment of a Complaint Discipline Internal Investigation Department (CDIID) was one key institutional innovation.
92. Bayley and Perito, The Police in War, p. 76.
93. Interview, Ray England.
94. Interview, Peter Penfold, former British High Commissioner to Sierra Leone, Oxford, 19 October, 2010.
95. Maja Christensen and Mats Utas, 'Mercenaries of democracy: the "politricks" of remobilized combatants in the 2007 General Elections, Sierra Leone', African Affairs 107, 429 (2008), pp. 515-39.
96. Sam Waldock, Di War Don Don? Inter-party violence in Sierra Leone 2002-2010 (Unpublished MSc dissertation, African Studies Centre, University of Oxford, 2010).
97. Interview, Lamin Sesay, Makeni, 13 April 2010.