South Africa’s security forces once brutally entrenched apartheid. It’s been a rocky road to reform

South Africa has clearly defined mandates for the police, military and intelligence services.& Darren Stewart/Gallo Images via Getty Images by Sandy Africa, University of Pretoria One of the important tasks that faced South Africa’s democratic government after 1994 was to reform the apartheid-era security apparatus. The African National Congress (ANC), which was voted into power, had a laudable vision in the 1990s for reforming the police, military and intelligence services. Determined that South Africans would never again be subject to the brutality of the security forces, it ensured that the core principles it stood for were written into the country’s democratic constitution. Putting the vision and principles into practice, however, has not been easy, and fraught with setbacks. Over time, the abuse of power, a lack of proper oversight, corruption, and neglect of the capacity needs of the security services have robbed them of the legitimacy gained at the start of the democratic era. South Africa is plagued by high crime rates. People feel unsafe, a far cry from what was meant to be. I served in one of the ANC teams formulating negotiating positions for the reform of the security sector in the 1990s. Since then, I have researched...