The book discusses police practices in Uganda, which are understood as fluid and reflective of the socio-political, cognitive and discursive contexts within which the Uganda Police Force (UPF) exist. The author was immersed in the UPF both as an ethnographer and a consultant. The book demonstrates how police officers navigate clashes between personal interests and those of the UPF shedding more light on the divergences and convergences between policies in theory and policies in practice. It contributes to the literature on police research, especially to our understanding of policing and the anthropology of the state in Africa. It highlights that the Ugandan police engages in political policing and its role is stretched beyond its legal mandate. The target audience is twofold: first, academics interested in police studies and the undercurrents of interface bureaucracies in Africa. Second, practitioners focused on improving state and police services in African contexts.

The book discusses police practices in Uganda, which are understood as fluid and reflective of the socio-political, cognitive and discursive contexts within which the Uganda Police Force (UPF) exist. The author was immersed in the UPF both as an ethnographer and a consultant. The book demonstrates how police officers navigate clashes between personal interests and those of the UPF shedding more light on the divergences and convergences between policies in theory and policies in practice. It contributes to the literature on police research, especially to our understanding of policing and the anthropology of the state in Africa. It highlights that the Ugandan police engages in political policing and its role is stretched beyond its legal mandate. The target audience is twofold: first, academics interested in police studies and the undercurrents of interface bureaucracies in Africa. Second, practitioners focused on improving state and police services in African contexts.

State police forces in Africa are a curiously neglected subject of study, even within the framework of security issues and African states. This work brings together criminologists, anthropologists, sociologists, historians, political scientists and others who have engaged with police forces across the continent and the publics with whom they interact to provide street-level perspectives from below and inside Africa's police forces.

The Mean Streets Books are about the service years of the author in the South African Police Force - 1985-1991. The Police Force had almost nothing in common with a Sheriff's Department. The policemen were fighting as light & mechanized infantry besides being policemen. We dealt with violent crime, counter-terrorism, counter-insurgency and full scale riots on a daily base. It is much more than a biography about policing the mean streets - the books explain how an honourable police force became an "instrument of terror." It is a stark warning on what happens when unscrupulous politicians get control of a highly disciplined police force and there is no Bill of Human Rights to stop them from implementing the laws, no matter how unfair it may be. The third book recalls the laughs and the amusing incidents during the Author's time with the South African Police Force. Though not everyone will agree with the policemen's sense of humor, it is fun to read.

The Mean Streets Books are about the service years of the author in the South African Police Force - 1985-1991. The Police Force had almost nothing in common with a Sheriff's Department. The policemen were fighting as light & mechanized infantry besides being policemen. We dealt with violent crime, counter-terrorism, counter-insurgency and full scale riots on a daily base. It is much more than a biography about policing the mean streets...the books explain how an honorable police force became an "instrument of terror." It is a stark warning on what happens when unscrupulous politicians get control of a highly disciplined police force and there is no Bill of Human Rights to stop them from implementing the laws, no matter how unfair it may be. The first book is a brutally honest and unconventional account of the Author's basic training and other events at the South African Police College in Pretoria.

Provides a glimpse into the world of the individuals behind the badge and the tangled world they inhabit on the behalf of the public they serve

This is a book about the men and women who police contemporary South Africa. Drawing on rich, original ethnographical data, it considers how officers make sense of their jobs and how they find meaning in their duties. It demonstrates that the dynamics that lead to police abuses and scandals in transitional and neo-liberalising regimes such as South Africa can be traced to the day-to-day experiences and ambitions of the average police officer. It is about the stories they tell themselves about themselves and their social worlds, and how these shape the order they produce through their work. By focusing on police officers, this book positions the individual in primacy over the organisation, asking what policing looks like when motivated by the pursuit of ontological security in precarious contexts. It acknowledges but downplays the importance of police culture in determining officers’ attitudes and behaviour, and reminds readers that most officers’ lives are entangled in, and shaped by a range of social, political and cultural forces. It suggests that a job in the South African Police Service (SAPS) is primarily just that: a job. Most officers join the organisation after other dreams have slipped beyond reach, their presence in the Service being almost accidental. But once employed, they re-write their self-narratives and enact carefully choreographed performances to ease managerial and public pressure, and to rationalize their coercive practices. In an era where ‘evidence’ and ‘what works’ reigns supreme, and where ‘cop culture’ is often deemed a primary socializing force, this book emphasises how officers’ personal histories, ambitions, and vulnerabilities remain central to how policing unfolds on the street.