This book examines the politics of crime and the response to it in Potchefstroom, a small settler colonial city in South Africa. It draws on the city's everyday practices and experiences of physical and virtual security to offer local bottom-up insights into private security. The book provides a comprehensive understanding of private security employees' experience and perception of their own security practices, their daily interactions with other security providers which influences power dynamics, as well as the citizens' experience of the growing presence of private security. It aids in re-conceptualising violence and security governance in South Africa with a view to analysing the processes of crime prevention and management, the changing nature of public and private spaces and how these spaces interact with state and local authorities. In a rigorous exploration of the ways to tackle the complex problem of crime, the book makes a strong case for protective infrastructures such as gated barriers and resident welfare associations as the grassroots-level security. It also looks at how crime is treated as a societal issue, yet organizations and individuals fail to act as a collective unit. This lack of unity or 'uniformity of action' creates opportunities for criminals and reduces the efficacy of practices and activities undertaken to prevent crime. The book addresses the urgent need for collaboration across these fault lines to promote a more inclusive security in a broader social and political context. With a novel analytical approach based on the twin optics of infrastructure and post-structural hegemony, the book will be relevant to scholars and students of South African politics and critical security studies, as well as international audience interested in crime and private security.

Book Information
ISBN 9780367463267
Author Gideon van Riet
Format Hardback
Page Count 256
Imprint Routledge
Publisher Taylor & Francis Ltd