Cooperation and Accountability in the Cross-border Policing of Southern Africa

In recent years, joint policing operations between countries and the development of regional organisations such as the SA Regional Police Chiefs Cooperation Organisation (SARPCCO) have resulted in increasing regionalisation and transnationalisation of policing. Just as the increasing privatisation of security has highlighted new challenges for issues of accountability, so too has the regionalisation and transnationalisation of policing taken the debate on police accountability into different spheres, and introduced new questions on who needs to hold whom accountable and by what means. The papers presented in this publication address these emerging issues as well as cross-border policing in general.

The utility of a better understanding of the challenges and issues for policing in new regional and transnational settings are similar to those of policing anywhere. It has value in the broader issues of governance accountability and in the more practical issues of police effectiveness and efficiency.