This paper analyses the politics of intelligence gathering in South Africa and its reproduction of existing divides and hierarchies within the plural policing landscape.
Paper long abstract:
Across the globe, everyday policing is increasingly defined by digitalization and technologies. This trend can be identified across the plural policing landscape, whereby public, private, and civic policing actors employ a range of technological tools and measures in their everyday policing practices. In South Africa, technologies in policing are primarily geared towards more effective crime prevention and detection. A core objective for numerous policing actors is the acquisition of more intelligence and this primarily entails collecting various forms and sets of data through various technologies, such as Apps and CCTV cameras. In this paper, I analyze the politics of this intelligence gathering process and a recurrent distinction that is made between ‘dirty’ versus ‘clean’ data. By drawing from qualitative research conducted in 2021-2023, I will discuss the ways ‘data’ is framed and discussed, and how these distinctions of ‘dirt’ versus ‘clean’ mirror and reproduce existing divisions and hierarchies within the plural policing landscape.