Inside an African Police Force: The Ugandan Police Examined 3031149912, 9783031149917

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Jude Kagoro

Inside an African Police Force The Ugandan Police Examined

Inside an African Police Force

Jude Kagoro

Inside an African Police Force The Ugandan Police Examined

Jude Kagoro Institute for Intercultural and International Studies (InIIS) Bremen University Bremen, Bremen, Germany

ISBN 978-3-031-14991-7    ISBN 978-3-031-14992-4 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-14992-4 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

To my late father Sir Peter Bacwa and my mother Restituta Kabateera Bacwa who motivated me to take academics seriously.

Foreword

This is a remarkable book. For several reasons, of which one is the particular position of its author in the field of his subject, the Uganda Police Force (UPF). Jude Kagoro in his quest for intellectual honesty does not hide a few features of this complex web of relations he was embedded in when he carried out his research in Uganda. Being an insider, as born Ugandan, being an outsider as a non-police person, being hired as a consultant by the object of his study, being awarded a medal by the head of state and being confronted with the brutal assassination of his closest collaborators, Assistant Inspector General of Police, Andrew Felix Kaweesi in March 2017 – all this belongs to the experience that is the basis of this book. All this is part of ‘the empirics’ as the parlance of academic language would have it. With this background, it is clear that there could not be just one message on what the police in Uganda are. The structure of this book already indicates that it is impossible to reduce the material to one single core thesis. The Ugandan police, and we will see by further research how many other of the globe as well, is so many things: a disciplinary part of the state apparatus and the ruling regime, a guardian of the social and political order, in a way an agency of social work, a substitute in part of the non-functional legal sector, a spot for enrichment, but also a bureaucracy and workplace of tens of thousands of officers. It is also, much more than we are inclined to think, a negotiating state agency. Not much is fixed in its practices, all kinds of circumstances matter for what the police do and how it reacts. The perhaps strongest chapter of this book is the one on political policing. In a context like Uganda, in which the regime in power equates its own stability with the stability of order and statehood in general, the maintenance of the current power distribution is considered crucial. This book also shows what this means, and that there was some learning process on the side of the National Resistance Army/ Movement regime to understand what a powerful tool a working police force is. The police thus became part of political dynamics in Uganda, to a degree that it looks strange and not tolerable for readers with an upbringing in stable democracies. Yet these features of the Ugandan police are in fact no exception, if we look at the long global history of police forces – it has always been their mandate to secure the state order, not only in fully-fledged democracies. vii

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But moral judgement should not overshadow the highly relevant insights we get from Jude Kagoro’s description. First, the police force itself is not of unanimous opinion about this ascribed rule. Second, there seems to be an interesting reverse relation to the politicisation of the military at work here: to the degree that the police became a political tool, the Ugandan military could be professionalised and acquired a much better image than any Ugandan armed force before. This makes it possible, in the current world order, to engage the Ugandan military in many international missions. A great majority of other states’ government, among them EU members and the USA, support and often fund these military missions. To some extent the politicisation of the police allows for the depoliticisation of the army that thus becomes a pillar of the current international order. Jude Kagoro mentions it at several points: the Ugandan Police is also a very frank institution for researchers. The openness with which his informants talk about their problems is unimaginable for German police forces, for example. This confirms an experience that many other researchers, my own included, have made in Uganda. The Ugandan state, despite its problems, is much more transparent than many that insist on their fundamental democratic nature. This book is also the dense description of a process: After decades of slumber and marginality, the UPF became an important state agency since 2005 under the leadership of Gen. Kale Kayihura in 2005. It now has quite some impact on the Ugandan society, in particular in urban spaces. But the reverse is also true: the Ugandan society, as Jude Kagoro’s book shows clearly, has a huge impact on the police as well, perhaps on anything the police do and are. For both reasons, this book is a contribution to the sociology of Uganda, a sociology that still remains to be written as we still suffer from the post-colonial syndrome that sociology is still largely based on the experience of Western European and North American societies. The globalisation of social sciences has actually not yet begun, and books like this help to fill the huge gap of knowledge on institutions outside Europe and North America. How state agents navigate between contradicting expectations, between dire needs, professional norms and within a competitive environment becomes very clear by this work. And this should encourage us to do without quick moral judgements. For those readers that are less interested in the details of state and society in Uganda, this book is an enriching reading as well – it contains a message that I have learned from Jude Kagoro when he insisted that there is no fundamental difference between all these nationally framed parts of world society: What we learn here about police will exist elsewhere, also in so-called ‘developed’ countries. ‘There are only differences in degrees’, he taught me. The longer I think about it, the more I have to agree.

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I use the occasion of this preface for thanking the author not only for this book but for meanwhile almost a decade of academic work, for his friendship and the countless insights I owe to him. Institute for Intercultural and International Studies (InIIS) Bremen University, Bremen, Germany July 2022

Klaus Schlichte

Introduction

In this book I discuss police practices in Uganda. I address multiple dimensions of everyday policing at all levels of the Uganda Police Force (UPF). Police practices are dynamic and reflective of the social, political, cognitive and discursive contexts within which the police exist. Moreover, all bureaucracies regardless of size or location are embedded within a cultural, political and economic context and are not closed off from society (Baba, 2009). The Ugandan police, like other police forces elsewhere in the world, is embedded in the contexts of the wider society, simultaneously being shaped by it (Hills, 2000; Biecker & Schlichte, 2013). This is the first ethnographic study of the Uganda Police Force and certainly strengthens the literature on the police studies. With this book I aim to answer and number of questions: How is the Uganda Police organised? How does it work on a day-to-day basis? Why does it work in the way it does? What are the socio-political and cultural contexts within which it works? What factors other than formal legal frameworks and policies influence police officers? And finally, how do police officers interpret and execute their work? To adeptly answer these questions, I took an ethnographic approach benefiting from extended periods of field work and consultancy with the UPF (see Sect.  5 ‘The field and the issue of entry’ below). As Olivier de Sardan (2009) puts it regarding the research on the state in Africa, ‘It is easy to get the feeling that, for decades, journalists, politicians and many researchers, both Africans and Africanists, have been engaged in a relentless search for the “essence” of the African state while neglecting to carry out a concrete analysis of administrations, public services, bureaucratic system and relations between civil servants and the users of state services’. This problem calls for ethnographic methods of participant observation to understand how bureaucracies are organised, how they work and how they relate with the world around them (Hoag Colin & Hull Matthew, 2017). This book addresses both gaps by providing a detailed account of how the police, as a state institution works on a day-to-day basis, and how it relates with the people that consume its services. Most police work occurs in private, away from the public’s view. Without deep access, it would therefore have been impossible to understand and deconstruct xi

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police practices and the rationales behind them. An ethnographic approach enabled a holistic comprehension of the police officers’ life-worlds as full members of the Ugandan society who move throughout their day from their official tasks, such as investigating criminal cases, to non-official tasks, such as driving their children to school or accompanying a family member to hospital. So, the context within which they handle police work is not divorced from their social settings. Overall, I identified six core facets that define the UPF, which also constitute the primary arguments and contributions of this research. First, the Ugandan police is about socio-political order and explicitly engages in political policing. Specifically, the force has systematically developed closer ties with the ruling party, the National Resistance Movement (NRM). Second, most police officers are street-level bureaucrats and de facto policy makers in their everyday duties. Based on their discretionary authority and the requirement to interpret policy on a case-by-case basis, the difference between institutional policy in theory and what officers do in practice is often substantial. Third, policing in Uganda is defined by negotiations. Often, there are intensive negotiations between police officers and clients regarding cases reported to the police. These negotiations are not about who is guilty or innocent, but often on how to avoid arrest or how to secure a realise from a police cell or trying to convince the police to pursue a case in which one is aggrieved. Fourth, the Ugandan police is a socially embedded institution, and its role and day-to-day practices can only be understood in the context of the society that surrounds the force. Officers align their actions in a myriad of contexts, which vary from case to case. Officers navigate between competing demands ranging from their personal interests and those of the police establishment, the public and their kith and kin. Fifth, the UPF’s role is stretched beyond the legally described mandate and is heavily called on to settle societal conflicts that are mostly civil in nature. It is involved in the mediation of societal conflicts while at same time heavily influenced by other social forces outside the police establishment and the state. Traditional and cultural perspectives, for instance, interface or interfere with its processes. Often, people resort to cultural mechanisms to resolve criminal cases such as rape, defilement and murder. Sixth, the inner logic of the police establishment matters. UPF’s organisational politics are majorly shaped by godfather constellations and competition for lucrative deployments. In this book, I show that policing is far more complex than it first appears. It is shaped by a multitude of factors that are absorbed in ambivalences, which have to be engaged with on a case-by-case basis. I highlight on how police officers navigate the constant clashes between their personal needs and interests with the incentives and bureaucratic rules of the institution and the government at large. By exploring these dilemmas, I shed new light on the divergences and convergences between policies as they appear on white paper, and policies in actual social practice. My analysis aims at improving understandings of the wide-ranging practices adopted by police officers and their interactions with the clients in line of duty. Exploring policing thus provides a sectional view of the state-society relations in Uganda.

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This work contributes to the scholarly debate in several ways. First, it contributes empirically and conceptually to the literature on police research, and especially to our understanding of policing in Africa. Second, it enhances our understanding of ‘street-level bureaucracy’ (Lipsky, 1980) especially that the empirical data for this work was in large measures derived from intense interactions and engagements with police officers during their day-to-day duties. The research collaborates the conceptualisation of the notion of ‘practical norms’ (Olivier de Sardan, 2009). The practical norms heavily underpin officers’ behaviours, and I provide several accounts of how exactly the idea of practical norms works in the Ugandan police. This research speaks to the field of the anthropology of the state in Africa (Sharma & Gupta, 2006; Blundo & Le Meur, 2009; Bierschenk & Olivier de Sardan, 2014) and broadens our perspectives on state-society relations (Bourdieu et  al., 1994; Abrams, 1988; Migdal & Schlichte, 2005; Pouligny, 2010; Bourdieu, 2015). This is because the policing arena provides one of the best forums to observe the micro-sociological intricacies with which the state, represented by the police, interrelates with citizens from a myriad of societal contexts. The work also contributes to our conception of state bureaucracies in general (Weber, 1947; Osborne, 1994) and interface bureaucracies in Africa in particular (Roitman, 2005, 2006; Bierschenk, 2009; Bierschenk & Olivier de Sardan, 2014). The book thus uncovers the social and cultural elements that reinforce, neutralise as well as frustrate state bureaucracies, while at the same time revealing how overarching and large-scale state policies are interpreted, responded to and (re)produced in practical contexts. The insight also helps us to partly understand police culture in Uganda or what Bourdieu (1977) might have called a police habitus, a system of embodied dispositions, tendencies that organise the ways in which officers perceive and react to the social environment; as well as the police field in which social interactions, transactions and events occur.

The Core Concepts Two key concepts, street-level bureaucracy and practical norms accompany us throughout this book, connecting lines of arguments in all the chapters. These concepts aid us to understand how the Ugandan police works and why it operates the way it does. These concepts merit delineation;

Street-Level Bureaucracy First, Lipsky’s (1980) concept of Street-Level Bureaucrcy drawn from his ground-­ breaking book ‘Street Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of the Individual in Public Service’ provides an analysis that sheds light on how to understand the Ugandan police in its day-to-day execution of duty. For Lipsky, street-level bureaucrats

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include police officers, but also teachers, social workers and other professionals who interact and communicate directly with citizens on behalf of the state. Street-level bureaucrats are the frontlines of the government operating at the interface of citizens and governments, and Lipsky describes them as the ‘human face’ of policy. A typical street-level bureaucrat acts as the liaison between government policymakers and citizens by implementing policy decisions made by senior officials in the public service. These bureaucrats have direct contact with members of the public in contrast to other bureaucrats who do policy formulation and analysis and rarely, if at all, meet the public in this context. Most police officers, save for a few at the strategic level, in human resource administration and in finance, are street-level bureaucrats. Lipsky argues that these relatively low-level public service employees face challenges caused by huge caseloads, ambiguous agency goals and inadequate resources. They possess a substantial discretionary authority and are required to interpret policy on a case-by-case basis. The difference between government policy in theory and policy in practice can be troubling, like the findings about what police officers in Uganda do in field as it shall be discussed in details later on. Often, police officers that directly interact with people in their line of duty handle situations too complicated to reduce to programmatic formats. According to Lipsky the use of discretion by street-level bureaucrats cannot be removed from everyday practices due to the complexity and uncertainty of human service work. These officers, Lipsky (1980) argues, cannot carry around instructions on how to intervene with citizens, particularly in potentially hostile encounters. This facilitated my interpretation of some of the actions of police officers that radically deviated from the written police rules and regulations. Lipsky (1980) infers that the lack of resources causes street-level bureaucrat to develop simplified routines for processing cases that influence their everyday tasks. He states that street-level bureaucrats are taught implementation skills instead of learning about how to find more resources, knowledge and information that would help them to implement policies more effectively. What police officers learn in police training, for instance, is different from what they must do on the street. They need to take everything that they learned and apply it to a particular situation often in limited time and with no full information. They must respond to citizen’s need and thus develop a mechanism to cope with the problem of doing their job better. Based on the nature of their job, they develop routines and practices that help them fulfil their mandate and in essence become policy makers. Lipsky (1981) and others (e.g., Blau, 1955; Scherz, 2011) have argued that the discretion street-level bureaucrats such as police officers possess is not a betrayal of the universal rule but rather a necessary artefact of bureaucratic practice. Discretion is not necessarily in a zero-sum relationship with rules. In fact, the strict following of the rules can hinder the realisation of practical results (Guyer, 2005; Satzewich, 2015). Even though frontline bureaucrats have this degree of discretion, Lipsky argues, they don’t necessarily abandon the rule of law, the system of government

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regulations and administrative procedures. Official rules and laws act as a guiding campus and are also a premise upon which street-level bureaucrats measure their performance and achievements. As results in the subsequent chapters of this research show, Ugandan police officers are indeed constantly balancing the official rules and informal processes and those that have mastered the art seem to retain their positions or even get promotions. Looking at the specific context of the police, a large volume of literature indicates that discretion is not just incidental, but an essential and unavoidable aspect of police work (Goldstein, 1960; LaFave, 1965; Davis, 1969, 1975; Tieger, 1971; Rumbaut & Bittner, 1979; Livingston, 1997; Mastrofski, 2004). Goldstein (1960), for instance, argued that police officers are usually free either to invoke or not invoke the law and might usurp the powers of judiciary if they decide not to invoke the law when the conditions for invoking it were in fact actually met. In this case, Goldstein added, police officers claim even greater powers than the magistrate, an officer could exonerate merely based on their own view of the facts and judgement and without explanation, while the judge can do the same in a similar case but only in accordance with rules of procedure in open court. Here, the analysis of discretionary powers held by police officers is helpful when applied in the context of Uganda, especially for operations in traffic police and the criminal investigations department. Courts have very little capacity ‘to constrain police and to control the discretion that they inevitably exercise on streets, in neighbourhoods, in the precincts where patrol officers are given their tours of duty, and in the administrative offices in which police enforcement policies are hammered out’ (Livingston, 1997). The individual policeman’s exercise of discretion leads one man into the courtroom as a criminal defendant and leaves another man untouched even when they have committed a similar offense (Tieger, 1971). As shall be demonstrated in the subsequent chapters, the UPF establishment, less still the courts, has very little capacity to constrain police officers and to control the discretion that they inevitably exercise in the field. As providers of public benefits and keepers of public order, street-level bureaucrats are the focus of political controversy. They are constantly torn by demands of service recipients to improve effectiveness and responsiveness and by the demand of citizens groups to improve the efficacy and efficiency of government services. The Ugandan police is often a controversial topic of debate not only in the way it executes its mandate, but especially its role in the political arena. The police deal with clients or makes decisions about clients on a case-by-case basis and yet there is variability in the people that they deal with. Meanwhile, the police structures are spread across the country, thus providing a viable unit of analysis towards understanding how public servants function in their day-to-day implementation of state programmes. The analysis of everyday symbolic interactions (Goffman, 1988) at police stations and in police operations presented in this book, therefore, broadens our knowledge base on the interactions between police officers and clients in Uganda. Most citizens in Uganda encounter government, if they encounter it at all, through interface bureaucrats such as teachers and police officers. Police officers on

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patrol or on the road enforcing traffic rules or at police stations conducing criminal investigations represent both an instance of policy delivery and a state-society relation of some sort.

Practical Norms The second concept that threads through the subsequent chapters is that of practical norms. Before delving further into what practical norms are and how they emerge, a definition of official or bureaucratic norms is important. Official norms constitute an array of norms that include legal norms, professional norms or bureaucratic procedures (Olivier de Sardan, 2009). They spell out the rights and obligations that are officially acknowledged by the public and professional institutions. Often, they are referred to as formal rules and regulations that are backed by a system of sanctions, directly or indirectly guaranteed by a formal institution or the state (Olivier de Sardan, 2015). However, the official norms are also diverse. For instance, constitutional norms may be applicable to every citizen, but professional norms are specific to those in each profession. In the specific case of the police, officers are guided by the professional norms of the police establishment that may not apply to others. Practical norms, then, are the various informal, de facto, tacit or latent norms that underlie actors’ practices, which diverge from the official norms (Olivier de Sardan, 2015). Looking into these practical norms makes it possible for us to describe and understand the presence and bridging of gaps between policy and practice, or the ‘game’ played with the official norms like what police officers do in Uganda. The concept of practical norms emerged directly from studies on public bureaucracies in West Africa and wider research carried out in other parts of Africa (Lund, 2008; Blundo & Le Meur, 2009; Anders, 2010; Hagmann & Péclard, 2010; Bierschenk & Olivier de Sardan, 2014). Olivier de Sardan (2009) and other concurring anthropologists have asked whether the practices of bureaucrats follow the stated policies of the bureaucracy and, if not, why that is so (Bear & Mathur, 2015; Bierschenk & Olivier de Sardan, 2014; Gupta & Ferguson, 2002; Hansen & Stepputat, 2001; Heyman, 1995, 2004; Trouillot, 2003a, b). To answer this question these anthropologists have called for an examination of the everyday practices of state functionaries. Central to the question regarding discrepancy between policies and practices is the concept of discretion that bureaucrats, and I argue also police officers, possess and use when interpreting whether and how to apply rules. The gap between official rules and actual practices is not entirely a space where norms are forgotten or missing, but where substitute norms that are defined as practical norms are in play (Olivier de Sardan, 2015). The substitute norms that emerge are often not made explicit or taught formally but are implicitly incorporated or embodied in the practices of civil servants and in this case the police officers.

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There is abundant literature on the state, administrations and public services in Africa, which agrees about the existence of considerable gaps between the official or bureaucratic norms that govern institutions and the actual practices of their employees. Scholars irrespective of their theoretical differences have concurred that the formal or bureaucratic norms and legislations, all of which have largely been modelled on western ideals, are rarely adhered to in Africa (Olivier de Sardan, 2015). The problem of the gap, however, extends beyond Africa and constitutes an interesting field of investigation for the social sciences in general (Blundo & Olivier de Sardan, 2006; Olivier de Sardan, 2015). The problem of the gap, Olivier de Sardan (2015) has offered, should be approached without any preconceived value judgements. To a large extent, the problem of gap is inevitable, it can have negative impacts on the delivery of public services, but can also have positive ones. I concur that the problem of the gap requires intensive empirical investigations such as what is presented in this research. In the professional world, both official and practical norms are part of any social situation. Official norms cannot be eliminated under the pretext that they are largely contravened – they are also followed sometimes considerably. Moreover, the official norms constitute an implicit background reference, and one cannot be researching practices while acting as though official norms did not exist or were nothing more than a façade (Olivier de Sardan, 2015). The divergence between official norms and practical norms is significant and creates a specific space for actor strategies. To re-phrase Bourdieu (1977), it could also be said that these practical norms are incorporated into a habitus as practices of police officers in Uganda demonstrate.

The Idea and Origin of Police and Policing To set the stage for the subsequent chapters, I turn the focus to briefly highlighting some of the major literature on the field of the police and policing. For a better conceptualisation of the Ugandan police, it is important to clarify on both the sociological origin and meaning of the concept police. From what sort of ‘pre-police’ structure did the police function emerge as a specialised organ? What then is policing and how is it related to police? (Robinson & Scaglion, 1987). Often the concept ‘police’ has been predominantly restricted to the functional logic of policing (Bowling & Sheptycki, 2012). This perspective that ‘there are criminals, so we need police to go after them’ is misleading and limited (Bowling & Sheptycki, 2012). For Brodeur (2010), this narrow position is ‘one that merely accepts the dictum of sensory perception: the police are to be equated with a group of persons outwardly displaying the signs of being police’. I agree with these scholars’ caution not to follow a limited and uncritical approach. I, therefore, take a broader viewpoint, which facilitated a deeper understanding of police practices in Uganda.

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The notion police is understood as the bureaucratic and hierarchical body assigned by the state to enforce law, maintain order and prevent and detect crime (Emsley, 1996). It has also been described as the institution which is given the general right to use coercive force on behalf of the state within the state’s domestic territory (Weber, 1947; Bayley, 1983, 1985; Klockars, 1985; Bittner, 1970, 1990; Bordua & Reiss, 1966). For this work, I adopt this conceptualisation though recognising some of its limitations in the contemporary world due to the ever-increasing cross-border criminality, the creation of INTERPOL and the crisscrossing roles of the police and the military. Aware of the fact that there are other ways of applying the notion ‘police’, I strictly use the term to refer to the Uganda Police Force (UPF) recognised and presided over by the government of Uganda. I adopt the term police officer/s precisely for those members who have been trained, assigned ranks and officially employed by the Uganda Police Force. The concept ‘policing’ can be taken to mean a set of broad social practices intended to order and control, organise and regulate society. It is both forward-­ looking, because it seeks to prevent future ills, and backward-looking, because it also concerns itself with past misdeeds and seeking out those who break the law (Bowling & Sheptycki, 2012). In broader and more modern understandings, policing and the functions of the police are considered central in ensuring the socio-­ political and economic order of state and society. In the Weberian sense, the police are core to the very existence of a modern state as is evident in his classical definition of the state as the entity that claims monopoly over legitimate use of force and coercion in the maintenance of order in each territory (Weber, 1947). There are two diametrically opposing schools of thought that explain why the idea of police came in place. On the one hand, the idea of police establishment, its development and improvement are seen as a noble solution to the problems of crime and disorder. The police then were founded to protect law-abiding citizens from those who want to prey on them (Emsley, 1996). This perspective presupposes consensus between the state and society and an unproblematic impartiality of the police (Robinson, 1978). Some schools of thought argue that the so-called social contract is core to police legitimacy because it provides the premises of the liberal idea of policing by consent (Sheptycki, 2012). On the other hand, the Marxists describe the police establishment as an instrument created by and for the dominant elites and the capitalist state to impose order, with an aim of keeping the less privileged masses under control and maintaining the hegemony of the elite. Since the police idea took root in the London metropolitan in 1829 as a response to the threat posed by the ‘dangerous classes’, police work across the globe seems to reflect a whole range of public contradictions, principally in its concentration of coercive control and surveillance (Wilson, 1968; Silver, 1967). Though intension here is not to resolve this debate, my findings reveal that the establishment of the modern police in Uganda in 1906 and its contemporary character appears to speak more to the Marxist interpretation. My findings agree with Bittner’s (1970) argument that police work in a class society is inherently discriminatory and tends to have socially divisive effects. The

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police, including the Uganda police, address all sorts of human problems. These roles may be as diverse as catching a criminal, driving a politician between work and home, evicting a drunken from a bar, directing traffic, crowd control, taking care of lost children, administering medical first aid and separating fighting relatives. Police work has developed historically as a tainted occupation, stigmatised in the public mind because of its connection with evil, crime and disorder, socially defined as ‘dirty work’ (Bittner, 1970). Police work is bound to be unpleasant to some, partly because, with few exceptions, it can accomplish something for somebody only by proceeding against someone else, and partly because it requires quick, often intuitive action and authoritative solutions to complex human problems and conflict. So as the saying goes, they are ‘damned if they do and damned if they don’t’ (Bittner, 1970). This perspective is valuable in understanding the challenges that police officers in Uganda face. Some have lost jobs while trying to implement the law as provided, while others make enemies including among their peers. Police officers perform all sorts of services in addition to enforcement of law and order. Several scholars have argued that peacekeeping makes up the bulk of police work, while routine criminal law enforcement is the work of only a minority of police officers, the greater majority only being minimally involved in activities leading to arrests and prosecutions (Banton, 1964; Niederhoffer, 1967; Rumbaut & Bittner, 1979). Empirical evidence drawn from the Ugandan police ties in well with this claim as only a limited number of officers in the UPF are engaged criminal law enforcement. Relatedly, Ugandan police officers’ decisions to arrest and prosecute are not necessarily limited to enforcing provisions of the law. Often, officers follow a multiplicity of logics including intentions to extort money from those classified as ‘suspects’, attempts at satisfying complainants of higher status, and some arrests are motivated by politics. Certainly, this is not limited to Uganda as some scholars have argued that police officers misuse the penal laws and their powers to accomplish selfish objectives, a phenomenon that exists far and beyond including the Western world (Bittner, 1970; Rumbaut & Bittner, 1979).

The Field and the Issue of Entry One of the major defining factors for this work was the unlimited access to the police spheres and the intense relations that were cultivated with a multitude of police officers at all levels of command. For a comprehensive study of the police, I argue here, a researcher needs to be inside the institution while at the same time sustaining intense contact with individual police officers on duty and also in their lifeworld beyond the confines of the institutional framework. My field experience as provided below clearly shows that without an ethnographic approach it would not have been possible to comprehend police practices in Uganda. In June 2013, I commenced my postdoctoral research at the University of Bremen in Germany in a research project ‘Policing in Africa’. From June to November 2013,

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I chose to conduct a desk research in my office thus reviewing Ugandan newspapers, reports published by International Non-Governmental Organisations (INGO) and police literature as part of the pre-field work preparation for the research on the UPF. The media and INGO reports continuously raised red flags and described the Ugandan police as incompetent, brutal, militarised, corrupt and politicised. To a great extent, these reports influenced my preliminary assumptions of what I was to expect in the field. In November 2013, I arrived in Uganda with some apprehension wondering how I was to successfully conduct field research in such a tainted institution. Will I be accepted? Will I get any information? Is it possible to have a nuanced perspective? As standard procedure, this research had to first be cleared by the police hierarchy. In that regard, I headed to police headquarters in Naguru, a suburb of Kampala city, expecting a laborious process. Following the usual processes of showing identification and filling forms indicating the officer I intended to visit and the reason for the visit, I was ushered to an office where the staff-officer of the Directorate of Research and Planning sat. Luckily, the officer was in office, but seemingly busy with volumes of documents and files on his desk. Gentleman, how can I help you? He asked. I then presented my request for permission to conduct research at police stations across the country. The officer politely put it to me that I had to write a concept note detailing the exact police stations I wanted to visit, the objectives of my research and the relevance of the research to the Uganda Police Force. He additionally insisted that I had to attach a letter from my university and two passport size photographs to the application. In my mind, I thought that the officer was finding ways to make my life difficult or perhaps building ground for a bribe. Nevertheless, I retreated to a lobby at one of the big hotels in Kampala, prepared the documentation and after three hours returned to Naguru to submit the application. The officer received the application and promised to call after two days. Based on my preconception of the Uganda police as an institution riddled with corruption, limited levels of transparency and accountability I feared that the officer would not call, or at worst, refuse to clear my research. Surprisingly, the officer called after two days indicating that my research had been cleared. I then rushed to his office to pick the clearance letter such that I could embark on my field research. The officer handed to me the clearance which was however missing one stamp according to his assessment. He thereafter walked up the stairs with me to the second floor of the building where all the Directors, the Inspector General of Police (IGP) and the deputy IGP (D/IGP) sit. The corridors and stairs were replete with several officers of different ranks, which was a bit intimidating. We arrived at the secretary of his boss, the Director Research and Planning who ushered us into the office. Quite frankly the director was gracious swiftly instructing the secretary to stamp the clearance papers before appending his signature. While seeing me off the director humorously said, ‘your name is Jude, don’t be Judas the Iscariot and disappear after your research, please share the finding because as the Directorate of Research we also want to improve our knowledge’. He further gave me a heads-up that some police stations are somehow ok while others are not.

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I did not want to ask any follow-up question to understand what his statement meant. First, I was not prepared to interview him and all I wanted was a clearance letter. Second, I feared that if I asked questions at that moment, I would raise some red flags or perhaps the clearance would be withdrawn before I even start. I only smiled, thanked him and left the police headquarters immediately. The next day, I randomly decided to start my research at Jinja Road Police station in Kampala. When I arrived at the station, I requested the officers at the counter that I wanted to see the Division Police Commander (DPC). After gazing at me ‘from head to toe’ one officer hurriedly offered to show me the DPC’s office located on the first floor. On seeing my clearance letter the DPC asked, do you want to start now? I answered in affirmative. He did not only clear me but also assigned one Sergeant to introduce me to the other officers at the station. This was rather impressive because I had different experiences at other stations; at some stations, it took me two days to get audience and full attention of DPCs. After leaving the DPC’s office, the Sergeant took me around the station telling everybody that cared to listen that the DPC had assigned him as my assistant and will not perform other duties for some time. This was an interesting way of using orders to his advantage, of course. The DPC had clearly instructed him to only introduce me and then return to his duties. However, this worked to my advantage because he became a very good interlocutor. After the introductions the Sergeant casually told me that I should begin with traffic police where officers make good money. I obliged and then decided to begin at the traffic department. The Sergeant walked me there and we found two officers, a male and female preparing to go to the field. The two officers clad in their white uniforms offered me an opportunity to join them in the field, an invite that I precisely wished for. In my perspective the officers embraced me even before understanding what I really wanted. This was evident because they started asking questions of who I was, what I was doing and why I was interested in traffic police when we were already in the field. Drawing on my pre-conceived understanding of the traffic police, I assumed that we were heading to the streets to control traffic. However, I was wrong because we were heading to the biggest hospital in Uganda, Mulago. At the hospital, we proceeded straight to the morgue from where the officers were to trace for the post-­ mortem reports of victims who had died in traffic accidents. To the relief of the officers, most of the reports were found following a rather laborious search. Next, the three of us headed to the wards to check on the hospitalised victims of traffic accidents. I noticed that the sight of the police officers was a source of instant relief to the victims who explained their state of health and asked several questions regarding the suspected traffic offenders and the progress of their cases. To the victims, the officers seemed to a symbolise hope because they are the only link to those meant to compensate or pay for their treatment. The officers followed up with phone calls to the implicated drivers asking when they would settle the victims’ hospital bills. To get more insight I accompanied officers on their actitivies in hostitals five more times.

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This encounter struck me in several ways. First, at the morgue, the officers tirelessly searched through piles of documents and were visibly distressed at the thought that some of the files of ‘their victims’, as they commonly referred to them, could have been misplaced. In this case, the files sought for included Police Form 48A used as request for post-mortem examination and Police Form 48B which is the actual post-mortem report. In one particular case, the female officer displayed extreme emotions of content on discovering that one of the dead bodies of a previously unidentified victim had been claimed by relatives. Her worry had been that the victim would be buried at a mass grave. The officer quickly followed up by making frantic telephone calls to the relatives of the victim after retrieving their phone numbers on file at the morgue. She wanted to fully confirm that indeed the victim’s body had been claimed and would get a proper burial. This incident is an indicator of my finding that in police work human emotions play a profound role. Based on my observation, the officer was not simply following protocol; to her, the victim was more than just a number but was a human being who deserved proper burial. The officer told me that this case was not isolated, and she had witnessed many accident victims buried in mass graves without any of their relatives ever knowing what happened. ‘Something like that can happen to any of us, it can happen to my own children’, she summed-up. In Uganda and most of Africa, burial is sacred comprising of several traditional rituals. Moreover, the majority of the people are buried on an ancestral land. A body buried by strangers and in a place that family members have no knowledge or connection to is culturally disheartening. To me this was one of the features of the policing field that seemed opaque to many citizens that I later interacted with. Many people’s understanding of the people seems to be shaped by the media and political discussions that normally concentrate on the negative aspects. As a result of these experiences, I wrote an article for the wider public, which is titled, ‘the Police you do not know…’. This article was published on 22 March 2014 by the Independent Magazine and on 30 March 2014 re-published in the New Vision, the biggest newspaper in Uganda. When the article came to the attention of the IGP, Gen. Kale Kayihura he decided to meet with me. Thinking that I might be a proud and difficult academic to talk to, the IGP went through Andrew Mwenda, a public intellectual and owner of the Independent Magazine, to convey the invitation. In my perspective, this was a great opportunity and development for the research, and I felt that I needed him more than he needed me. After a couple of meetings with the IGP he offered to recruit me as a consultant towards the establishment of the Police Senior Command and Staff College, with the goal of building academic programmes there. I then consulted my superior at Bremen University, Prof. Dr. Klaus Schlichte, who also found the development important for the research. The IGP and I then agreed that my research would remain independent and should not in any way be expected to play a public relations role for the force. Here, I agree with Jensen (2013) who argued that ethnographers can easily find themselves roped into the work of the organisation under study.

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Before taking the consultancy, I flew back to Germany because my first field trip had been planned for five months November 2013 to March 2014. I had not received any official document regarding the consultancy besides a verbal agreement and a promise that the formalities would be sorted. The communication grew a bit cold, and I did not expect the consultancy to work out since I had also been told the formalities are laborious. In September 2014, the IGP officially invited me as the main speaker at the memorial public lecture of Erinayo Oryema, the first Ugandan IGP who was assassinated by former Ugandan president, Idi Amin, in 1976. The public lecture that was held at Makerere University Kampala was part of the police’s celebrations to mark its 100 years in existence. This lecture was attended by over 1000 people including ministers, vocal members of the opposition, professors, students and journalists. Right from by arrival at the airport I received special treatment and for the first time used the VIP lounge, my baggage being taken care of by officers assigned to me and life was completely different from what I was used to. I was driven straight to the five-star Serena Hotel where I resided for two weeks. First, I thought that this was an attempt to buy me off, but later I learned that all IGP’s guests arriving from abroad are treated in a similar manner. The invitation to give the lecture and the acceptance to be a consultant completely changed the tide in the field. I could literally access most police spaces without any restriction, sometimes reaching spheres such as IGP’s office or meetings at strategic level where majority of the police officers are not able or are not allowed to reach. I got extensively immersed in the milieu of the police both as an ethnographer and consultant. I held an office within the force, something I had not previously envisaged. At my office located at the Police Senior Command and Staff College within the Kampala Metropolitan, I interfaced with commanders drawn from the entire country to undertake numerous in-house trainings at the college. Ultimately, the Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni awarded me the ‘Golden Jubilee Medal’, the highest medal a civilian can obtain, in February 2018 in recognition of my contribution towards the professionalisation of the Uganda Police Force. This medal was specifically a result of the work I did towards the establishment of the Police Senior Command and Staff College located in Bwebajja. The function was covered live on various television stations, and I also got the opportunity to shake hands with the president, and as the ritual dictates, to pose for a photo opportunity with him. This medal was of strategic interest for the police who were attempting to show that they were able to attract independent scholars to bring ideas towards the ‘professionalisation’ of the force. At this time, the police were also lobbying for more resources towards building a college with an emphasis on both academic and police training curriculums. My engagements with the police as both an ethnographer and consultant opened many doors and granted me vast access enabling me to navigate through the highly fluid and constantly shifting police spaces and policing terrains. This allowed me to participate in several police activities, planning meetings and operations, and to intensively interact with officers at all levels. At police’s official functions, protocol officers always ushered me to the area reserved for the most senior officers, Assistant

xxiv

Introduction

Inspector Generals of Police (AIGPs). Surprisingly, the majority of the officers I interacted with continually shared perspectives that were highly critical of the government and the police institution. I interviewed over 150 officers and socially interacted with hundreds of others in different parts of Uganda. At the police college, meanwhile, I gave lectures and engaged in countless debates and off-the-record discussions. Some of the data for this book was generated from the course work assignments that were issued out at the college. In this period, I visited over 80 police stations across the country. Some of the visits were conducted under the framework of police’s official duty. The IGP assigned me several tasks. He appointed me to work together with seven carefully selected officers, according to his own words, to write the ‘Police Force Doctrine’. This process involved extensive research at different police facilities across the country. I was also assigned the duty of looking through the training curriculum at other police training facilities such as Kabalye in Masindi (western Uganda) where cadet and police constables are trained. In some cases, my interviewees would mix-up my roles struggling to separate whether the interview was for the purposes of police’s internal consumption or my individual research work. Though I tried as much as possible to separate the two, overlaps often happened. In some interviews, for instance, officers would try to use me as a channel to communicate their challenges to the administration. Where I found it necessary, I shared with some top officers the plights of their juniors only in instances where I judged that no one would be victimised. At the tactical level (lowest level of command), I participated in patrols, drink-­ driving operations, controlled traffic flow, attended suspects’ parades (role-call), sat at police counters and brainstormed with officers in the post-operations reviews. On many evenings, I retired with lower-level officers to a pot of marwa (local brew) in Kampala slums. Lower-level officers tended to gossip more about their bosses detailing whom they hated and those that they liked. Some of the lower ranked officers have served in the police much longer than their bosses and perpetually complained how the system had favoured the ‘un-deserving’ and mostly young officers. At operational level (mid-level command), I sat in offices of Regional Police Commanders (RPCs) or heads of departments and commanders of specialised units to get a fill of what such tasks entailed. At strategic level, I sat in several meetings such as the Police Policy and Advisory Committee (PAC) or with the IGP to discuss several strategic issues. I, on several occasions, revelled with senior officers at five-­ star hotels and posh cafes. This helped me to understand the different lifestyles officers of different ranks live outside the work environment. Many officers at different levels of command invited me to their homes to interact with their families, which gave me an extra layer to understand police officers’ life-words beyond institutional frameworks. I also attended several weddings of officers and some few burial ceremonies when an officer lost a relative. Likewise, officers visited me at my place of abode and some called on my mother even in my absence. The UPF, meanwhile, contributed immensely towards the burial expenses of my father who died in July 2015. The UPF paid for the funeral services, and the

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xxv

police band made an over 300  km journey from Kampala to my home city Fort Portal, western to play at the last funnel ceremony. Meanwhile, I conducted additional interviews with people drawn from a variety of walks of life. I occasionally talked to suspects and complainants when chance and environment allowed, especially in cases of traffic offense such as drink-­driving. Often such conversations were spontaneous, and sometimes initiated by suspects/ complainants themselves. I also talked to crime preventers, taxi drivers, ordinary people, members of the civil society, politicians and journalists. I predominantly conducted the research in English because every police officer in Uganda speaks it. Occasionally I spoke local languages including Luganda, which is the most spoken language in Uganda, and Rutooro, with those who understood it.

Book Structure I present the subsequent chapters of this book as follows. In the first chapter, I provide an historical overview that highlights the origins of the UPF and its roots in British colonialism. The chapter further discusses the UPF as an institution by focusing on the administrative, command and operational structures of the force. It explains the astronomical growth of the force in terms of numbers, coercive capacity, extensive reach and political importance. In Chap. 2, I delve into the subject of political policing, particularly the partisan dimension of the Ugandan police. I illuminate the complex, unequivocal and sometimes cryptic relations between the police and the ruling party, the National Resistance Movement (NRM). Attention is paid to the macro-organisational level of the police, yet at the same time, I analyse how individual police officers interpret the ties and apply their own volition to make operational decisions that favour the NRM. Chapter 3 examines the work of territorial police commanders, paying specific attention to Regional Police Commanders (RPCs) and District Police Commanders (DPCs). I explain what commanders do and how they operate or organise their tasks on a day-to-day basis. The chapter underscores that political policing plays a critical role in the way commanders organise their duties. The chapter further analyses the social, political and professional pressures that commanders face, but also shows that these positions are envied (‘wet’) and competed for. Chapter 4 deals with the Criminal Investigation Department (CID). I discuss how the official and practical norms frequently overlap. Detectives are the prototype street-level bureaucrats who work with enormous discretion. The CID is considered the lifeblood of the UPF, and the success of the police hinges on its ability to solve cases. The chapter presents an analysis of how the CID is organised, how the detectives approach investigations, how they use their powers and authority on a day-to-­ day basis and why the department is considered a lucrative (wet) deployment. In Chap. 5, I focus on the traffic police. The chapter shows that traffic police officers like their CID counterparts are a classic example of street-level bureaucrats and in essence policy makers on the road. Traffic operations and duties involve

xxvi

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intense negotiations and mediation processes comprising of police officers, drivers and victims of traffic accidents and owners of motor vehicles. The chapter shows that traffic police is considered a lucrative (wet) deployment majorly because officers often deal with relatively ‘rich clients’, that is, those who own vehicles. I further discuss drink-driving operations and how the newly adopted breathalyser technology is still socially contested. In Chap. 6, I analyse the Ugandan police in rural areas. I argue that rural policing in Uganda is in tandem with available literature on rural policing elsewhere. I show that in rural areas elders and clan mechanisms aid police officers in resolving a variety of conflicts but often also conflict with what police are doing. It shows that in many instances when people report cases to police, they also resort to their traditional mechanisms of conflict resolution at the same time. I also demonstrate how at some rural police stations, practical norms of crime management strategies outside the official norms have emerged. Chapter 7 analyses the complex web of the Uganda police’s organisational politics configured in the relationships between individual police officers, operational structures and administrative hierarchies, sometimes even stretching beyond the confines of the force. I explain that rivalry majorly steams from the competition for lucrative (wet) positions including deployment as territorial commanders, in the CID and traffic departments. Though these organisational politics are characterised by different strands of relationships, I particularly concentrate on internal rivalry and intrigue, which seems difficult to disentangle in detail if one is not embedded in the police spheres. Finally, I provide a conclusion outlining the six facets of the Ugandan police, which are drawn from the empirical evidence and arguments made in the seven chapters. I point out that this work opens other research queries, which will strengthen literature on police studies, which is currently limited especially on the police forces in Africa.

Acknowledgements

I owe a great deal of gratitude to several people and institutions that made writing this book a satisfying task. I must thank Prof. Dr. Klaus Schlichte for his insightful reviews and endless support. This research endeavour was made possible through funding by the German Research Foundation (the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft – DFG). The research was located in the ‘Policing in Africa Project’ within the framework of the Priority Programme 1448 ‘Adaptation and Creativity in Africa’. My thanks go to the Institute for Intercultural and International Studies (InIIS) Bremen University Germany, my academic home since June 2013. I must thank my parents the late Sir. Peter Bacwa and Mrs. Restituta Kabateera Bacwa who made sure that I always appreciated the value of academics. I am grateful to the late Assistant Inspector General of Police (AIGP) Andrew Felix Kaweesi whose insights into the Uganda Police Force helped to shape several arguments in this book. As a consultant with the Uganda Police, I also closely worked with Andrew until he was brutally assassinated in March 2017. I thank Gen. Kale Kayihura, the former Inspector General of the Uganda Police who entrusted me with critical roles in the establishment of the Police Senior Command and Staff College-Bwebajja. Despite his busy schedule, Gen. Kayihura often found time to talk to me thus enriching this research. I thank the hundreds of police officers who freely provided their perspectives that helped to shape my analysis. I extend my appreciation to Andrew Mwenda for his endless intellectual discussions and encouragement during the course of this research. A number of colleagues at the Institute for Intercultural and International Studies (InIIS) including Alex Nadege Ouedraogo, Alex Veit, Anna Wolkenhauer, Julian Friesinger, Philipp Schulz, Roy Karadag and Sarah Biecker provided valuable comments for this work. I also thank Claudia Herold, Dorothea von Koenen, Tina Menge and Peter Arnhold for their support.

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Acknowledgements

Finally, my family endured with my prolonged absence from home and continually supported me in the course of writing this book. Thank you very much Linda Besigiroha, Clarence, Clarissa, Jaidean, Jude-Junior, Zed and Zora. I also thank Daniel, Chloe and Darlene for their moral support.

Abstract

This book discusses practices of the Uganda Police Force (UPF), which are understood as fluid and reflective of the socio-political, cognitive and discursive contexts within it exists. It draws on the author’s extended immersion in the police both as an ethnographer and a consultant. It demonstrates how police officers navigate clashes between personal and institutional interests shedding more light on the divergences and convergences between policies in theory and policies in social practice. At a conceptual level, two core notions, street-level bureaucracy and practical norms thread through the chapters of the book. This is the first ethnographic study of the Ugandan police certainly strengthening literature on police studies. It broadens our understanding of policing and the anthropology of the state in Africa. A number of questions are answered: How is the Ugandan police organised? How does it work on a day-to-day basis? Why does it work the way it does? What are the socio-political and cultural contexts within which it works? What factors other than formal legal frameworks influence police officers? And finally, how do police officers interpret and execute their work? Overall, six core facets that define the Ugandan police are indentified. First, the force explicitly engages in political policing. Second, most police officers are street-­ level bureaucrats and de facto policy makers. Third, policing in Uganda is defined by negotiations. Fourth, the force is a socially embedded institution. Fifth, the force’s role stretches beyond its legal mandate. Sixth, organisational politics characterised by intrique and competition matter. Keywords Uganda Police Force; Political policing; Street-level bureaucracy; Practical norms; President Yoweri Museveni; General Kale Kayihura; Wet deployments; Police commanders; Police-client negotiations; Police stations

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Contents

1

 Administration, Command and Operational Structures ��������������������    1 Introduction������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    1 The Colonial Origins and Political Disorder ��������������������������������������������    1 The Legal Mandate in Contemporary Perspective������������������������������������    4 The Police Authority������������������������������������������������������������������������������    5 The Police Council��������������������������������������������������������������������������������    6 Management and Command Structure������������������������������������������������������    6 Configuration of Ranks������������������������������������������������������������������������������    8 Strength, Capabilities and Extension into New Spheres����������������������������   10 Women in the UPF��������������������������������������������������������������������������������   13 Extension into New Spheres������������������������������������������������������������������   14 Politics of the Budget and Finance Management��������������������������������������   17

2

Political Policing: The Fusion Between the Police and the Ruling Party��������������������������������������������������������������������   21 Introduction������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   21 Conceptions of Political Policing��������������������������������������������������������������   22 The Ideological Capture����������������������������������������������������������������������������   25 The Character of Police in the Electoral Cycles����������������������������������������   29 The Kogikwatako Episode ������������������������������������������������������������������������   32 Police Commanders in the Context of an Election������������������������������������   35 The Soft Power Strategy����������������������������������������������������������������������������   36 Police Officers’ Political Inclinations��������������������������������������������������������   39 The Crime Preventers Political Scheme����������������������������������������������������   42

3

 The Daily Life of a Territorial Police Commander������������������������������   47 Introduction������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   47 Principle Duties of DPCs/RPCs����������������������������������������������������������������   48 Fluidity in Command Strategies����������������������������������������������������������������   51 Arbitration ‘Experts’����������������������������������������������������������������������������������   54 A Day with an RPC������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   55 Placed Between a Rock and a Hard Place ������������������������������������������������   57 xxxi

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Managing Expectations: Balancing the Interests of Influential People, Kith and Kin����������������������������������������������������������������   59 The Question of Personnel and Budget ����������������������������������������������������   64 4

 Official Versus Practical Norms in Criminal Investigations����������������   67 Introduction������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   67 Origins and Approaches to Criminal Investigations����������������������������������   68 Structure and Functions of the CID ����������������������������������������������������������   70 Originating Investigations at the Police Counter ��������������������������������������   71 Dynamics of Case Files ����������������������������������������������������������������������������   73 The Practice of Arresting Before Investigations����������������������������������������   77 The Pocket Files����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   79 Cost Sharing Expenses of Investigations ��������������������������������������������������   83 Criminal Infiltration ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������   85

5

 The Traffic Police: The ‘Devils in White’����������������������������������������������   89 Introduction������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   89 The Structure and Mandate of the Traffic Police ��������������������������������������   91 The ‘Wet’ Deployment������������������������������������������������������������������������������   92 Inside the Traffic Police Office������������������������������������������������������������������   95 On the Road with the Traffic Police����������������������������������������������������������   99 The Presidential Convoy: ‘The Long One’������������������������������������������������  102 The ‘Kawunyemu’: Drink-Driving Operations������������������������������������������  104 The Social Interpretation of the Breathalyser Technology������������������������  108

6

 The Policing in Rural Areas��������������������������������������������������������������������  111 Introduction������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  111 Isolation from the Centre ��������������������������������������������������������������������������  112 Crime Rates During the Harvest Period����������������������������������������������������  116 A Blended Approach of Police and Witchcraft������������������������������������������  118 The Market Day ‘Bonanza’ ����������������������������������������������������������������������  121 Investigations in a Rural Set-Up����������������������������������������������������������������  122 Crime Albums and Determining of Suspects Through Secret Ballot��������  125

7

 The Power Game: Organisational Politics and Intrigue����������������������  129 Introduction������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  129 Observing Organisational Politics in Action����������������������������������������������  130 Interpreting Organisational Politics ����������������������������������������������������������  131 The Nucleus of the UPF’s Organisational Politics������������������������������������  133 Staying in the Game����������������������������������������������������������������������������������  135 Striving for ‘Wet’ and Strategies to Elude ‘Dry’ Deployments ����������������  139

Conclusion ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  143 References����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  153 Index������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  163

List of Tables

Table 1.1 UPF strength as of March 2018���������������������������������������������������������� 13 Table 4.1 UPF Case Management Statistics 2018���������������������������������������������� 81 Table 5.1 Accidents per year (2012–2015 and 2018) ���������������������������������������� 97

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Chapter 1

Administration, Command and Operational Structures

Introduction As an embedded researcher and a consultant, I made extensive observations of the Uganda Police Force (UPF) bureaucracy in practice. In this chapter I discuss the bureaucratic structures of the force focussing on the administrative, command and operational configurations. The chapter answers several questions: What are the origins of the UPF? How is the UPF bureaucratically organised in contemporary perspective? What are the legal provisions and how do the operational structures play out in practice? What are the institutional continuities and discontinuities? First, I present a brief overview of the colonial origins of the police. My foremost objective here is to provide context for a better comprehension of the subsequent chapters. I then explain the undercurrents of the legal frameworks, policies and procedures, the rank configurations and institutional growth in terms of funding, numbers, capital investment, weaponry and fleet size. In addition, I elucidate on the increased police presence in sociopolitical spaces where it previously played no or limited role. The chapter sheds light on the post-2005 era when Gen. Kayihura took over as the police chief. Here, the strategies that have propelled the force to scale new heights are discussed. Expectedly, Ugandan police has some replications of global police culture such as bureaucratic routines, organisational hierarchies, training and policing schemes such as community policing.

The Colonial Origins and Political Disorder The UPF is a product of colonialism, which started in 1894 when the British declared Uganda a protectorate. In 1903, the colonial government passed the Uganda Armed Constabulary and the Uganda Prisons Ordinance to institute the © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 J. Kagoro, Inside an African Police Force, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-14992-4_1

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1  Administration, Command and Operational Structures

civil police force and prison service. In 1906, the Uganda Protectorate Police, a stand-alone department, was then established under the leadership of a British officer, Captain William Frederick Savery Edwards (CHRI report, 2006, p. 2; Buwembo, 2014, pp. 17–19). The police, like other bureaucracies elsewhere in Africa, evolved alongside the despotism and violence of the colonial rule (Olivier de Sardan, 2009). The force was primarily designed to protect colonial administration and foster economic exploitation (Harwich, 1961; Anderson & Killingray, 1992; Hills 2000, p. 29). By 1913, each of the 12 police stations across the country had a Criminal Investigation Department (CID) (CHRI, 2006).1 The police in general and the CID in particular faced numerous challenges in the prosecution of cases. There was a language barrier between the people, the police and the judiciary. In many cases a double translation from a native language to Swahili and then from Swahili to English would be required (Beaden, 2009). In other cases, suspects would hastily be encouraged to plead guilty in exchange for a light sentence, but many did not understand what they were pleading to and some would be horrified when sentences were passed (Beaden, 2009). To avoid embarrassment, many police officers who often doubled as prosecutors would transfer cases to the native courts. Though the native courts had unconventional procedures, the officers perceived it that justice was prompt and sentences were beneficial (Harwich, 1961; Beaden, 2009, Ch. 10). The colonial police regularly used torture, which they referred to as ‘third degree method’, to extract information from suspects and witnesses. The officers reasoned that a person who committed or witnessed a crime and refused to cooperate deserved severe punishment corresponding to the magnitude of the offence (Harwich, 1961). By the time the police celebrated a Golden Jubilee in 1956, it had four police regions (Buganda, Eastern, Northern and Western), 19 police districts and 87 police stations across the country. Despite the expansion, the force remained thin on the ground. Police outposts predominantly manned by indigenous police personnel were located about 35–50 km from the main stations. There was lack of effective means of transport and a poor road network (Beaden, 2009). Most merchants especially the Asians privately organised watch committees due to the unreliability and inadequacy of the regular police (Harwich, 1961). Several ethnic groups had their local police forces that would join the colonial police in conducting specific operations such as manhunting suspects or patrolling localities (Harwich, 1961). The Native Authority Police which belonged to the king of Buganda was the largest of the local forces. Though the native outfits enforced law and order including payment of taxes, they were not allowed to handle capital offense such as murder (Beaden, 2009). By the time the former British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan made his famous ‘Wind of Change’ speech to a South African parliament during his 6-week tour of ‘British Africa’ in 1960, the force had gradually started to promote

 See the Uganda Police Force, Criminal Intelligence and Investigations Directorate Centenary Plus Celebrations handbook, pp. 3–6. 1

The Colonial Origins and Political Disorder

3

indigenous policemen to positions that were previously considered out of their reach (Beaden, 2009). When Michael Macoun, the last British Inspector General of Police (IGP), took over the leadership in 1959, his immediate task was the ‘Africanisation’ of the force. Macoun sent several Ugandan officers for management training at Wakefield, United Kingdom. On October 9, 1962, Uganda gained independence and the new central government assumed full responsibility for public safety and order, though the semi-­ autonomous federal states, especially Buganda, initially kept their own small police forces (Hills, 2000). To manage the post-independence transition, Macoun continued as the IGP until 1964 when he was replaced by an indigenous Ugandan, Erinayo Oryema (Macoun, 1996). The post-colonial police force was premised on the foundation of the colonial state and it had limited connections to the wider society it was meant to serve (Hills, 2000). All the subsequent post-independence regimes continued to use the force for political ends (Hills, 2000; Kagoro, 2012, 2015). The post-colonial political disorder profoundly affected police administration as appointments and promotions were majorly premised on officers’ political inclination. Those perceived to be loyal were rewarded with rapid promotions regardless of qualifications (Hills, 2000). The police begun to crumble in 1964 when Prime Minister Milton Obote started using the security forces to crack down on the opposition (Sebutinde Commission Report, 2000). In 1966, Obote used the army to dispose Edward Mutesa, the first Ugandan president who also doubled as the king of Buganda. In this period the police remained second fiddle to the army and acted in fear of it (Macoun, 1996). Obote was later overthrown through a coup by Idi Amin in 1971. During the infamous reign of Amin, some junior officers were more superior to their seniors and it was common practice for the former to report directly to the president, bypassing the official channels of command (CHRI report, 2006, p. 3). Amin ruthlessly murdered police officers who he thought were Obote’s supporters (Macoun, 1996; Hills, 2000). For instance, 27 police officers who had returned from a police course in the Soviet Union were all executed in 1971 (Buwembo, 2014). After the fall of Amin’s regime in 1971, the new government tried to reorganise the force though many of those that were perceived to be Amin’s allies deserted or run into exile. The new government recruited 26 fresh university graduates to undergo a police training in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. However, rivalries within the new government affected the rebuilding process. Three recruits, Jim Muhwezi, David Tinyefuza and John Tumukunde, were known allies of Yoweri Museveni who later formed a rebel group to fight for power. In fact, after completing the police training, Jim Muhwezi and David Tinyefuza joined Museveni in the bush war in 1981, while John Tumukunde was killed before joining. In the aftermath of winning the disputed 1980 elections, Obote’s second presidency (1980–1985) faced tremendous pressure within his security forces and rebel groups, including the National Resistance Army/Movement (NRA/M) led by the current president, Yoweri Museveni. Almost every minister and member of parliament representing Obote’s party, the Uganda People’s Congress (UPC), had a paramilitary gang of his own (Karugire, 2003). Each of these gangs exercised limitless

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power over innocent civilians. In July 1985, Obote was deposed through a coup spearheaded by a military junta of Gen. Tito Okello and Brig. Bazilio Okello (Lindemann, 2011; Kagoro, 2013). During this post-colonial disorder, the state was absent in rural areas and citizens minimally dealt with the police force, if at all (Hills, 2000). Following a 5-year guerrilla war, Museveni and his NRA/M captured power in January 1986 inheriting a disorganised, corrupt and ill-equipped police force (Kagoro, 2015). The new regime adopted a philosophy of involving local communities and Resistance Councils (RCs), now Local Councils (LCs), in areas such as crime prevention (Hills, 2000; Baker, 2004, 2005). LCs’ involvement in security, including night patrols with the army and police, Bruce Baker (2005) maintains, had a remarkable ordering effect. Moreover, the LCs acted as the first-line of protection against disorder and crime (Baker, 2005, p. 23). Though NRM profoundly improved the security landscape in the country, the police force remained in the shadow of the military (Kagoro, 2015). The government doubted its loyalty, kept it underfunded and under prioritised (Baker, 2005; Hills, 2000; CHRI, 2006). In 1999, the government appointed a judicial commission headed by Lady Justice Julia Sebutinde to probe the police and address the mess in the force.2 In 2001, President Museveni appointed a military general, Katumba Wamala, as the IGP. Gen. Katumba managed to make positive changes and improved the discipline of officers (Baker, 2007, p. 27). In his thesis, Multi-Choice Policing in Uganda, Bruce Baker (2005), shows that despite some challenges, including corruption, many of his interviewees commonly responded that the police in Uganda was friendlier, approachable and showed respect to citizens. To Baker, this was a remarkable turnaround given that across much of Africa, the police are often held in contempt and fear. In 2005, Gen. Katumba was replaced by Gen. Kale Kayihura who profoundly closed the ideological gap between the ruling party and the police.

The Legal Mandate in Contemporary Perspective Following the post-colonial political disorder, Uganda promulgated a new constitution in 1995. This constitution establishes the UPF as a government institution that falls under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and is led by the IGP. The force is established by Article 211 of the 1995 Constitution and CAP 303 of the Uganda Police Act of 1994. It is composed of the following: the regular UPF, the Uganda Police Reserve, special constables and any other person appointed as a member in terms of the Police Act of 1994. The functions of the force are as follows: 1 . To protect life and property 2. To preserve law and order  The commission’s terms of reference were specified in Legal Notice No. 2 of 1999, amended by legal Notice No. 5 of 1999. 2

The Legal Mandate in Contemporary Perspective

5

3 . To prevent and detect crime 4. To cooperate with the civilian authority, other security organs and the general population 5. Subject to section 9 of the Police Act: to perform the services of a military force 6. To perform any other functions assigned to it under the Police Act The force has an oversight mechanism that includes a Police Authority and a Police Council. The two are statutory bodies mandated to monitor the activities of the force throughout the country. The functions of both the Police Authority and Police Council are provided for in the Police Act.

The Police Authority Sections 8 and 9 of the Police Act establish a Police Authority composed of the Minister of Internal Affairs, attorney general, IGP, Deputy Inspector General of Police (D/IGP), a senior officer and three other persons appointed by the president. In principle all the members of the Police Authority are presidential appointees, either by virtual of the positions they hold or by direct appointment to the authority. The organ is chaired by the Minister of Internal Affairs. Its functions include advising government on policy matters relating to the management, development and administration of the UPF and on the appointments of the IGP and D/IGP. Several lower- and mid-level officers I interacted with were not sure of the exact roles of the entity. Some commanders including regional police commanders (RPCs) and district police commanders (DPCs) doubted whether the Police Authority had any substantial influence on the force. Specifically, it appears to be a known fact in police circles that the Police Authority does not play a significant role, if any, in the appointment of the IGP. This prerogative, officers argued, is entirely at the discretion of the president. Despite perceptions, the IGP, the D/IGP and all the directors at the rank of Assistant Inspector General of Police (AIGP) must apply through it before their contracts are extended. ‘There is no possibility of getting a contract extension without a letter of endorsement from the Police Authority’, one AIGP stated. Most of the directors, however, intimated that the IGP had much more influence and in essence only answerable to the president. As a trusted cadre of the ruling party and a confidant of the president, the IGP, Gen. Kale Kayihura, seemed to possess significant discretion and made most of the major decisions for the force. Four directors separately insinuated that the IGP had a much closer relationship with the president than any other member of the Police Authority. Moreover, there was a shared perspective in police circles that the Authority is most times embroiled in a clash of egos between the minister and the IGP.  The clashes, most officers shared, were at their height when President Museveni appointed the former Chief of Defence Forces of the Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF), Gen. Aronda Nyakairima, as the Minister of Internal Affairs in 2013. Aronda died of a heart

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attack on a plane while travelling on official duties from South Korea in 2015. During his time as the Minister of Internal Affairs, Gen. Aronda is believed to have avoided contact with Gen. Kayihura delegating most of the police-related duties to either his deputy or to the permanent secretary. High placed sources intimated that in 2014, Aronda was part of the larger group that attempted to block Gen. Kayihura’s contract renewal before scheme fell through.

The Police Council Section 10 of the Police Act establishes a Police Council whose role among others is to ensure standards in recruitment, appointments, promotions, training, discipline, formulation and development of policies and structures of UPF are followed. Members of the Police Council are the IGP, D/IGP, all directors, heads of departments, commanders of specialised units, regional police commanders, one member of the Inspectorate and three members of non-commissioned officers. The Police Council is supposed to congregate twice a year though this schedule is rarely followed. For instance, there was no single Police Council meeting in 2014, and in 2016 there was only one sitting. Officially, the council is the legislative arm of the force, though the two council meetings I attended in 2015 and 2017 were briefings. The officers were only listening and taking instructions from the IGP who at the same time only attended a few sessions. The Police Council seemed to be overshadowed by Police Advisory Committee (PAC) which is the top committee of the council. Section 11 (2) of the Police Act establishes the PAC, which is comprised of the IGP, D/IGP, all directors, the undersecretary and a staff member from the public service attached to the police. Officially, the PAC is supposed to be chaired by the IGP though often this role is assumed by the D/IGP. I attended a total of 12 PAC meetings during this research and observed that it was a very strong organ that encourages active debates, especially when the IGP is absent. This organ makes binding decisions that are by and large implemented or at least taken seriously. My observations were that the force’s policies are top-down, with limited input, if any from the lower structures.

Management and Command Structure Article 213 of the constitution specifies that the command of the UPF shall be under the IGP assisted by the D/IGP. Article 214 states that the parliament shall regulate and make laws that enhance the UPF’s organisation and administration, ensuring that members of the force are equitably recruited from every district of Uganda. The IGP is the chief accounting officer of the UPF and performs his/her functions in accordance with the constitution and under the guidance and advice of the Minister of Internal Affairs, the Police Authority and Police Council. Both the IGP and the

Management and Command Structure

7

D/IGP are appointed by the president on the advice of the Police Authority, subject to approval of parliament. However, there is a shared belief in the UPF that the president does not consult with any known organ in his decision to appoint the police chiefs and never has any of his appointees for these positions been rejected by the parliament. The constitutional provisions, moreover, do not stipulate any guidelines or criteria to be followed by the appointing authority in determining the suitability of candidates. There is no single legal provision that protects an IGP and the D/IGP once appointed. In essence, the president can sack them at any time without giving reasons and both cannot appeal dismissal. In theory and in practice, as Hills (2007) observed, presidents in many African countries, including Uganda, have complete authority over their police. Legislative provisions usually mean they can direct police operations, for example. They also control the appointment and tenure of their police chiefs, Hills (2007) added. This makes it difficult for the police chiefs to act neutrally especially in the political contests as I demonstrate in the following chapter. Prior to 2000 both the IGP and D/IGP were appointed on a permanent basis. They can only be removed from office at the discretion of the president. But following the 1999 Judicial Commission of Inquiry into Corruption in the UPF headed by Lady Justice Julia Sebutinde and now commonly referred to as the ‘Sebutinde Commission’, a 3-year renewable tenure was introduced. The Commission argued that a permanent tenure for the IGP was not a good incentive for performance thus recommending fixed contracts. The UPF is comprised of 22 directorates headed by directors, majority of whom are at the rank of AIGP. The directorates are the following: 1. Directorate of Counterterrorism 2. Directorate of Criminal Investigations 3. Directorate of Crime Intelligence 4. Directorate of Operations 5. Directorate of Logistics and Engineering 6. Directorate of Parliamentary Police 7. Directorate of Political Commissariat 8. Directorate of Research, Planning and Development 9. Directorate of Information, Communication and Technology 10. Directorate of Kampala Metropolitan Police 11. Directorate of Peace Support Operations 12. Directorate of Special Duties

13. Directorate of Human Resource Management and Administration 14. Directorate of Human Resource Development 15. Directorate of Interpol and Police International Relations 16. Directorate of Human Rights and Legal Services 17. Directorate of Traffic and Road Safety 18. Directorate of Police Fire Prevention and Rescue Services 19. Directorate of Police Health Services 20. Directorate of Forensics Services 21. Directorate of Welfare and Production 22. Directorate of Oil and Gas

Prior to 2005, the Uganda Police had four directorates, namely, Administration, Operations and Support Services, Criminal Investigations and the Special Branch. These directorates were headed by directors at the rank of Senior Assistant Commissioner of Police (SACP). According to Cossy Odomel who was the IGP between 1992 and 1998, the proposal to expand the police and create more directorates was made during his reign but only implemented after Gen. Kayihura’s

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takeover. At the time the management structure had what they called the ‘long neck’, there was a big gap between the top echelons and the rank and file. Therefore, the police had to restructure to expand and achieve the ‘short neck’. One of the strategies, Odomel argued, was to create more directorates. ‘During my time as IGP there was limited government interest to grow the police and yet as a politician the president always blamed us for poor performance…However, one has to understand him as a politician who prefers to shift blame. The president used the police as scapegoats when security did not work well. Because most of the officers then were mostly inherited from past regimes. It was easy to get away with these excuses. The president wanted the people to feel that he was with them. I care about you but it’s the police that are letting us down’, Odomel explained. ‘We had wanted to expand to about 8 directorates, but this never happened, but with the coming of Gen. Kayihura, who had an ear of the president, the force was able to expand its resource envelop and numerical strength, which necessitated the creation of more directorates’, Odomel further clarified. The expansion, he summed up, was already in the police blueprint, which was written with advisory support and recommendations of the British. These pre-existing plans, several senior officers explained, were completely overhauled by Gen. Kayihura. When he took over, Gen. Kayihura introduced new plans and the structure was profoundly revised, first in 2009 and then in 2015. Several officers at the strategic level revealed that Gen. Kayihura had the goodwill of the president, a fact that facilitated his lobbying of the Ministry of Public Service to accept several of his proposals. The structural and operational changes were backed by the argument that the UPF was facing new challenges and demands. Some officers told me that Gen. Kayihura made most of the changes to enhance his legacy. They also thought that the general copied many things from the president who was also creating multiple political and security structures to create more jobs for loyalists. It was also argued that the UPF’s operations and processes needed to be realigned with the provisions of the National Vision 2040, the National Development Plan [2020/11–2014/15], and to accommodate the internal dynamics of the institution and those in the broader national, regional and global environment (MoPs, 2015). In a discussion with Gen. Kayihura, he explained that the country was also facing new challenges such as terrorism and politically instigated riots. To him, the existing structure could no longer adequately support the UPF service delivery. Meanwhile, under Gen. Kayihura, the ranks, to which I turn shortly, were reconfigured resulting in the introduction of new ones such as AIGP and the scrapping of others such as SACP.

Configuration of Ranks As a norm all police forces across the globe are organised under a rank model to enable command and control. The police ranks have been altering alongside the structural changes of the force. Notably, the rank of AIGP was introduced in 2002 when the president promoted the then directors of the four directorates to this new rank. This is the highest rank

Configuration of Ranks

9

in the force outside IGP and D/IGP that are political appointments. Previously, the highest police rank was SACP, but the Sebutinde Commission in 1999 proposed the introduction of the AIGP rank. Later, it was easy to actualise the introduction of the rank because President Museveni had started paying attention to the UPF, former IGP Cossy Odomel reasoned. The AIGP rank was not invented in Uganda; it exists also in other former British colonies such as Nigeria. In Kenya it is referred to as Senior Assistant Inspector General, and in India, Nepal and Pakistan, it is somehow similar to the rank of Additional Inspector General of Police, Odomel added. According to Rodgers Muhairwe (the police undersecretary), the rank of AIGP was introduced in order for the police to be uniformed with other public service departments. While other public service directorates were headed by directors, those at the police were headed by senior assistant commissioners (SACs). With the introduction of the AIGP rank, the salary scale of the police directors was subsequently brought at par with those in other public service directorates. Though AIGPs head directorates, the IGP has the power to move any AIGP from one directorate to another. Directorates may be seen as equal at official level, but in practice some are considered ‘wet’ (with large budget allocations) while many are ‘dry’ (less funds and limited access to the public). To that effect AIGPs must both maintain a good relationship with the IGP and continuously counteract rivals to hold on or get appointed to wet directorates, one AIGP explained. Based on my field observations, directorates such as Engineering and Logistics, Traffic and Road Safety, CID, Kampala Metropolitan and Operations are lucrative compared to others like welfare and production, special duties, research, planning and development. Interestingly, AIGPs that headed some of the most lucrative directorates listed above, save for Kampala Metropolitan Police (KMP) and Operations, were never transferred in the period I was doing this research, between 2013 and 2018. It is believed that these officers had mastered the game of retaining their positions and that some had established contacts in state house. In contrast, directors of Operations, Kampala Metropolitan and Human Resource Development were transferred up to three times in 2017 alone. The erratic transfers, as most officers referred to them, did not only affect directors but even more severely the territorial commanders – RPCs and DPCs. Some of the territorial commanders would be moved in a few weeks after assuming a new deployment. This was largely due to internal intrigue, political interference and as IGP’s strategy to keep his potential rivals unsettled, many officers reasoned. To be appointed AIGP, meanwhile, one must be 45 years old and above and must first retire from permanent terms. From then on, the officer is given a fixed 3-year renewable contract with specific terms. If one is interested to continue servicing, he/ she must apply to the Police Authority through the IGP 3 months before the expiration of his/her running contract. In 2010, the IGP backed the appointment of Grace Akullo and Andrew Felix Kaweesi as AIGP after bending rules since both officers were below 45 years old. In fact, they both joined the police in 2001 and had acquired less than 10 years of practical experience before achieving the highest rank. AIGP Kaweesi was assassinated

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in March 2017 after serving in various powerful positions including Commander Kampala Metropolitan and Operations. At the time of his much publicised assassination, AIGP Kaweesi doubled as the Director of Human Resource Development and the UPF spokesperson. Important to point out here is that my consultancy with the UPF, as indicated in the introduction, necessitated an intense working relationship with AIGP Kaweesi. Besides the reconfiguration of ranks, the Police Authority also introduced the performance appraisal for senior officers especially heads of departments, heads of specialised units and territorial commanders. Officially, this was designed to follow the principle of result-oriented management (ROM). This strategy, the IGP explained, was intended to measure and track the extent to which the set targets for individual officers within overall goals of the UPF are achieved. To realise the objectives of this tool, each officer is supposed to objectively discuss and obtain a feedback from his/her immediate supervisor, the appraisee, on a yearly basis. If one falls short in his/her target, they may miss out on promotion or appointment to lucrative offices, or one can be reprimanded. Many senior officers revealed that this strategy has produced limited success, if any. The UPF establishment minimally follows up on what officers promised and the question of whether the targets were met or not does not necessarily play a role in promotion and/or retention of a wet deployment. Many officers reasoned that sustaining a good relationship with the IGP was a much better strategy to attract promotion and wet deployments than the official version of performance assessment. Most of the officers thought that no one really takes the performance-based contracts seriously. Some officers confessed to have never discussed with their supervisors regarding the performance appraisal. Despite this perception, officers in command positions still fill out the forms and forward them to headquarters every year, but the majority confessed that they had never receive a feedback.

Strength, Capabilities and Extension into New Spheres Since 2005, the UPF has exponentially grown in size, strength and military capacity. As a trusted member of the incumbent government, Gen. Kayihura was able to turn the police into an institution that matters, especially in the political dynamics of the country. As I already showed in the introduction, Uganda’s post-independence sociopolitical chaos profoundly affected the growth of the police as an institution. When the NRM took over power in 1986, it found a demoralised, corrupt and inefficient force of about 10,000. The force was consequently trimmed to about 3000 in a process commonly referred to as ‘removing the deadwood’ (see Sebutinde Commission Report, 2000). Thereafter, the government carried out recruitments, including some cadets in 1987. However, recruitment exercise was followed by crash training activities and moreover the welfare, logistics and remunerations were not improved (Sebutinde Commission Report, 2000). Ironically, as a rebel outfit, the

Strength, Capabilities and Extension into New Spheres

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same NRM had attacked several police stations, killed many police officers and looted several weapons. In 1987 and 1988, about 50 university graduates were recruited into police and this ushered in some intriguing politics. Certainly, divisions started emerging, Cossy Odomel remembered. Those officers that were in service before 1986 acquired the label of ‘Obotists’ (in reference to former Uganda President Milton Obote), while those that joined after 1986 were referred to as the ‘Musevenists’ (the incumbent president). The manpower dynamics profoundly changed when Gen. Kayihura took over as IGP.  In fact, in a letter to Police Authority justifying why his contract should be extended in 2014, he highlighted that under his leadership, the police had registered remarkable growth in numbers.3 Indeed, official statistics show that the numbers had in 19 years, the period between 1986 when NRM took power and 2005 when he became IGP, only grown from 3000 to 18,000. Under his command, the numbers had reached 43,668 in 2014. His main target then was to raise the number to 70,000 to match the United Nations recommended ratio of police: population of 1:500.4 The increase in police numbers has improved police strength, visibility and their ability to penetrate society. There is police presence even in areas such as northern Uganda and Karamoja (north-eastern Uganda) that had over the years been affected by civil war and insurgences. Previously, it was the military that did most of the police duties in those areas, many officers reasoned. ‘In the late 1990s and early 2000s the police did not have a presence in the North because of the Lord’s Resistance Army rebels led by Joseph Kony. The north was a military zone. The police were just a backup force to the military’, former IGP Cossy Odomel stated. Under project 1107 police enhancement of Peace and Recovery Development Plan (PRDP), the police continue to emphasise the restoration of operations in these former conflict areas.5 Between 2009 and 2014, the UPF had constructed new police stations and barracks in over 20 districts.6 The force has expanded its reach and by 2015 it had 22 directorates, 14 specialised units and 29 policing regions that are named according to major physical features found within those regions. In the same period, the force had 339 police stations and about 1399 police posts, respectively (UPF Statistical Abstract, 2015, p. 2). This spread out has of course brought police services closer to different communities across the country. The significant increase, many senior officers observed, was due to Gen. Kayihura’s personal efforts in convincing the Ministry of Public Service and the Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development to provide the force with necessary backing and funds, respectively. Gen. Kayihura also managed to  See The Observer, Kampala 29th Aug 2014.  The population of Uganda in 2014 was about 35 million (see the Uganda Bureau of Statistics, 2014). 5  See FY 2013/2014 Ministry of Internal Affairs, Ministerial Policy Statement. pp. 126–127. 6  Northern Uganda, particularly Karamoja region, has been the main beneficiary of the newly constructed police stations and barracks. For details visit www.upf.go.ug/index.php/23-latest-news/50uganda-police-force-on-a-fast-positive-stride [Accessed on 20.02.14]. 3 4

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lobby the president to enable the police secure a Cabinet Directive of 2012, which approved recruitment and training of 500 Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) and 3000 constables every financial year, for five consecutive years to achieve a strength of 70,000 by 2018 (MoPS, 2015, p.  2).7 Though the number was not achieved by 2018, the navigation of the political and institutional procedures was rather remarkable. Gen. Kayihura only recruited the first batch of cadets in 2007. The 2007 in-take was unique and many police circles referred to it as ‘the chosen generation’. In fact, the in-take had several exceptions. First, it came after the 2006 general elections in which it was understood that many serving police officers at that time were anti the incumbent government. Second, it was the first cadet in-take under Gen. Kayihura and it is believed that he carefully wanted to recruit people who would be loyal to him and above all to the NRM government. Third, many officers that were part of this in-take intimated that some of their colleagues who had failed the interviews at the Public Service Commission were later included on the final list. Fourth, some cadets joined the training when their colleagues had completed about 6 weeks. In police circles it is believed that those that had initially failed and the ones that joined later were mostly trusted cadres recruited with the permission of the state house. The following in-take in 2010 was even more muddled, some officer argued. In this in-take, several cadets joined after the mandatory military training was completed. Again, the issue of the list from the state house apparently played a profound role. One senior officer explained that ‘the political recruitments, political trainings and political deployments profoundly affected the confidence levels of other officers’. Many officers argued that suggestions of Gen. Kayihura to any institution at the time were considered as those of the president. There was a shared concession that the IGP and the president were exceptionally close. In fact, in 2007, Gen. Kayihura managed to lobby for police to take over its recruitment process. Previously, the recruitment was largely a mandate of the Ministry of Public Service (Table 1.1). Most senior police officers reasoned that Gen. Kayihura overconcentrated on recruiting young graduates for cadet training and yet the police needed more of the rank and file. This later created some problems because there are fewer positions to be filled by the graduates, and yet the force needs manpower at the lower strata, which do not attract university graduates. In fact, the table above shows this anomaly in some measures. For instance, in 2018 the force had more ASPs than IPs, and the number of SGTs and AIPs is almost in the same range as that of ASPs. Nevertheless, the force has become an attractive career prospect for many young graduates in Uganda. My visit to the Kibuli recruitment centre located in Kampala in January 2014 confirmed this. Out of 500 officer cadet positions advertised by police, over 4500 young graduates turned up to try out their luck. The increased demand for the police jobs explains why the number of graduates has increased by

 See also FY 2013/2014 Ministry of Internal Affairs, Ministerial Policy Statement. Page 90.

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Table 1.1  UPF strength as of March 2018 No. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Total

Rank IGP D/IGP AIGP SCP CP ACP SSP SP ASP IP AIP SGT CPL PC SPC Civilian staff

Male 1 1 22 24 35 64 124 367 2136 694 2294 2911 5006 18137 5960 129 37,897

Female – – 3 2 4 9 22 55 701 103 425 672 1124 3746 1763 88 8715

Total 1 1 25 26 39 73 146 422 2837 797 2719 3583 6130 21883 7723 217 46,612

Percentage of women – – 12 7.7 10.2 12.3 15 13 24.7 13 15.6 18.7 18.3 17.1 22.8 40.5

leaps and bounds compared to the yesteryears when the ranks were replete with semi-illiterate personnel. Compared to the past, the image of the police has substantially improved especially in cases that have no relations to politics. By 2015, most police stations across the country including those in rural areas were headed by university graduates. This trend is believed to have improved the quality of relations between police and the citizens. Several officers told me that according their assessment, more educated officers tend to appreciate and relate with people better than those with less education. The force has also attracted several lawyers, accountants, medical doctors, engineers, statisticians and ICT specialists, and by 2018 it had 3 PhD graduates and over 200 master’s degree holders in its ranks. The IGP’s target was to build a force in which every officer must acquire a master’s degree before attaining the rank of police commissioner. In this perspective, academic qualifications would facilitate the building of a respected and professional force.

Women in the UPF The policewomen wing was started in 1961 when the first squad of policewomen graduated after training (Beaden, 2009). The role of women, however, remained undermined because different regimes and police administrations made limited efforts to enhance it. Gen. Kayihura can therefore be credited for improving the number of women in the UPF. By 2018, the percentage of female officers in the

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force had reached 15% compared to less than 5% before 2005. Unlike in the past, many female graduate officers have joined the force, and a few have been assigned strategic and sensitive duties. Records at the human resource directorate showed that since 2007, several female officers had served as territorial commanders, 5 as RPCs and over 17 as DPCs, respectively. The position of a territorial commander, as shall be discussed further in Chap. 6, is very demanding and sensitive but yet considered a lucrative deployment. By 2018, meanwhile, 3 out of the 22 AIGPs (strategic level) were female representing 12% as seen in the table above. Globally, policing is often described as one of the most gendered professions, as occupational segregation against women remains prevalent (Butler et al., 2003, p. 1; Martin & Jurik, 2006, pp. 1–2). As Kanter (1977) put it, one of the inhibitory factors to equal treatment of women in police forces has been their smaller numbers. At 29%, Sweden has the highest percentage of female officers, while a country like the United Kingdom is still at 27% even though it has a much longer history of policing as we know it today. Numbers are less in other developed democracies such as Canada 20%, Germany 19% and the United States 12.5%, which clearly shows that policing remains a male-dominated sphere.8 Therefore, though the UPF is still below the target of at least 30% representation of women in all sectors required by the 2007 government policy, the trend is rather improving and not far off the global statistics. To improve the gender dynamics even further, the UPF established the Department of Women Affairs in 2013. The department is headed by a female officer at the rank of CP, who is tasked to build a strong force of women officers dedicated to transforming the UPF into a gender-sensitive force and to foster the career advancement of female officers (MoPS, 2015, p. 33).

Extension into New Spheres Since 2005, the Uganda Police has not only increased its presence in areas where it previously had limited influence and visibility but it has also creeped into new sociopolitical spaces. Gen. Kayihura, as has been highlighted above, was largely presumed as a right hand of President Museveni and thus his propositions seem to have navigated through other relevant bodies of government, including parliament with relative ease. Most senior officers described the IGP as a skilful lobbyist with the ability to comprehend the desires of president. Among many of Gen. Kayihura’s innovations was the creation of the Directorate of Parliamentary Police. This idea brought the police in the precinct of the legislature, moreover, with no resistance even from the opposition political groups. Parliament is, of course, a sensitive arm of government and plays a profound role in the workings of the police. Following the appointment of the IGP and the D/IGP, it

  See the Statistics Portal, Statista 2018, https://www.statista.com/statistics/195324/ gender-distribution-of-full-time-law-enforcement-employees-in-the-us/ 8

Strength, Capabilities and Extension into New Spheres

15

is the parliament that does the final process of vetting. For a start, all police budgets must go through parliament for approval. ‘Often, police accounting officers face with the committee of Defence and Internal Affairs. The MPs generate a set of questions that must be answered. We are usually called on queries from the auditor general. These queries arise in circumstances when the force does not manage to convince or satisfy the auditor general’, the police undersecretary explained. ‘The Parliament is a bit funny in the way it operates. MPs from both the opposition and government gang up against us. Often, the parliamentarians are just politicking… When we go there we avoid politics and only answer questions regarding the budget and accountability’, Gen. Kayihura noted. Moreover, the parliament actively debates cases of police brutality and other queries of mismanagement. The Directorate of Parliamentary Police that is headed by an AIGP is responsible for the enforcement of law and order by providing safe and accessible environment for MPs, cabinet ministers, employees of parliament and the public (MoPS, 2015, pp. 93–101). The directorate is comprised of departments that include parliamentary crime intelligence, parliamentary crime investigations, parliamentary counterterrorism and parliamentary VIPs. The departments are further divided into several units including parliamentary police administration, parliamentary emergence fire and disaster and rescue services unit, parliamentary protocol unit, parliamentary medical services unit, police traffic and canine unit. The argument for the creation of this directorate was that the parliament is a high-value target vulnerable to various security threats especially terrorism, civil disorders, cyberattacks and theft of vital document. Due to the sensitivity of the institution, it was argued, the then existing arrangements were not adequate to respond to the security demands. Notwithstanding these arguments, several officers reasoned that this directorate was created to reinforce the political element of the police. Through this directorate, officers said, money drawn from the police budget is channelled to bribe opposition MPs to get information and disorganise their mainstream camps. Bribes do not only go to the opposition but also to vocal MPs of the ruling party who are enticed to speak well about the police or when the vetting and renewal of contract for the IGP is due. I observed that several MPs benefit from police fuel and other advantages including guards for private homes and escort services occasionally. Moreover, I personally observed that the speaker of parliament used the police helicopter on several occasions. Many of such privileges were of course informally negotiated with the Directorate of Parliamentary Police acting as the middleman. Through this directorate, the IGP has office space at the parliamentary building, which he used at his convenience. Under Gen. Kayihura the police become more central in the political processes as I shall discuss in the coming chapter. One of the key methods envisaged to facilitate a closer relationship between police and the ruling party was the establishment of the Directorate of Political Commissariat. Previously Political Commissariat was only prominent in the military since the days when the NRM was a rebel group and later when it captured power in 1986. This strategy glued and continues the glue, the

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political wing with the military wing. Before his appointment as IGP, Gen. Kayihura worked as a political commissar of the army. In 2015, President Museveni credited the IGP for the introduction of the Political Commissariat into the police after gaining experience of the same from the army. The Directorate of Political Commissariat, a senior officer noted, was created with the aim of bridging the ideological gap between the NRM and the police. Like other directorates, it is headed by an AIGP and its main role, according to the official version, is ‘to build a patriotic, nationalistic and pro-people police force’ (MoPS, 2015, p. 162). According to one senior officer in this directorate, the major focus is to monitor and improve officers’ attitude towards government and then enhance the knowledge of staff in political economy, political education and the political history of Uganda. The aims of the directorate are further infused into the training curricular at all levels. The community policing strategy, meanwhile, falls under this directorate. The police further creeped into a sociopolitical space that was previously a preserve of the military when in 2010 it created a stand-alone command unit of the Presidential Police Guard (PPG). Before 2005 the police played a negligible role, if any, in the security of the president. By 2015, the police through its PPG unit, which falls directly under the office of IGP, was largely responsible for the security of the first lady, the president’s children and grandchildren, the vice-president and the speaker of parliament. Ideally, the PPG is the first-line of police services at state house. To make the PPG more accepted, Gen. Kayihura skilfully recruited a trusted female military officer at the rank of major into the police. This officer was given the rank of Commissioner of Police (CP) and by 2018 had a strength of 523 officers including 14 gazetted officers, 13 inspectorates and 496 non-commissioned officers. The PPG is a clear signal that police’s political status and role have significantly grown. This growth in political stature, many officers argued, is largely enhanced by the confidence that the president has in the IGP. I also established that the PPG especially the lower ranks graze the cows of the president. It should be noted that the president has an equivocal love for cows, especially the long-horned Ankole-Tutsi type. According to highly placed sources within the police, one police constable who hails from cattle-keeping community was deployed in 2012 at the president’s farm in Kisozi in central Uganda to focus on counting the cows daily including taking records of those that give birth. Some officers thought that taking care of the president’s cows also shows that the UPF is getting closer to the establishment. In some parts of western Uganda, especially where President Museveni originates, cows have a profound social-cultural meaning and value. As Kayihura created structures that systematically creeped into new sociopolitical spaces, he simultaneously destroyed the old networks and structures within the police that he had somewhat failed to establish outright control. The same networks were suspected of not warming up to both the NRM government and the bringing of soldiers into the police. Notably, Gen. Kayihura disbanded the ‘Special Branch’, the intelligence arm of the police, which he had accused of paying more allegiance to

Politics of the Budget and Finance Management

17

the Ministry of Internal Affairs and governments in the western world and not to the police. Before the disbandment the Special Branch was estimated to comprise of over 900 officers, which was about 6.3% of the total force (Sebutinde Commission Report, 2000, pp. 344–347). A senior officer who was serving under the Special Branch at the time it was disbanded insisted that the accusations of serving foreign governments were only made up to provide an easier way for the disbandment of the directorate which Gen. Kayihura could not penetrate easily. To this officer, the Special Branch was opaque to all those who were not members including the IGP and the public could not even tell where it was located yet it was right in the centre of Kampala City. The Special Branch existed under the Police Statute, 1994 and Chapter 24 of the Police Standing Orders. Its role was to gather and disseminate intelligence on organised crime and threats to national security. It engaged in intelligence collection of security threats such as treason, espionage, sabotage, terrorism and organised crime. It was spread across the country and its lowest unit was the District Special Branch. However, the Special Branch already had some challenges before the coming of Gen. Kayihura. The NRM government had in 1987 established two rival organisations known as Internal Security Organisation (ISO) and External Security Organisation (ESO) that duplicated its functions. The creation of ISO and ESO had already resulted into habitual under funding of the Special Branch. In its place after disbandment, Gen. Kayihura had created the Directorate of Crime Intelligence. To keenly control and enhance this directorate, the IGP recruited a military officer at the rank of colonel to head it. Here, it is clear that Gen. Kayihura was doing both external creeping into those spaces that previously had limited or no police presence and internal creeping to be able to increase his influence and control of the force.

Politics of the Budget and Finance Management The UPF, many senior officers reasoned, has managed to project its power and it has become a major player in the country’s security architecture. Whereas the president often handed the role of security and intelligence to various centres of power, including the ISO and Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence (CMI), Gen. Kayihura to a large extent grew the influence of the police by creeping into the spaces of other security organisations, one AIGP argued. As I shall discuss further in the coming chapter, the IGP managed to build an ideological bridge between the NRM and the police, and this process gave him the edge against the other security organs. Gen. Kayihura was a brigadier at the time of his appointment in 2005 but was swiftly promoted to major general to lieutenant general and by May 2013 he became a full general. In 2005, the police budget was at a merely UGX 75 billion (about US$ 20 million), but this had grown to over 450 billion (about US$120 million) by 2015. Even though Uganda’s economy was equally growing at an average rate of 5% per annum, police’s budget grew by over 300% in 10 years making it the fastest growing

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compared to other organs of government, the undersecretary analysed. The former IGP Cossy Odomel (1992–1998) confessed that the force’s funding grew largely because of the personal connection Gen. Kayihura had with the president. To Odomel, this element was lacking during his own reign as IGP. However, according to the undersecretary, the police’s target is to secure over UGX 800 billion (about US$ 215 million). ‘Usually, we submit our budgets to Ministry of Finance, but we only receive about 50 percent of what we ask for. Like this financial year [2015] our basic minimum budget should have been 800 billion, but we were given about half which is a huge improvement compared to the yesteryears’, the undersecretary stated. Besides the funding that comes through Ministry of Finance, the police also get some funds from the donor-driven initiatives of the Peace, Recovery and Development Plan for northern Uganda (PRDP) and Justice Law and Order Sector (JLOS) totalling to about 8 billion (about US$ 2.2 million). These funds, meanwhile, are normally targeting specific budget items. For instance, PRDP specifically supports police activities and investments in the northern Uganda districts that were ravaged by rebel activities and insurgencies. That money has been used to construct police stations and barracks in PRDP areas. The police further negotiated that the money that they collect through the traffic express penalty scheme should be used to improve the force’s budget. It was agreed that since the police collects the money for government, its budget should also be increased, the Directorate of Traffic and Road Safety explained. The money generated through the traffic express penalty scheme is considered as a non-tax revenue, which by law goes into the national consolidated fund. As a practice, the penalties are banked on a police revenue collection account in Stanbic Bank Uganda, which is managed by the Uganda Revenue Authority (URA). The traffic police issue the tickets and offenders then bank the money in the bank. The UPF further raises money through licensing of guns, guard services, escort services and the police boded vehicles. The undersecretary estimated that all this amounts to about 13 billion (about US$ 3.5 million) a year. It is this money that the IGP negotiated to be returned to booster the police’s budget. The growing budget seems to coincide with the rearrangement of the police’s Finance Department. Until 2005, the permanent secretary at the Ministry of Internal Affairs was the accounting officer for the police, but this was changed when the UPF was given the mandate to recruit an undersecretary. In 2012, the police lobbied for the recruitment of a police officer in this position though legally the process is managed by the Ministry of Public Service. An undersecretary does not necessarily have to be a police officer. The undersecretary is the head of the Finance Department and works directly under the supervision of the IGP.  Every financial year, the Finance Department has to prepare the budget, which is merged with those of the Uganda Prisons Services (UPS) and the Ministry of Internal Affairs before compiling the final budgets for the entire Ministry of Internal Affairs. The police, meanwhile, devised some strategies which enable it to build its weaponry and fleet capacity in a short period despite the budgetary shortfalls. The undersecretary provided further context, ‘We sat down and strategically planned to implement the policies of the IGP. We had to be creative and find ways of working

Politics of the Budget and Finance Management

19

around the small budget. We understand that Uganda’s budget in general is small and we cannot be funded to our full satisfaction. We had to make a thorough interpretation to clearly understand the dynamics of our economy, how it operates and then found the best ways to make sure that we deliver as per our mandate. The first thing that we did with the IGP was to try and solve the problem of hardware, vehicles and other specialised equipment’. The police came up with ‘the supplier’s credit arrangement’ where a supplier gives the police items based on the police committing a portion of its budget over an extended period. Afterwards, the police make payments in instalments. Arranging the credit facility, the undersecretary argued, is a painstaking arrangement. He added that first, the police must convince a bank to issue defied letters of credit on behalf the force. Then the police must commit to pay the supplier through the same bank based on an agreed period. He explained further, ‘We had to strategise after realising that since we consistently receive money from government every year, we can use that consistency in financial flow to secure credit. We wrote to Ministry of Finance who accepted to write commitment letters that the money will be available. Ultimately, it was only the Ministry of Finance that could clear the plan or make it succeed’. The increase in the budget and the strategies adopted thereof made it possible for capital investments, which facilitated the policing capacity to simultaneously grow. For instance, in October 2013, the police headquarters relocated from rented premises in the city centre to a new state-of-the-art headquarters (2320 square meters of office space) that was constructed at the cost of UGX 9.9 billion (about US$2.7 million).9 From 2003/2004 to 2013/2014 financial years, the number of armoured personnel carriers (APCs) had grown from 0 to 30, ambulances from 0 to 21, patrol pickups from 125 to 591, troop carriers from 0 to 32, saloon cars from 41 to 232 and motorcycles from 0 to 3556 among others.10 The increase in the police fleet improved its mobility in response to crime across the country. It should be noted, however, that maintenance is still a huge problem as one can observe relatively new vehicle and motorcycles grounded at different police stations across the country. The force further managed to purchase critical equipment especially in the field of operations such as riot control vehicles, the counterterrorism equipment, recovery trucks, excavators, troop carriers, modern ICT devices, such as Tetra & VHF radios and counterterrorism balloons for surveillance. This put the force at a greater height in terms of mobility and manoeuvrability. The UPF upgraded its Fire Brigade Unit to a full Directorate of Fire Brigade and Rescue Service. Though the directorate is still thin on ground with only 14 fire stations in 10 of 139 districts, it was by 2015 equipped with 43 appliances that include fire trucks, water tankers, pickup trucks and other administrative vehicles manned by 169 personnel (MoPS, 2015). According to the IGP, the police had plans of

 See also Mwangaza, (October, 2011) Vol. 003, No. 001 22–24. Mwangaza is a monthly magazine of the Uganda Police. 10  Uganda Police Force Fleet Statistics FY2003/2004–2013/14. See also Mwangaza 34–36. 9

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expanding the directorate’s services to 5 stations in each of the 29 policing regions across the country by 2021. In 2010, the police constructed a laboratory to cater for the concerns of modern scientific investigations. This laboratory was equipped to handle investigations through testing of DNA, ballistics, cybercrime, toxicology/serology, foods and drugs, water and environment and chemical analysis. The wider operational scope was envisaged to entail full collaboration with regional police forces in the East African Community. After its launch the laboratory was selected to provide its services at a regional level to cater for the needs of other regional member states (MoPS, 2015, p. 14). However, the laboratory remained a white elephant, as one senior officer called. It was basically underutilised and very few cases, if any, were processed or investigated with the aid of this laboratory, many CID officers revealed. Meanwhile, the police added new technological aspects to policing. In particular, the IGP emphasised that the main goal of the police leadership was to build a modern, professional and effective policing systems. Among other strategies, the IGP further revealed, the police had infused technological aspects in traffic and road safety notably by introducing speed guns to electronically capture data on overspeeding drivers and, as I shall discuss further in Chap. 4, breath analyser machines (breathalysers) for the immediate roadside testing of drivers’ blood alcohol content (BAC). Since 2005, the UPF has equally attracted partnerships with private business enterprises including international brands such as Coca Cola, Pepsi and Mobile Telecommunication Network (MTN). These companies have constructed several police posts, especially in and around Kampala City. The companies put their business logos on the police posts, a clear indicator that an association with the police might provide some business value. In summary, since its establishment during the British colonialism, the UPF has faced a number of challenges including those emanating from the post-colonial political disorder. In contemporary terms, it is clear that the force has profoundly evolved as it continues to strive to improve its capacity and efficiency. Particularly, the perceived close relationship between the president and the IGP seemed to have subsequently led to increased government attention and funding. The force has not only grown in numbers and equipment but has also penetrated spaces it previously had limited or no presence in. The force strives to achieve conventional standards such as the police to population ratio and the technological aspects of policing. However, this chapter has also shown that the drive to recruit personnel is tied to political dynamics with some interference from state house. Management of the recruited personnel and maintenance of the acquired equipment continues to be problematic. The force is premised on official policies and structures but is in practice often meddled with. The president has overwhelming authority over the institution and uses his discretion to determine who occupies the top offices of the force. One of the police’s de facto roles since its establishment in the colonial period in 1906 has been to protect incumbent regimes in power. Since 2005, however, the force’s political role is more pronounced, a subject I return to in the following chapter.

Chapter 2

Political Policing: The Fusion Between the Police and the Ruling Party

Introduction In this chapter I discuss political policing, particularly the partisan dimension of the Ugandan Police Force (UPF). The chapter illuminates the complex and sometimes cryptic relations between the police and the ruling party, the National Resistance Movement (NRM). Attention is paid to both the macro-organisational level of the police and the micro-level dimensions of how individual officers interpret the ties and apply their own volition to aid the ruling party against the opposition, especially when political stakes are high. The chapter answers several questions: What does political policing mean? How exactly does political policing play out in Uganda? What role do individual police officers play? The intention for this chapter, however, is not to make a value judgement of what is right or wrong but to analytically bring to the fore how political policing works out in practice. I highlight that the police in Uganda is explicitly partisan, and as it was discussed in the preceding chapter, the president, and by extension the ruling party, has overwhelming powers to determine what the force does and how it performs its duties. My observations, however, indicate that it is not true that the police officers are always under orders to protect the incumbent regime or to harass the opposition. Many officers perceive it that to be seen as a pro-NRM officer is to be considered a good officer and thus do it on their own volition. Police officers not only implicitly know what is expected of them and act upon this knowledge but are also driven by their individual practical interpretations of the sociopolitical landscape. Subsequently, the formal legal logics of a neutral force are often overruled by logics of regime security. I will show later that the force has designed strategies to penetrate opposition groups and recruit agents from within their camps. The unofficial political use of the UPF in combating the opposition, a political enemy within, however, has a much longer history. Since the birth of the force in © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 J. Kagoro, Inside an African Police Force, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-14992-4_2

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1906 during the British colonial era, through the subsequent post-colonial regimes, the force has essentially been politicised (Kagoro, 2015). Therefore, the contemporary conceptions of the police and policing in Uganda have been shaped by the upheavals and crisis of state legitimacy that confronted all institutions of government since independence in 1962. And as Hills (2007) observed, the politicisation of the police is largely a product of regime security. Many African presidents, Hills observed, do not want an effective or efficient police answerable to parliamentary committees, but they value the police as a tool for enforcing political decisions, maintaining order, regulating activities and regime representation. The chapter proceeds as follows. First, I provide some conceptual reflections to shed more light on political policing, the core concept of this chapter. What follows is a discussion on how the NRM has progressively closed the ideological and functional gap between the party and the police. I show how the incumbent regime reorganised the police in line with its political agenda and ideology. I then provide an analysis of how Gen. Kayihura who as the Inspector General of Police (IGP) profoundly shaped the force into a reliable outfit for the ruling party. Thereafter, attention is shifted to discussing the character of the police during electoral cycles and the violent scuffles between the force and different opposing groups in the course of removing the age limit cap from the constitution, which allows President Museveni to contest for presidency in perpetuity. The role and strategies of individual commanders in the political policing dynamics are highlighted before attention is turned to the soft power initiatives that the force applies to win support for the ruling party. The chapter is summed up with an analysis of the crime preventers scheme. The scheme embraces several youth across the country to, on one hand, work with the police, while, on the other hand, mobilising votes for the NRM.

Conceptions of Political Policing In order to situate my assessment of political policing in Uganda, I start with some conceptual overview. The perpetuation of a particular regime or order, which may consist of an oligarchy or a dictatorship, is the raison d’être of political policing, Brodeur (2010) argues. This often involves the maintenance of an imposed distribution of power, usually at the expense of the public (Brodeur, 2010). In the political policing paradigm, the police usually confuse legitimate political dissent with political delinquency. More broadly, Brodeur adds, political policing can refer to police interventions in the struggles over the possession and exercise of state power. For Brodeur (1983), political policing is not an irregular addition to the police system but rather forms the pervasive core of a whole model of policing, which he calls ‘high policing’. Political policing is not uniquely bound to enforce the law and regulations as they are made by an independent legislator. Securing society from law violators is not an end in itself for political policing; crime control may also serve as a tool to generate information which can be used to maximise state coercion of any group or individual perceived as threatening to the established order.

Conceptions of Political Policing

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Others such as Platt and Cooper (1974) think that policing is a political action and can thus only be understood as a political process, which means any policing is political. Meanwhile, the police enforce decisions taken by the political authorities and thus most of their work is inevitably political in character (Reiner, 1992; Hills, 2007). Muir (1977) describes police officers as ‘street corner politicians’. This alternate view stresses the similarities and overlaps between political policing and police work in general. Wilson (1968) understands the history of police work to be chiefly grounded in the problems of order and social control dating to the nineteenth century when the first known professional police force was established in the London Metropolitan. The fear of riot and popular uprising was usually the reason for enlarging, professionalising and ultimately arming the police (Wilson, 1968; Silver, 1967). Manning (1977) has equally argued that the view of the police as an ‘appendage’ of the law rather than as an ‘extension of the violent potential of the state’ is a recent one. He contends that ‘the legitimation of the police in terms of legal authority flows from the power of the state and citizens’ deference to it rather than from law as an independent entity’ (1977, pp. 40–41). Manning adds that law does not necessarily guide police action, nor does it provide the principal constraint upon police practices, and to him there is little question that public policy, regardless of country or continent, is shaped by economic elites and disproportionately reflects their political and social interests. Policing, therefore, reflects those interests that define the nature of the legitimacy on which they draw (Manning, 1977). Manning concludes that the popular conception of the police as law enforcers and crime fighters is a mere ‘police myth’ (Manning, 1977). For Wilson (1968) the police ideologically present themselves as crime fighters rather than as ordering institutions solely because in the eyes of the public, it is easy to portend to be combatting crime rather than standing for a more controversial ideal of maintaining order. For Bittner (1974), the ideological myth of law enforcement and crime control has been deeply institutionalised in police organisations and stereotyped in the public consciousness. The traditional law enforcement view serves to promote a neutral and apolitical conception of police practices yet obscuring the bare fact that the police’s mandate is politically defined and that the police ultimately function as an instrument of a political system (Dinnen & Braithwaite, 2007; Garland, 2001). To Manning (1977) this is ‘dramatic dilemma’ which confronts the police in the process of managing a ‘contradictory mandate’. In some scholarly circles, the very origins of the police have been connected to the Foucauldian narrative of the emergence of modern governmentality, arguing that the establishment of the police was intended to reform social order and increase national power and prosperity of the dominant class (Storch, 1976; Dean, 1991; Dodsworth, 2008). Confirming the Foucauldian perspective, McMullan (1998) pointed to the apparent nexus between police patrol units and the disciplinary society, with the policeman as the embodiment of panopticism. Here, the police idea is seen as the mentality of government intended to be entrenched in society.

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This understanding of the police is linked to the Marxist account of the establishment of mechanisms of urban discipline in the late eighteenth century and the bourgeois control of the state and the simultaneous attempt to inculcate bourgeois values into the socio-economic order (Storch, 1976; Neocleous, 2000; Dodsworth, 2008). Political policing can also be understood from the Newman’s (1983) perspective that the police is maintained by the privileged class as an instrument for the preservation of its control over three spheres; the access to limited resources, the political machinery governing this access and finally the labour force necessary to provide the surplus upon which the dominant class lives. Liang (1992) argued that political policing and democratic policing are mutually incompatible and can never exist simultaneously1; this perspective is somewhat challenged by Brodeur (2005, 2010) who argues that political and democratic policing do coexist in many advanced democracies including those in the western world in what he calls the uneasy partnership between ‘cops and spooks’. He argues that this type of policing was called ‘high policing’, borrowed from the French ‘Haute Police,’ and it aimed for protecting the national security. Therefore, agencies such as the British MI5 and MI6, Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), FBI and French Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire (DST) largely engage in political policing, Brodeur concludes. Emsley (1996) understands political policing to mean at least two separate things: on one hand overt political partisanship on the part of the police and on the other the surveillance of politically suspect groups or individuals. Based on ethnographic data, I go beyond Emsley’s framework to discuss other political policing constellations such as the unwritten rule of the police using its structures, resources and personnel to politically mobilise for the ruling party. Yet still, political activities such as elections and demonstrations provide a platform through which police officers can accumulate symbolic capital or mileage and possibilities for promotions. Ironically, opposition politicians sometimes use the police to benefit their political aspirations. It should be noted here that the character of policing reflects the sociopolitical condition of society itself (Chan, 1996). For us to fully contextualise political policing in Uganda, we need to further pay attention to the non-written regulations of the police from a historical perspective. Political leaders have and continue to use the police to combat political rivals. The Uganda’s political policing paradigm, therefore, seems to have been routinised through the sociopolitical history of the country. Police institutions, some scholars have argued, are deeply embedded in the sociopolitical fabric and are heavily influenced by the norms and values of societies (Fukuyama, 2004; Wilson, 2006). Accordingly, what the political and different social forces subconsciously expect from the police would largely stem from their historical experience with the same, and in Uganda, control of the security forces has since independence in 1962 been equated to political power (Kagoro, 2015).

 Liang is one of the very few scholars that have extensively discussed political policing. He applies the term undemocratic political policing in his descriptions of regimes such as Nazi Germany. 1

The Ideological Capture

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The Ideological Capture ‘If they [police] are isolated there is a likelihood of them co-operating only passively, or worse still, actively with possible opposition groups by withholding information and intelligence, helping to spread rumours and propaganda, and generally bringing the regime into ridicule and contempt’ (Ocran, 1977, p.75).2 My observations reveal that one of the de facto roles of the police is to defend the ruling party, especially in thwarting demonstrations, mobilising votes during elections and generally keeping citizens in line. Since the turn of the twenty-first century, the NRM regime has taken pragmatic steps to reorganise the police in line with its political agenda and ideology. The police force has moved into the centre of politics and profoundly grown in suppressive capacity and size. Simultaneously, I argue that the regime and the police have developed closer operational and ideological ties. Unlike in the past when the police force was a residual institution, it now receives substantial attention from the regime and particularly from President Museveni (Joschka & Kagoro, 2016). The President has made references, in his speeches, to how he has ‘taken over’ the police and, unlike in the past, attends many events organised by the police.3 This period coincides with the appointment of military generals who are also close confidants of the president to head the police force, increasing perceptions of political policing. When the NRM under Museveni captured power in 1986, government institutions, including the regular police force, were in a state of near collapse. The new government had arrived with its own army, the National Resistance Army (NRA), and, through the 1987 Act of Parliament, officially established intelligence outfits of Internal Security Organisation (ISO) and External Security Organisation (ESO). The regular police were for the time being given limited attention by the new regime. It was deliberately sidelined and underfunded with many sensitive assignments handled by ISO, ESO and the intelligence branch of the army, the Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence (CMI) (Kagoro, 2015, 2016; Phillips & Kagoro, 2016). Police relevancy on the political landscape was nominal to say the least. Neglected, ignored and treated condescendingly, its officers were relegated to the fringes where they operated without much notice. The then police presented no prospects for aspiring young graduates in need of a career (Kagoro, 2014). The force was largely perceived as anti-establishment as stressed by President Museveni’s sarcastic remark, ‘If I stood with a cow, policemen would rather vote the cow, not me’ (Kagoro, 2015, p.  173). The president mistrusted the police and is believed to have officially tried replacing them with military police only for donors  This analysis was provided by Albert K. Ocran in his book, ‘Politics of the Sword’, which provided a detailed account of his involvement in the first coup d’état in Ghana that led to the overthrow of the Convention People’s Party (CPP) government of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah on February 24, 1966. 3  During the pass out (graduation) ceremony of the first regiment of the field force unit at the police training school in Kabalye, Masindi district on 17th April 2014, which I attended, President Museveni repeated the claim that the NRM had taken over the police. 2

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to advise otherwise (Kagoro, 2015). As the police remained in the shadows, intelligence organisations including the CMI, ISO and ESO featured prominently in the first 15  years of Museveni’s presidency. These agencies were mobilised for the NRM, coordinated a network of informers and bribed voters during elections while at the same time harassing opposition supporters. Since the turn of the century, however, the police have emerged as the main state agency at the centre of securing the NRM regime. By the early 2000s, Museveni was increasingly keen to distance the military from overt partisan activities, easing its metamorphosis into a seemingly more professional force worthy of taking a lead in regional peace-keeping efforts (Collord, 2018). This withdrawal of the military left the police to handle partisan issues at home, and this even as the political threat posed by the opposition grew, many senior police officers reasoned. Though the opposition has not presented a serious threat to Museveni’s power, it has been growing and dissent amongst the youth in urban areas appears to be on the raise, a situation that has of course contributed to the proliferation of political policing to avert all possible dangers that could affect the regime. Veteran journalist Onyango-Obbo has argued that no police force in Africa has been as controversial, and so mired in partisan politics than Uganda’s especially after 2005, bar perhaps South Africa’s in the time of apartheid (Onyango-Obbo, 2018). In Onyango’s perspective the politicisation of Uganda police was heightened when Kizza Besigye a hitherto ally of President Museveni joined the opposition in 2000 and started vying for the presidency. In April 2001, the President appointed Gen Katumba Wamala as IGP a few weeks after the 2001 elections. It is believed that though Gen. Katumba was a very competent soldier, he was too judicious and principled to implement Museveni’s intended ideological shift of the force and, above all, to cultivate the much needed regime security character.4 In 2005, General Wamala was replaced by Gen. Kale Kayihura, considered to be one of the most loyal cadres of the NRM. According to many interviewed officers, Kayihura was able to make the police a more visible institution, relatively better equipped and a controversial institution in Uganda’s politics. Police’s raise to political prominence has a lot to do with the president’s personal relationship with the Kayihura (Kagoro, 2015; Phillips & Kagoro, 2016). Kayihura joined Museveni in the bush war in 1982 upon completion of his masters’ degree in law at the London School of Economics. For a young graduate in a country with not many citizens as educated as he was at the time, choosing to fight alongside Museveni in a guerrilla war whose prospects of success were a faint glimmer was regarded by many as a squander of opportunities and a blind move any sane highly educated youth would ever take (Phillips & Kagoro, 2016). Since the takeover in 1986, he served in various capacities including that of a military assistant to President Museveni, head of the special revenue protection unit and as chief political commissar of the army.

 This opinion was expressed by several high-ranking police officers during interviews and informal discussions. 4

The Ideological Capture

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As the president’s right-hand man, he was sent to the DR Congo to closely watch Uganda Peoples Defense Force’s (UPDF) operations, carry out investigations and report to the president. This was at a time when the UPDF was hit by a wave of scandals, key amongst them, the plunder and sack of Congo’s natural resources. His assignments won him several enemies within the military and political circles but found favour in the president’s eyes. In his own words, Kayihura intimated that ‘during the time our army was in Congo the president entrusted me with many sensitive operations, I was a brigadier, but sometimes looking into the activities of some officers who were senior to me. People hated me for my hard work…. remember I am an NRM cadre and I have learned a lot from the president. One has to be committed for the success of our revolution’. On several occasions President Museveni credited Kayihura for being a ‘good cadre’, for converting police into a ruling party appendage and for muzzling the opposition. ‘I want to salute Kale Kayihura because as a loyal cadre, he actively implemented this programme (of political mobilisation). He was doing it with the army when he was Chief Political Commissar… People are attacking Kale but Kale has done a good job…He stopped fujo (chaos) because people wanted to bring fujo to disrupt business. If you have fujo, you will not have wealth’, the President said while speaking to local government leaders in 2017, for instance.5 As I showed in the previous chapter, Gen. Kayihura was able to grow the strength, the budget and equipment for the force. In the period of the presidential elections of 2016 alone, police secured an additional US$ 57 million for mobilising, recruiting, training and equipment purchases (Joschka & Kagoro, 2016). Behind the scenes, he was also involved in the drafting of the Public Order Management Bill,6 signed into law in September 2013, which gives the police discretionary authority to break up gatherings of as few as three people in a public arena to deliberate political issues (Kagoro, 2014).7 The majority of interviewees concurred that the police under Kayihura has occupied the space that was previously dominated by ISO in the 1990s and CMI in the early 2000s. A veteran journalist-cum-political broker, Andrew Mwenda, reasoned that the increased influence of the police is associated with the individual orientation of the IGP who has been able to solicit for President Museveni’s trust, in turn accruing political leverage. The police have become a key political player and their influence on political dynamics is widespread. Kayihura eventually managed to turn the police into a robust force to fight most of President Museveni’s battles. Kayihura did not only flip the political policing roles from ISO and CMI but he also wrestled the power, capacity and ability to control political protests from the military, several police officers reasoned. Previously, the NRM regime deployed the  Draku, Franklin (2018). Kayihura From good cadre to jailbird. Daily Monitor, Kampala, June 14, 2018. 6  See BBC London, 06.08.2013, Uganda public order bill is ‘blow to political debate` http://www. bbc.com/news/world-africa-23587166 [Accessed on 13.01.2014]. 7  See Article 19, Uganda: Public Order Management Act, (October 2013) http://www.refworld.org/ docid/527b6cd74.html [Accessed 25.02.2014]. 5

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military to suppress every large-scale political demonstration. Police had no capacity to do so and was perceived as a politically fringe organisation (Kagoro, 2015). After taking over Kayihura made it a top priority to build the capabilities of the force, especially in large-scale crowd control strategies. The IGP’s understanding of his day-to-day duties was to first and foremost secure the president by curtailing the activities of opposition leaders such as Kizza Besigye, Kampala City Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago and since 2016 Kyadondo East MP Robert Kyagulanyi a.k.a. ‘Bobi Wine’, a senior officer observes. Several police officers told me that to be successful, Kayihura also had to deal with some internal dynamics within the police including the inevitable sidelining of the ‘old guards’ that were perceived to be hostile to the establishment. The most influential positions in command were systematically allocated to those he trusted or nurtured as NRM cadres. Kayihura presided over the recruitment of the largest number of young university graduates, giving most of them sensitive command posts. As I highlighted in the previous chapter, Kayihura ensured certain police procedures were changed. Recruitment was no longer through public service like it had been since independence. From 2007, it became a police-controlled process to recruit its own and then forward the list of those recruited to public service, the latter’s powers in this exercise minimised. The old recruitment process was elaborate, bearing hallmarks of a typical bureaucracy. Apart from the screening process, applicants were subjected to several exams including aptitude assessment. There were a couple of delays and other related technicalities associated with the process. It did not matter much whether prospective officers knew anything about NRM’s party ideology and what it stood for. Emphasis was instead laid upon the candidates’ ability to pass the exams. Unless otherwise, those deemed to have failed the exams were eliminated and could not proceed to the next stage. The nature of recruitment to a large extent was responsible for the police’s political apathy and the bureaucratic inclination of the ‘old guards’, a senior officer reasoned. Behind the veil co-operating with other security agencies to fulfil its constitutional mandate, the UPF has been able to scout and incorporate military officers into its ranks. This development as some police officers, mostly the ‘old guards’, observed was of vital significance because professional ability as a requisite for a good cop was subordinated to loyalty and readiness to advance NRM party ideology and interests. The self-assured young officers that mostly have some networks in the NRM party or with a quick access to the IGP are not easily ordered about, especially by ‘old guards’ who are perceived to have limited connections in the political circles. The more the force takes on perceived party cadres, the more the ‘old guards’ are sidelined, many officers explained. One of the most significant ‘achievement’ obtained from the changed recruitment policy is that leading NRM politicians are either in position to recommend or to directly send into the force trusted young graduates whose political affiliation they hold in no doubt. These high-level politicians may not have complete control over the entire process, but their influence cannot be ignored. In this same period, Kayihura enabled the police to creep and penetrate other spheres considered as

The Character of Police in the Electoral Cycles

29

essential to state power. As I showed earlier, the formerly thin-spread police presence at parliament, for instance, was magnified into a whole new full-fledged directorate of parliamentary police. Many officers intimated that under Kayihura the police force was ideologically transformed to clearly understand that President Museveni and the NRM government in general do not necessarily fear crime as much as riots and political demonstrations. So, commanders are aware that one can be let off the hook when criminality takes place but not when they fail to contain or curtail demonstrations. Under Kayihura, therefore, the force obtained tacit consent from the ruling party to ruthlessly curtail the opposition. This, however, is far from being the only strategy of political policing in Uganda.

The Character of Police in the Electoral Cycles Political policing in Uganda is much more visible especially when political stakes are high, especially during general elections. During elections, opposition candidates and supporters are usually brutalised and some arrested on charges of treason and sedition.8 In the 2016 election cycle, for instance, the Public Order Management Act was regularly invoked to disrupt opposition rallies and deploy riot police armed with tear gas and rubber bullets.9 Presidential candidates were required to travel with a convoy of heavily armed police officers, which a journalist suggested was meant to help the government keep tabs on the candidates’ whereabouts and activities, rather than to protect them.10 In the week preceding the 2016 elections, meanwhile, the police detained the main opposition candidate, Kizza Besigye, five times (Tapscott, 2016). In the same elections, the NRM secretary general threatened that those who intend to protest would be shot.11 Amongst many examples, one incident of a fight that broke out between supporters of Go Forward political grouping led by Museveni’s former ally Amama Mbabazi and those of NRM in Rukungiri western Uganda clearly revealed police’s partisanship. Following the fight, both sets of supporters sustained multiple injuries. In a televised interview, President Museveni vowed to punish culprits of the Go Forward camp, whom he accused of beating his supporters. A day later, the police chief flew in a police helicopter and evacuated injured supporters of NRM for onward treatment while those of the GO Forward camp were thrown in jail.  Bagala, Andrew. ‘Walk to Work: 15 A4C Members Facing Treason Charges’. The Daily Monitor, October 18, 2011. 9  Human Rights Watch. ‘Uganda: End Police Obstruction of Gatherings’. Human Rights Watch, October 18, 2015. https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/10/18/ uganda-end-police-obstructiongatherings 10  Ibid. 11  Wesonga, Nelson. ‘Uganda: Lumumba Shoot-to-Kill Threat Sparks Outrage’. The Monitor, January 31, 2016. http://allafrica.com/stories/201602012356.html 8

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During the February 2016 presidential elections, I was in the field, a synchronisation that enabled me to follow the political policing strategies up-close both from the perspective of the public and from deep inside the police force itself. Often, the aftermath of general elections in Uganda is characterised by uncertainty and in many cases each leading contender is claiming victory, and none prepared to concede defeat. As expected, the Uganda police played a key role in maintaining law and order but most importantly keeping members of the opposition in check. During the crucial period of vote counting, for instance, the police deployed at the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) party headquarters sealed off its precincts. Police was to later force their way into the building where several items were confiscated, including computers and copies of forms belonging to the party’s election agents. The police arrested a number of FDC party officials and beat supporters on several occasions. Some of the officials and supporters were held incommunicado for weeks and released without charge (see Human Right Watch, 2017). Similar operations were meted out on other FDC tally centres. With their party offices cordoned off, FDC staff and mainstream supporters could not access their nerve centre and thus render subsequent coordination of party activities impossible. After announcing the election results, Besigye was bundled by police into a helicopter and whisked off to a distant detention facility, in Karamoja north-eastern part of the country, the same place the British colonialists used to deport political dissidents agitating for Uganda’s independence. In a deliberate effort to drain his mental strength and crush his will, police decided to return him to the capital and have him incarcerated at his home for 44 days under the ‘preventive arrest’ law. Access to Besigye’s home was restricted, and visitors had to seek permission from police leadership (Human Right Watch, 2017). In this period, I was closely in touch with AIGP Andrew Felix Kaweesi who was assigned to oversee the issues of Besigye’s containment. He and I would extensively discuss the issue and he on some occasions took me along to observe what was happening at Besigye’s home. This operation did not only exhaust Besigye, but officers were equally tensed and Besigye was continually belligerent and not intimidated by whatever manoeuvres the officers tried out. Often, he would deliberately refuse to eat and sometimes stay out in his compound during very cold nights. Any mistake in such a high-profile operation would of course cost an officer his job if not attracting a prison sentence. Some, especially low-ranked officers, feigned sickness and wanted out of the operation, while others mostly the middle-level commanders thought that was their time to excel and be noticed for later promotions and ‘wet deployments’. Besigye’s home attracted international attention, as he recurrently received high-profile guests including ambassadors of western countries. Pressure was on government to explain the anomaly of imprisoning Besigye at a non-gazetted detainment premise, moreover, with no official charges pressed. Realising the many loopholes in their conduct of subjecting a presidential candidate to less logical house arrest, police finally decided to take him to court on treason charges, after ‘evidence’ was availed that he had illegally ‘sworn in’ himself as president.

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Besigye was later incarcerated at the Luzira Maximum Security Prison. In July 2016, after months of imprisonment, Besigye was released on bail, his supporters spontaneously crowding the streets to greet and welcome their ‘hero’. Once again police captured media headlines when officers in conjunction with a handful of crime preventers descended on the jubilating, enthusiastic supporters, beating and dispersing them. This episode introduced a new dynamic in crowd control, the use of canes, which was until that time unusual in police operations. High-placed sources intimated that it was the president who instructed the police to use the cane, also referred to as the ‘weapon of choice’ in police circles, instead of rubber bullets or tear gas that affect innocent people who are not part of the riotous crowds as well as officers themselves. The cane strategy seems to have backfired as television footages clearly showed officers and crime preventers brandishing rudimentary canes of different proportions lashing even the citizens who were not part of Besigye’s crowd including those going about their normal business along the streets. To some observers the application of the cane was an additional exposure of police’s perceived brutality and political partisanship. Two days after these operations, I was privileged to attend a meeting, also called ‘Baraza’12 in police terminology, which reviewed these operations. The meeting was attended by those officers of all ranks that participated in the operations. Officers recounted that they had received orders to use canes and not tear gas but also admitted having underestimated both the magnitude of the operation and the mobilisation abilities of Besigye’s radical followers who had moved ahead of police and Besigye to instigate potential rioters. Officers confessed that they were taken by surprise when they found that rioters had blocked roads with some youths lying in the middle of the road while others carrying stones ready to violently battle the police. The officers pointed out that it was a mistake to allow Besigye to choose his own route which by nature gave him tactical advantage. In the same meeting, officers divulged that they had gone into a panic mood based on their operational knowledge that the youth they deal with are usually fluid, daring and ready to test the police to the limit. They indicated that the fear of the youth was the reason they resorted to random beating of whoever was in sight, as a strategy of ‘self-preservation’. However, some officers insisted that ‘whoever was beaten deserved it’. The same meeting revealed to me one ironical detail as officers bemoaned that they sometimes get confused by civilians who join in to ‘help’ the police but with different orders including some trying to give countermands to officers while others clearly operating in patterns that are contrary to the prior orders issued. Many officers in general do not agree with the heavy involvement of civilians in operations but pay a blind eye provided the general objective of regime security is attained. Moreover, the police have often relied on criminal gangs such as the self-­baptised ‘Kifeesi’ or ‘Boda Boda 2010’ to brutalise demonstrators on the streets. These

 Baraza is a Swahili concept commonly used to refer to a public meeting held in an open space. In Uganda Police it is used to refer to meetings conducted in open space to discuss internal issues. 12

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groups have on several occasions openly confessed on television cameras that they work/worked with the police chief (Draku, 2018). Of course, the use of common criminals to crush political deviance is a regular tactic of political policing, Brodeur (1983) observed. Brodeur has argued that it is an avowed fact that informers are recruited by the police amongst persons facing criminal charges, which are provisionally dropped in return for information or action against opposition groups (Brodeur, 1983). Overall, the police tends to respond with prompt swiftness or commendable speed of action whenever an anti-NRM demonstration breaks out in any part of the city or even country, yet the same police will many times delay in the wake of say an accident, robbery or a fire outbreak. Many officers confirmed that one would rather make a mistake on any other incident but not those that are political in nature. Officers know, civil disobedience threatens the very existence of the regime and must therefore be responded to with immediate urgency. However, crime, unless it is targeting the ruling elite, poses no immediate threat and often officers take their time to react.  The June 2016 by-elections in Kyadondo East constituency near Kampala City provided another spectrum in which political policing constellations extensively played out. These elections were hotly contested, comprising of over three candidates, but the real contest pitied an NRM party candidate against the independent but opposition-leaning musician cum politician, Bobi Wine. Singing his way out of a ghetto to national popularity, Bobi Wine has been/is an inspiration to many youths for he seemed to embody their dreams and aspirations, especially to the jobless poor in the slums. He set foot on the threshold of politics with a message he had articulated years earlier in his music. Some commanders intimated that they had taken Bobi Wine lightly because he had in the past been a ‘friend’ to the IGP and not necessarily a politician. However, the tide changed when officers realised that the president and the IGP were seriously mobilising for the NRM candidate. On realising that the stakes were high, the commanders resorted to intimidation, frequent dispersion and even arresting some of his supporters. As the campaigns drew to a close, more of Bobi Wine’s supporters were rounded up and thrown in various cells around Kampala Metropolitan. On the final day of the campaign, Kyagulanyi was also detained but briefly. In addition, he was forced to make last minute changes for his final rally. He was told, the venue he intended to use was the same venue the head of state was going to use to advance the NRM cause on behalf of the party’s candidate.

The Kogikwatako Episode Political policing was even more vivid during the process of amending article 102(b) of the 1995 constitution, a strategy that in effect, amongst other things, lifted the presidential age limit from the upper cap of 75 years. Opposition members vehemently opposed the amendment of the constitution coining the phrase ‘Kogikwatako’

The Kogikwatako Episode

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(do not touch it) as a rallying slogan in July 2017 (Ashaba & Titeca, 2017). The debate generated a lot of controversy and for the first time in history security forces including the police stormed parliament to violently evict opposition MPs and a few NRM lawmakers opposed to the bill. Some MPs were brutalised and hospitalised for weeks while others were arrested in a humiliating manner on numerous occasions. The proponents of the bill claimed it sought to stamp out discrimination in some elective offices while those opposed to it insisted it would usher in a ‘life presidency’ of President Museveni who has been in power for 33  years and can continue to contest without limitation. The police outrightly denied opposition MPs opportunity to freely consult the electorate on whether to change the highly contentious article. According to the IGP, the various DPCs were indeed wrong to have curtailed the activities of the lawmakers. Yet despite his public acceptance that his juniors had not acted right, he never called them to order. Of course, many commanders told me that they could not risk letting the opposition to freely access the population, but most importantly they had the knowledge that the IGP was just being rhetoric. Tensions were high and the police supported by the military deployed heavily especially around areas surrounding the parliamentary building. As anxieties heightened, demonstrators opposed to the bill were ruthlessly demobilised and thrown in disarray in different parts of the country every time they attempted to assemble. On the flip side, demonstrators in support of the bill were allowed to match freely, dressed in yellow (the NRM’s official party colour) and waved placards baring messages insinuating life presidency. In what was a classic example of police partisanship, another group of youth applied a clever stratagem to beat the overzealous police in September 2017. The group was opposed to the age limit bill and wanted to find a way of reaching parliament, where they hoped to fraternise with other youth. They decided to put on NRM colours to hoodwink the police. These youthful tricksters started their ill-fated match from one of Kampala’s suburbs. Meanwhile, these youth had not informed police of their plans. Relying on the good fortune of the NRM’s yellow colour alone, they successfully bypassed several police deployments who upon seeing yellow T-shirt donning youth thought they posed no danger. With growing excitement, the youth approached the city centre, where they found another police deployment. Reluctantly, this group of officers like the first did not bother much. Fooled by the yellow colour, they thought these were friends of the regime and almost let them proceed. On keen observation, the officers were able to read the ‘kogikwatako’ slogan on one of the youth’s T-shirts and, at the same time, the youth chorused the rallying slogan. The youth were then immediately curtailed.13 Some civil society organisations also came under police surveillance because their leaders had on several occasions spoken strongly against the bill. ActionAid and Great Lakes Institute for Strategic Studies, for instance, had their offices raided,

 This episode was widely covered by several television stations including Nation Television (NTV) and National Broadcasting Service (NBS), the most watched television channels in Uganda. 13

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computers carried away and bank accounts frozen. A director of Great Lakes Institute was also subjected to house arrest at one point. Police claimed that their actions were prompted by the need to ascertain as to who exactly funds these organisations. Meanwhile, police officers were suspicious of anyone wearing a red bandana or cap (red, symbolised those opposed to the bill and by extension the regime). For instance, the IGP categorically warned that fans who intended to put on red caps should choose another day but not the day the national football team, the Cranes, played the Black stars of Ghana in the FIFA 2018 World Cup Qualifier in October 2017. It was put clear that those who defy would otherwise be denied entry into the stadium though ironically red is the official colour of Uganda Cranes’ home kit. Important to note is that crowd control operations including demonstrations and riots have presented some legal dilemmas for the police and the government in general. For the period of my research between 2013 and 2018, for instance, violent clashes between the police and opposition leaders and supporters were frequent and hundreds of arrests were made. Ironically, the police usually argue that demonstrators cause violence and destroy people’s businesses and property, which would be clear grounds of criminal liability. However, I did not come across a single case where a demonstrator was successfully prosecuted in the courts of law. Usually, the leaders are arrested for 1 to 2 days and then released on police bond though some little-known supporters do stay in jail for extended periods of time, some up to 3 years, without being properly prosecuted. Many commanders told me that police’s major interest is to demoralise the opposition and not to necessarily win legal battles. Police’s legal dilemmas in this case can be well explained when we pay a closer look at observations made by scholars such as Shearing and Stenning (1983) and Brodeur (1983) that while engaging in political policing activities, police officers are in a paradox because the crime they are purporting to prevent or resolve is against the state thus the state is the ‘victim’. Therefore, the state as a victim is simultaneously transformed into a witness of his or her own victimisation. To that effect, Shearing and Stenning (1983) argue that the state is much more sensitive to its own needs as institutional victims than to those of the citizens who they have a duty to protect. Similarly, Brodeur (2010) observed that in the political policing model, there is a significant danger that the state will behave as privately injured party seeking its own separate partisan interest. To circumvent this paradox, the Uganda police have tried to transform dissenters into criminal enemies or in some cases infiltrated the opposition by sending its informers including crime preventers to engage in unlawful behaviour such that the lawful dissent activities are then morally disgraced. Police’s rough treatment of some opposition politicians, however, gives the latter political mileage. As a matter of fact, some politicians are not interested in keeping off the streets for they understand that though there is a price to pay, expected gains are worth the hazard. Some opposition members will deliberately do provocative things for the sake of attracting police attention. Many commanders revealed that some opposition members trick the police into making mistakes to gain public sympathy including the attraction of donor outrage towards the ruling party. Some are

Police Commanders in the Context of an Election

35

good friends with police commanders and occasionally meet with them to share a good laugh about their clashes on the streets. On several occasions, I was part of some informal interactions between opposition members and police commanders who at individual levels have no problem with each other and happily fraternise. A few of those opposition politicians would even share that active participation in demonstrations helps them to rally people and build their political profile.

Police Commanders in the Context of an Election Meanwhile, an election year can make or break police commanders, especially District Police Commanders (DPCs) and Regional Police Commanders (RPCs). They have some influence on the outcome of ballot counting given that it is their responsibility to guard polling stations and will, in this regard, deploy at their discretion. The electoral cycle (pre-electoral, during and post-electoral stages) presents both opportunities and challenges in equal measures. Coming every other 5 years, the mounting tensions, the excitement, the rallies, the endless mobilisation and incessant travel of politicians are all activities that create an environment in which commanders are fully engaged. During the 2016 elections, I witnessed a myriad of ‘strategic’ meetings where commanders’ plans of actions are drawn. Here, commanders must be as strategic as possible to read the perspectives of their bosses and the implicit desires of the establishment. Commanders usually have some increased operational funds, while others get more illicit funds from individual candidates who want favours. The favours may come in form of letting a candidate openly bribe voters, campaigning before or after the stipulated time including the night-time door-to-door solicitation of votes or to even helping in the demobilisation of the opponent. Moreover, the commanders might also facilitate the ridging during the counting process since they are the ones in charge of security. In general, commanders often interfere with campaign schedules or do facilitate and protect bands of youth who deface campaign posters of the opposition candidates. The heightened tensions in this period usually put some officers in trouble yet still enabling others to thrive depending on how the police-politicians dynamics play out in a specific locality. I have interacted with many officers who lost favour including wet deployments because of the heightened tensions in the electoral cycle, and yet also with many others who have benefited from the same. In fact, some officers have made a shot to national fame because contained opposition activities with ‘commendable’ steadfastness and consistence, some commanders reasoned. Many officers revealed that the most delicate period is when the NRM party is conducting its primary elections. Here, there is no opposition per say and the police is supposed to be neutral and only securing the process. However, the often chaos and drama of these elections have severely affected careers of several police officers. Always a pulse-pounding event, the primaries get heated each time the NRM has more than one strong candidate, for the same post. The theatrics that play out in

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the subsequent days of intense campaigning leave an impression of a house divided. Candidates tussle out not as opponents as expected but as enemies absorbed in an all-out drive to determine the party’s flag bearer. Because of its financial muscle, NRM tends to attract many candidates willing to stand on its ticket, exacerbating the situation. It is during this period that the rough and tumble of intra-party politics reach their peak. In the process, all tools believed to be part of NRM’s campaign machine are put to effective use: the lobbying, mudslinging, bribing of voters and in some cases trading of blows. What is the police’s role in this chaos? As mandated by the constitution, the police come to the fore as protector of ballots and to ensure law and order during the process. Often, after declaring the winner, the losers immediately declare foul play and refuse to concede. They start gathering all forms of evidence as one clear path to litigation and to prove the election was neither free nor fair. Many commanders revealed that they had had some torrid experience of wrongful accusations by party politicians who have lost primary elections. The commanders have been accused of helping opponents in the bribery of voters or even ballot stuffing. Should the loser be prominent amongst party circles, the accusation of ballot stuffing proven or not may put an officer’s career in jeopardy. The flip side of elections has always been the unpredictability of the outcome and the risks involved. Emerging unscathed is not to be taken for granted but rather with a heart overflowing with gratitude, many officers reasoned.

The Soft Power Strategy The soft political policing approach seems to be the most effective and yet the least understood, debated and analysed. It entails the application of cunning strategies including persuasion, bribery and, in some instances, police holding out an olive branch to members of the opposition. Using covert methods, the results thereof realised are sometimes confounding. The police do buy off the opposition in some cases behind the back of the public and most especially supporters. Uganda’s political landscape is structured in a way that the winner may in most cases not be the one with the most appealing political programmes but one who spends more cash during elections. This type of politics unfolds in such a way that a candidate who buys more alcohol and distributes more soap and groceries such as sugar and salt is more likely to emerge with better results than one campaigning on a platform of ideas. Since opposition parties have a perpetually limited resource envelope, the police in some cases exploit that deficiency by covertly buying them off. Police do not necessarily lure opposition members by cash handouts alone. They seem to have an assorted array of inducements, depending partly on their assessment of the situation or the immediate needs of the economically struggling politician. They may donate as many liters of fuel as possible to enable the politician traverse a constituency during campaigns provided the politician would be relied on to covertly work for them from within the opposition. More so, some politicians join politics after borrowing

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a huge amount of money for the campaigns and are heavily indebted thereafter. What the police do, especially the IGP, is to figure out which of those politicians might provide the much needed information within the opposition camps when needed. Some of the most prominent opposition politicians, as my entrenched access revealed, actively serve the interests of the NRM with the police as the go-between. Police entice some members of the opposition because in them they see the potential of fulfilling the interest of the force and by extension those of the ruling NRM party. Conversely, the members of the opposition have to in one way or the other, work with the same police that mishandles them. There’s no way any member of the opposition can pretend to entirely do away with the police. In moments of empathy and brotherhood, police have gone an extra mile to provide firearms to opposition parliamentarians who, for most of the time, symbolically show them off as a sign a higher status. Since the coercive arm of the state is mainly directed at the opposition, it is the endeavour of some opposition politicians to try as much as they can to cultivate cordial relations with police. It is in the best interest for a member of the opposition to be personally known to high-ranking police officers. By the nature of the agenda, they portend to advocate for there is no way a member from the opposition can stay clear of police. Each time they get in trouble, they can rely on the good fortunate of the cultivated relations. This they do not have to portray so blatantly, otherwise they risk putting the officer’s job in jeopardy. The interpersonal relationship is supposed to be of a nuanced kind so that suspicion of possible collaboration is kept at a bare minimum. When campaigns are on, the politician may be culpable of some infractions of the law, but which police decides to ignore given the mutual friendship. One such infraction is campaigning beyond the time prescribed by the electoral commission. As a state agent with discretionary powers, police commanders may order his or her troops to back off the rally. In the extreme case of the politician being thrown in jail, he/she has the reason to expect mild treatment, courtesy of the shared acquaintance. The politician might also use his personal connections with several officers, to secure the release of his or her detained supporters even those arrested for cases not related to politics. Helping constituents out of jail regardless of the case or helping them to get their issues solved by police is of course common and a politically rewarding deed in Uganda. In the intricate web of buying political support, it’s not just opposition politicians are targeted. The youths, the country’s most dominant demographic group, are many times a prime target. Poor, unemployed, undecided and easily swayed, police consider the energy and zeal of these restless, ambitious youths as a resource to achieving tactical political ends during the heady days of the electoral cycle, for instance. Their shaky allegiance makes them vital sources of information because of their ability to straddle both sides of the political aisle, switching sides from one camp to another with strange calm. Their reliability cannot be dismissed entirely, though admittedly, a cross section of them always looks out for someone capable of filling their basic needs, a senior commander observed. Most of these youth operate within the crime preventers’ scheme that I shall return to shortly.

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Many opposition groups, if not all, have been heavily infiltrated with police informers. However, these political groups are never willing to take official action which might disclose the extent to which they have been infiltrated by the police because such revelations are liable to drastically reduce their credibility in the eyes of their supporters and funders. As Brodeur (2010) argued, it does not actually matter much how many informers the police are using to infiltrate the opposition in its political policing arrangements, but the most important aspect is to pursue a double strategy of actual infiltration and to maximise insecurity amongst the target opposition groups by deliberately spreading rumours about the pervasive character of its deployment. As a key NRM cadre and strategist Kayihura mastered this strategy and in several ways deliberately leaked some of his dealings with opposition politicians to the media to heighten suspicions amongst the opposition to further destabilise their internal cohesion. One such case that stood out was in April 2014 when the media was awashed with the recordings of secret conversations between Kayihura and Kampala City Deputy Major Suleiman Kidandala, a member of the opposition.14 This strategy of infiltrating is neither new nor limited to Uganda. For instance, Brodeur (2010) singled out undercover operatives and informers as the hallmark of political policing. Meanwhile, Eaton and Funder (2003) demonstrated this aspect of political policing through the archival records of the former Democratic Republic of Germany’s (East Germany) ‘Staatssicherheit’ (Stasi). The archives showed that persons linked together by family, love and friendship spied on each other for the benefit of the state. The Stasi system, Eaton and Funder (2003) argued, thrived on betrayal, fostering of mutual suspicion and demoralisation. The Stati political policing scheme did not only affect East Germany but also all the former communists’ states in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. According to some police commanders, through applying the soft power strategy backed by financial incentives, the police have been able to ‘outmanoeuvre’ the opposition in terms of mass mobilisation. The IGP personally engages in camera and in some cases opens dialogues with the youth to dissuade them from organising and participating in riots by handing out money, promising development projects for individual ringleaders, integrating others into the spy apparatus or simply keeping them tied up in talks while they are supposed to mobilise. The IGP’s personal budget for such purposes is estimated at 3.6 billion Ugandan shillings (US$ 1 million) per quarter, making him a key player in the politics of Uganda (Phillips & Kagoro, 2016). During general elections, the IGP’s office gets so much sucked in politics and operates as a de facto, if not the most strategic, organ of the ruling party. As an NRM loyal supporter, it is instinctual for the IGP to use the tools at his disposal to define his contribution towards the NRM. By his own testament, that is why he felt compelled to act behind the scenes to ensure NRM won not only the presidency but also as many parliamentary seats as possible. For Kayihura the general elections were a defining moment. He personally intimated to me that he could not imagine NRM and President Museveni losing power when he was IGP.

14

 See, for instance, ‘Leaked recordings: Kidandala owns up’ New Vision, Kampala 17 April 2014.

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During the electoral cycle, for example, I observed that the IGP worked day and night, sometimes moving from one extreme end of the country to another to be sure that NRM is in a leading position. The IGP further intimated his fears that if President Museveni had lost election, the NRM revolution would come to an end and the country plunge into chaos. An NRM loss, meanwhile, would have translated into a deep personal loss for Kayihura for it would have simultaneously thrown his job in balance. In essence, therefore, his job also depended on the success of NRM. Moreover, as I highlighted in the preceding chapter, there is no legal basis to repeal if the president summarily dismissed an IGP, fairly or unfairly.

Police Officers’ Political Inclinations The political ties between the police and the regime seem to have penetrated the social consciousness of many police officers who strategically use their individual influence to demonstrate their ‘absolute’ support to earn promotions or to avoid being forgotten by the system. Some commanders use their personal and/or institutional resources to tilt political scales in favour of the NRM. As one officer intimated, ‘I had to use my own money to mobilise people to attend the president’s [President Museveni] campaign rally in my home area…of course I knew that the president would automatically hear about it. It would have been embarrassing for the president to address a small crowd in my home area’.15 For an RPC or DPC, the apex of the campaign period arrives the day he hosts the president in his area of jurisdiction. The enthusiasm, sense of purpose and urgency with which the commanders in the district react, rushing to utilise all resources at their disposal to massively mobilise the locals to attend the presidential rally, attest to the significance of the event. If the president addresses empty stands, the commander’s career might be negatively affected depending on the political dynamics of that specific area, several commanders separately shared. As an influential person in the locality, the commanders are implicitly expected to do their best for the presidential rally to attract mammoth crowds. Officers mobilise as much as possible and hope to be recognised. Of course, when the president is delighted, the IGP would be satisfied as well. This is also seen as a strategy to secure or maintain a lucrative position (wet deployment) in the force. Many officers see political mobilisation as the most natural way of doing things, especially during electoral period. There seems to be a logical pattern that those officers holding ‘wet deployments’ are simultaneously the most ardent supporters of the establishment. As seen in the preceding section, the police commit significant resources to facilitate the NRM during the electoral cycle. The police will transport NRM supporters to campaign rallies, issue fuel to boda boda riders to encourage them attend and add excitement at NRM rallies, use its structures across the country

15

 Senior police officer SPO1, March 12, 2016, Kampala, interview.

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to recruit supporters or pay handouts to opposition politicians to secretly work for the NRM. In 2015, when the NRM hosted its delegate’s conference, I was privy to access information of how the police was covertly using its resources to buy mattresses, pay out-of-pocket and transport refund to NRM party members who had come to attend the delegates’ conference. Meanwhile, police commanders are often involved in the framing of the narrative that depicts opposition supporters as immoderate, rowdy or hooligans bent on causing chaos. According to some commanders, the description alone gives police latitude to move boldly against any organised formation of the opposition, at times basing on made up or imagined ‘intelligence’ reports. Frequently, police commanders especially RPCs and DPCs in up-country towns storm private radio stations to stop programmes in which opposition leaders are participating. The police commanders usually use ‘inciting violence’ or ‘causing disharmony’ as the basis for their action (see Human Right Watch reports, 2015, 2016, 2017). On the other hand, as we have seen already, not any of these restrictions are imposed on the NRM. As Costa and Thompson (2011) have observed, police behaviour cannot be dissociated from an examination of the political, social and normative structures that shape their actions in this case political partisanship. The overt political leaning of certain commanders cannot be explained simply by their individual motives. This behaviour is governed by a series of social norms, laws and regulations that may deter certain actions while encouraging others. So, Costa and Thompson (2011) would discard the so-called ‘bad apple’ hypothesis which might present the argument that this partisanship is something perpetrated by a few crooked cops. Obviously, political partisanship and violence that these officers met out go beyond the level of individual analysis. The real question Costa and Thompson (2011) would pose is not why such behaviour occurs but why it is permitted or tolerated. The subconscious, and perhaps also deeply entrenched, acceptance of police’s political inclination is evident in the language some officers use. During casual conversations some officers often made statements using ‘we’, ‘us’ or ‘our side’ when referring to the NRM or ‘them’, ‘their side’, ‘for them’ or ‘they’ when referring to the opposition. During the 2016 presidential campaigns, I observed that many officers had President Museveni’s campaign posture as their WhatsApp profile picture. Some freely displayed the NRM party campaign images on their social media platforms especially Facebook. This may be interpreted as an embracement of the police-NRM ties and an expression of commitment to the party. This uncovers essential characteristics of the socialisation within the police force and shows us how the police and individual officers respond to the social and political context within which they operate. This is also an example of what Thelen et al. (2017) call ‘stategraphy’, enabling us to tie together state practices and representations illustrating on relational modalities, boundary work and forms of embeddedness of police officers as constitutive components of police-regime bond. Here we see how the police-NRM ties are understood, experienced and reproduced by police officers in their everyday duties. What police officers do, how they do it and why they do it is highly responsive to organisational and sociopolitical landscape in which they are embedded, as Klinger (2004, p.128–129)

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would argue. Police officers have a substantial degree of discretion about how they choose to carry out their duties, but they are by no means wholly unencumbered by the rules of the organisations for which they work (Klinger, 2004). Police officers especially commanders seem to be implicitly socialised and moulded to believe that the right way of doing things is to act as NRM cadres creatively and sometimes explicitly. Based on their own interpretation of the political landscape, they use every opportunity to fit into the understanding and expectations that the police and the NRM are bounded together. Goffman (1959) may have argued that police officers present to their bosses and politicians who are observing them an impression of an idealised view of the situation. An officer will ensure that he incorporates and exemplifies the unwritten values that a hardworking officer also mobilises and protects the ruling party. Of course, officers possess the implicit and vital knowledge that upward mobility and sustenance of a ‘wet deployment’ may demand that they maintain an outlook of both a politically reliable cadre and a charismatic commander. In many less democratised countries, as Bonner (2014) observed, police officers implicitly know that they are expected to support incumbent regimes and act upon this knowledge. During campaigns it is usual to see walls of police stations pinned with campaign posters of President Museveni and in some cases inside the station. Interestingly, some officers had maintained those posters until 2018, 2 years after the elections. This is of course not an innocent gesture but also an attempt to signal loyalty to the party which may attract a reward. Display of campaign posters in any government office including the police is, meanwhile, legally prohibited. Of course, a police station can only bear posters of President Museveni and none of his contending rivals, many officers reasoned. According to my observation, including what the officers told me during field work, most of the police commanders see themselves as part of the greater NRM campaign and mobilisation structure. By gluing portraits of the president on their office walls, they are enacting what every dedicated cadre ought to do. ‘Police are committed campaign agents of the ruling party and a committed agent will always promote one candidate at a time’, as one commander explained. Moreover, two erstwhile police spokespersons Nabakooba Judith and Semei Nsubuga went into the tenth parliament on the NRM party ticket. The two MPs, according to a senior officer, received blessings and significant financial support from the police during their campaigns. These MPs were at the same time amongst the most vocal supporters of the bill cum law that removed the age limit. Here, a caveat is important, because not all police officers are ardent supporters of the ruling party. In fact, a few intimated that they would cheer the day the NRM party and President Museveni lose to the opposition. According to my observation and insights from several officers, it seems that those who do not support the establishment are mostly those that are perceived to have been ‘forgotten’ or ‘sidelined’. Many of such officers have stagnated for years and perceive it that their lack of progress is undeserved and that their ‘progressive’ colleagues are privileged largely because of godfathers in the system. Therefore, these disgruntled officers have no strong incentive to sacrifice for the NRM. A senior officer who fell out of favour

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with the IGP put further context, ‘Once I told my juniors to vote for Museveni. I was still a staunch NRM cadre. However, after Museveni abused police, the boys came back to me and said: Do you see what your man is saying? Why do you want us to support him? No wonder some pro-ruling party analysts claim, police officers who make operational mistakes are opposition supporters in police uniform’. According to a discussion I held with some commanders who were attending a course at the Police Senior Command College in March 2017, many low-ranked officers support the opposition. To the commanders, the juniors support the opposition because the government has not done much to improve their welfare and working conditions. The more cautious ones express their anger and frustration on the polling day by refusing to vote the NRM. The unpopularity of the ruling party has repeatedly been emphasised by ballot paper showings, where the opposition has trounced the incumbent at several polling stations within various police barracks. For the bolder officers, their abhorrence of the regime stretches and is sometimes pronounced boldly especially after a little intoxication as I observed during my hang-outs with low-ranked officers over local brew. During the 2016 vote counting process, some officers wore blue t-shirts, the colour of the leading opposition party the FDC, and celebrated the results in Kampala where NRM lost with high margins. One officer was arrested in February 2016, for referring to opposition leader Kizza Besigye as his president. While watching the news, this officer stood up and saluted the TV news bulletin upon Besigye’s appearance. Besigye has on several occasions made a claim that most police officers support his cause. In one such incident, Besigye while appearing on NTV’s ‘Fourth Estate’ programme in March 2016 proclaimed, ‘I know many of our officers are in support of change, but the problem is a small number of top police officials who are not doing police work but politics’. Besigye further revealed that ‘Officers see me, and they are always whispering to me when is this thing ending? We are also very tired’. Unable to disguise their hatred for the regime some, officers have chosen to play out their personal disdain of the system through calculated acts of sabotage. Each time they are sent to the field, they deliberately bungle operations by misdirecting their tear gas cannons against the wrong target so that the government is held in condemnation. Many officers including some in wet deployments intimated that though they enjoy the privileges, they also feel that politics are messing up the force, which could lead to further negative consequences especially when the government changes.

The Crime Preventers Political Scheme The crime preventers’ scheme is seen as one of the most profound political policing strategies in Uganda. Based on loose legal provisions including the 1994 Police Act that provides for auxiliary forces, the police ‘recruited’ thousands of civilians referred to as crime preventers to work as force multipliers (Gaffey, 2016; Tapscott, 2016; Kagoro, 2018). The large-scale recruitment of crime preventers under the banner of community policing especially in the wake of 2016 general elections

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stirred debates over the legality of the exercise while at the same time raising concerns that strategy was being implemented to give the incumbent president political advantage over the opposition (Tapscott, 2016; FES, 2017; Collord, 2018). In fact, a coalition of five human rights organisations, including Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Amnesty International, called on the government to suspend the operations of crime preventers as the elections approached. To them, crime preventers were seen as tool aimed at intimidating or reducing support for the opposition (Gaffey, 2016). Around 2014 and in the months preceding the 2016 general elections, the police rigorously recruited millions of crime preventers many of which, but not all, are receiving some paramilitary training (Kagoro, 2018; Tapscott 2016). At graduations, recruits mostly wore yellow T-shirts, the colour of the NRM.  The police claimed that the crime preventers numbered about 12 million (see Collord, 2018), high placed  sources, including those involved in the recruitment, put the figure at about one million, more than half of which were not active. The numbers were also persistently inflated by the leadership of the crime preventers as well as police officers not only to bolster their relevancy and magnitude (Tapscott, 2016; Kagoro, 2018) but also to draw more resources from the police coffers. In part, as the IGP intimated to me, the strategy was aimed at constructing shared mentalities and positive feelings towards the police force and, more significantly, towards the NRM party ideology. Between July and September 2015 and from January to March 2016 I was based at Kampala Metropolitan Police moving from one police division and region to another depending on what was the situation. During the 2016 general elections, I was able to observe the role and relevancy of the crime preventers in details. Crime preventers were not necessarily used as a coercive strategy or a tool to intimidate the opposition but were majorly seen as mobilisers and potential voters for the ruling party. Simultaneously, the recruitment seemed to have been designed to keep the disgruntled and unemployed youth from opposition activities (Tapscott, 2016; Kagoro, 2018). My intense interactions with both police commanders and crime preventers revealed that the latter played an active role in mobilising for and attending President Museveni’s campaign rallies, an important element since numbers attending rallies would be used in debates to show which presidential candidate was stronger. Several leaders within the crime preventers’ structures, especially at the national level, including the chairperson, have explicitly professed support for the ruling party, some explaining that the IGP and the president are their patrons (Tapscott, 2016). The structures of crime presenters are an imitation of the official UPF structure, though in a rudimentary way, one might say. The scheme has the national coordinator and heads of different departments that are stationed at the National Crime Preventers Forum (NCPF) headquarters in Wandegeya, a suburb of Kampala City (Kagoro, 2018). Their chain of command, like that of police, then spreads out to coordinators at regional, divisional or district in up-country towns, sub-county, parish and village (Tapscott, 2016). The structures were rather elaborate and can be traced throughout the country. Since majority, if not all, crime preventers claim to

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subscribe to NRM, the role they play as part of police’s security architecture has been eclipsed by their political relevancy as significant NRM mobilisers. According to human rights organisations, there was clear evidence that the crime preventer programme was linked to the NRM party and that the crime preventers’ actions were frequently both unlawful and partisan, aimed at intimidating or reducing support for the opposition (see Human Rights Watch, 2016). Throughout the 2016 campaign period, crime preventers rose to the occasion as grass-root party mobilisers, capable of reaching millions of voters. In late 2015, of course, with the February 2016 elections in mind, the police at strategic level had planned to recruit 30 crime preventers in each of the 57,789 villages across the country, which would translate to over 1.7 million mobilisers; this of course largely remained on paper (Kagoro, 2018). The plan was also to rely on crime preventers’ structures to shield police’s active role in political mobilisation for the NRM, of course, to avoid criticisms by the opposition and development partners. Though many might argue that the police were still overtly involved, the crime preventers provided some cover-up. Meanwhile, crime preventers were also used to disrupt many opposition activities such as rallies and to deface campaign posters. Many crime preventers I interacted with seemed to associate ties with the police with prestige and status and some who were armed tended to have a habit of showing off their weapons not for intimation purposes but to claim a social status (Kagoro, 2018). To the bulk of uneducated and unemployed youth, a crime preventer comes off as a well-facilitated state operative whose connections within police circles elevate him to a pedestal of a role model. There were not clear recruitment procedures besides the recruit’s willingness to fight crime and perhaps a tacit pronouncement of inclination to NRM. The lack of a thorough screening process resulted into the enlistment of several wrong elements, many police officers argued. A senior officer intimated that ‘this indiscriminative recruitment brought on board undesirable characters, including people with lengthy criminal records’. Some police commanders shared that rather than truly prevent crime through a series of proven measures, some crime preventers have in shameful scenarios been the very ones implicated in the abetting of unlawful conduct through theft, assault, battery, defilement, rape, gun robbery and much more. Some commenters have vulgarised the crime preventers’ scheme by coining concepts such as ‘crime promoters’ or ‘crime creators’ (Gaffey, 2016; Tapscott, 2016). My observation was that the crime preventers’ principal role was to mobilise for the NRM during elections, penetrate the opposition and help in thwarting political demonstration, thus preventing crime might be seen as a second priority. This is the reason as to why after elections, their relevancy plunged. The majority were rendered jobless not because there was no more crime to prevent, but because after campaigns had reached their logical conclusion, the flow of incentives minimised. A sizable number of crime preventers, several police officers intimated, were motivated by material benefit and participated in police operations such as patrols with the main aim of extorting from the public. Others tortured suspects when executing arrests and used their positions to extort money from the public (Kitunzi, 2017).

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Many officers also intimated that some of the crime preventers had taken over the roles of the regular police. Operations and financing of the crime preventers were usually embroiled in ambiguity and corrupt tendencies, most officers claimed. Discretely, several police officers find nothing more excruciating like the ‘undeserving’ crime preventers responsible for causing unnecessary budget expenditure. The majority of police officers I talked to viewed crime preventers as rivals bent on usurping their powers. There were several crime preventers who regularly associated with highly placed people in government, making them powerful lobbyists. These could, in a matter of hours, cause the transfer of a police officer from a wet deployment, if that officer was not in their ‘good books’ many officers intimated. It was common that crime preventers overstepped their power and, in some cases, had caused operational mistakes. As much as they did share the same vision of regime survival with the police, their zeal was sometimes superfluous. Where a police officer expected some level of restraint, an ill-trained crime preventer would simply charge at crowds beating and chasing anyone in sight. Some of the operations that went erratic were a direct consequence of actions, not of police but of crime preventers acting without any sense of moderation or rules, many officers shared. A police officer narrated that ‘crime preventers simply run amok when told to contain crowds. Some appear in the middle of operations without comprehending operational orders or operate on contrary orders altogether.’ Besides the tainted image of the crime preventers especially in regard to their political partisanship and operational excesses when political stakes were high, there was evidence that the scheme had some achievements. Before the inception of crime preventers scheme, people perceived any police structure as a place of crime and punishment. Unless there was crime to be reported or a criminal to be punished, there was no justification for a civilian to walk to the precincts of any police station. In some measures, the crime preventers’ scheme seemed to have altered that mentality. Typically, a crime preventer could access a police station without any degree of nervousness as might be expected of an ordinary person not acquainted  with police. A crime preventer straddled both worlds, that of police and of civilians. The crime preventers’ scheme had augmented police presence, especially in rural areas which for many years were ‘police free’, according to Thomas Bierschenk (2017) description in his ‘Who are the Police in Africa’ thesis. Moreover, some crime preventers ended up joining police ‘proper’ in case they had the minimum requirements. Crime preventers were in position to recount to their civilian associates about their observations at the police station and interchangeably shared with police officers the developments within the community. This role, one would argue, made crime preventers instrumental in cracking open the social wall between police and the people. As a result, citizens were with increasing confidence gradually creeping to whichever place police might be without necessarily perceiving a police officer as the stern looking detached mortal that is all starched uniform and shiny darkling boots. Several interviewees revealed that people have learnt to appreciate how human officers were. A few minutes with them are adequate to enable them to

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understand that some of their anxieties, dilemmas, challenges, dreams and aspirations are their very own. At a rural police station in western Uganda, I observed that it was common to see crime preventers and their friends flocking the police station, sitting under a tree shed next to the station and freely interacting with police officers over a shared snack mangoes, roasted maize or sugar. Despite their flaws, some officers shared that crime preventers had bridged the gap which had for so long frustrated the goodwill between police and the communities. They augment police numbers and participate in police operations such as night patrols or even in community policing seminars. Since they have knowledge of the people and area in which they operate, they were surely a profound resource to police. Moreover, there are cases where crime preventers exposed police officers that were involved in dubious and fraudulent activities (Kagoro, 2018). The crime preventers’ scheme, however, was largely shaped by the political agenda of the NRM regime which broadly relied on the police to conduct surveillance, penetrate and control the political enemy within. This scheme, therefore, can be understood in Emsley’s (1996) framework of political policing upon which this chapter has explained the phenomenon. In conclusion, this chapter clearly shows that the police in Uganda explicitly engages in political policing. This phenomenon, however, is neither new nor limited to Uganda. Since its establishment during the colonial era and throughout the subsequent post-colonial regimes, the police force has been used to protect the prevailing political order. Contemporary political policing in Uganda is strongly linked to the strategies that the incumbent regime, the NRM, put in place to narrow the ideological and operational gap between the party and the police. The appointment of Gen. Kayihura as IGP facilitated both the fusion of the police with NRM and the thorough containment of the opposition. The police force does not only use coercion, intimidation and surveillance of the opposition but also applies a rather effective soft power strategy to promote and sustain the interests of the ruling party. The increased government attention and funding of the police is also directly linked to the latter playing a pivotal role in the Ugandan political landscape.

Chapter 3

The Daily Life of a Territorial Police Commander

Introduction My field work activities included spending time with different police commanders on duty. I intensely interacted with over 70 officers at the level of District Police Commander (DPC) and Regional Police Commander (RPC) and over the same period witnessed some gaining higher appointments and promotions from the former to the latter and even higher. My interactions allowed me to experience how individual commanders go about their work on a day-to-day basis. On average, territorial commanders carry three to four mobile phones, each ringing off the hook. As a norm, the official line has to be kept on 24 h, just in case the IGP calls or a major incident happens. These officers are on duty ‘24 h’, and there is no culture of leave in the Uganda Police. Despite all these challenges, these positions are highly coveted and considered as wet deployments in the Uganda Police circles. In this chapter I discuss the life of police commanders, especially at the tactical level where most police work is executed. It is at this level that commanders make arrests, react to traffic incidents, counter demonstrations, control firearms, commence criminal investigations, inspect crime scenes and conduct patrols. The Uganda Police Force (UPF) is subdivided into 29 regions that are each commanded by an RPC and about 134 policing districts each commanded by a DPC. In the Kampala Metropolitan, however, each district is subdivided into several policing divisions, which are also commanded by DPCs. With this chapter I address several questions: What do territorial commanders do? How do they operate on a day-to-day basis? And what defines their success? For better conceptualisation, I concentrate on two echelons of tactical command, the DPCs and RPCs, though the latter’s mandate overlaps between tactical and operational levels of command. The chapter contributes to the debate on the undercurrents of police command; a subject that has long been of interest for academic research (see Bryman et al., 1996; Kerr & Jermier, 1978). While effective police © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 J. Kagoro, Inside an African Police Force, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-14992-4_3

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command appears to be a desired principle within the policing field, limited scholarly attention has been given to studying command processes and the hindrances to developing more effective and efficient leadership practices (Mastrofski, 2002, 2006). Research on police command has mostly been dominated by two models. First, the philosophy of transaction between commanders and individual followers in which commanders provide rewards to juniors and in return juniors consent to the commander’s leadership (Bass, 1985; Dobby et al., 2004). Second, the role of charisma, as a largely idiosyncratic characteristic which enables commanders to transform juniors (Berson et al., 2006; Judge et al., 2002; Hoggett et al., 2019). Shortly, I show that both models apply in the context of the Uganda Police. As noted in the preceding chapter, territorial commanders and their juniors are street-level bureaucrats and wield considerable discretion in the true sense of Lipsky’s (1980) analytical framework. The DPC, in Kampala Metropolitan Police (KMP) referred to as the Divisional Police Commander (DPC), is an embodiment of the tactical level of command and superintends over the day-to-day policing activities in a district. Officially, DPCs work under the supervision of the RPCs though in practice they often receive direct instructions from the Inspector General of Police (IGP) or some directors at strategic level, depending on the dynamics of policing at a particular time and place. During the time I was in the field, I observed that the IGP Gen. Kale Kayihura was often in direct contact with his tactical commanders across the country, a habit that some thought disorganised the bureaucratic logic of the force. This chapter proceeds as follows; I outline the official duties of the DPCs and RPCs, describe the fluidity in the strategies that commanders apply and then discuss the ambiguous yet critical role of commanders as arbitration experts. Thereafter, I provide a detailed account of a full day I spent with an RPC before discussing the competing demands and challenges that commanders regularly encounter including how they balance their relations with people of status and kin and kith. I then conclude the chapter with a short overview of the financial budgets and personnel management.

Principle Duties of DPCs/RPCs The duties of DPCs and RPCs are identical. The key difference is that RPCs command a much larger geographical jurisdiction and have more personnel under their supervision. The RPCs are also the immediate supervisors of DPCs. As a norm the majority of the RPCs have at one time served as DPCs, something that makes much sense given the corresponding nature of the roles. The Ministry of Public Service (MoPS) document on the restructuring and review of the Uganda Police (2015, pp. 155–157) stipulates the roles of RPCs and DPCs as follows:

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1. Initiate and implement appropriate strategies for purposes of guiding policing work in the region/district 2. Ensure detection and prevention of crime in region/district 3. Coordinate and monitor police programmes being implemented in the region/ district 4. Provide technical support and guidance to managers in the regions/districts on matters relating to policing and security 5. Ensure public order and safety through anti-riot activities, prevention of disturbances and hooliganism in the region/district 6. Promote community policing and community assistance through mobilisation and sensitisation of communities in the region/district 7. Ensure provision of paramilitary support services and protective security whenever necessary 8. Prepare period reports on the operations of regions/districts and submit them to relevant action officers 9. Prepare work plans and budgets for the region/district and submit them to action officers 10. Promote collaboration linkages with security organisation in the region/district for purposes of enhancing security The same document highlights that RPCs should be at the rank of Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) though it is silent on which rank DPCs should hold. In practice, the majority of the RPCs are at the rank of Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), a rank below ACP.  The DPCs are mostly at the ranks of Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) and Superintendent of Police (SP). The roles as stated above were not clear, at least, to the majority of the territorial commanders I interacted with. Several stated that they mostly use their on-job experience as a guiding tool. In their own understanding, tactical commanders are responsible for planning, supervising and reviewing the activities of all personnel assigned to them. Territorial commanders can suspend underperforming or errant officers below the rank of Inspector of Police (IP) (those above IP can only be suspended by the IGP). Officially, the commanders can demand all departments under them to submit reports of what they are doing. From a de facto perspective, however, this is impossible to implement. Based on my observation, there seems to be competing structures of command. I witnessed that CID and traffic officers prefer to pay more allegiance to the structures of their own directorates rather than to RPCs and DPCs. Ideally, an RPC should be the link between tactical and strategic levels of command, though in practice, this role is weakened, many officers reasoned. Many DPCs, one of the RPCs intimated, do not share enough of what they are doing and in most cases are shielded by some top officers at the strategic level, including the IGP. Some junior officers have deep connections in the political circles making it difficult for commanders to supervise them. Nevertheless, RPCs are expected to intervene in scenarios where a command gap or lapse emergences, especially when an issue is ‘bigger’ than the capabilities of the DPC.

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My observations suggest that there is a faint connection between the strategic and tactical levels of command, besides the IGP. Most directors at strategic level seemed disconnected, disinterested and most times disempowered to play an active role in what transpires at the tactical level. Many officers told me that ‘real power’ and ‘serious work’ lie with the commanders at tactical level; moreover, they are the ones that intensely interact with the people. In the Uganda Police context, the more contact one has with the people in the course of duty, the more de facto power he/ she commands and the better possibilities to ‘profit’ from corruption. A senior officer at the rank of director reasoned that the responsibilities assigned to the territorial commanders are immense especially that the majority of them are young and inexperienced. On average, DPCs are between 25 and 35 years old and RPCs between their early 30s and early 40s. The majority of these commanders joined the police after 2005 when Gen. Kayihura became IGP. The first cadet intake under Kayihura was in 2007, and by 2009 all the major stations in Kampala Metropolitan including Jinja Road, Old Kampala, Katwe and Kawempe were under DPCs who had only accumulated 6 months of policing experience. One of these commanders confessed that he lost sleep the night he was appointed a DPC because he did not know what to do in such a sensitive and tasking position. The young commanders were mostly identified by the IGP and his close associates and then fast-tracked to more senior positions. Several officers at the strategic level and those in junior positions yet have served for over 20 years reasoned that the astronomical promotions caused disgruntlements and indiscipline in the command structure. Some disgruntled officers explained that the fast tracking was an attempt by the IGP to sideline ‘old-timers’ that had not embraced the ruling NRM party. This was confirmed by some of the young commanders who claimed that they were essentially trained to become NRM party mobilisers in the police uniform. Several old-timers pointed out that the preferred young commanders lack the requisite knowledge in police procedures, rules, regulations and laws. To them, every police action must be backed by a certain law. Some of these laws include the constitution, the Police Act, the Police Standing Orders and the Penal Code as I showed in the preceding chapter. It is important, therefore, that for one to command successfully, he/she must have a grasp of the law to avoid legal challenges. Sadly, old-timers noted, many commanders are young and inexperienced in policing dynamics, which sometimes jeopardises police work. Old-timers equally claimed that most of the fast-tracked commanders hail from western Uganda (the same region where President Museveni comes from) and are protected by ‘godfathers’. The old-timers, many hailing from the North and eastern part of the country, often emphasised their dislike for the predominantly young and inexperienced officers occupying command positions. They seemed to place immense value on the idea that one must first acquire experience as a junior police officer before being appointed a commander. This is in tandem with research that has continually demonstrated that frontline officers significantly appreciate being led by senior officers who have profound direct experience of street-level police work (Rowe, 2006). In that sense, juniors identify more strongly with commanders who have gone through similar

Fluidity in Command Strategies

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experiences. They consider such commanders to be more like them and thus are representatives of their interests (Caless, 2011; Hoggett et al., 2019). In his research about roles, values and attitudes of chief police officers, Caless (2011) showed that there is an exclusivity in policing that can only be understood if one has done the job before. Caless further shows that credibility in police leadership largely depends on hard-learned experience and knowledge. Generally, officers who rapidly climb the promotion ladder, without working their time on the streets or at the duties that are a preserve of the rank and file, are viewed by some with suspicion (Hoggett et al., 2019). Indeed, there exists a credibility gap, as Rowe (2006) would call it, between frontline officers and the young inexperienced commanders in the Uganda Police. This credibility gap seems to have shaped a mentality of ‘us vs them’ making operations difficult to execute sometimes. Command positions are challenging and require intuition, initiative, swiftness and in some cases patience, one commander reasoned. ‘This is because in maintenance of law and order a lot is expected amidst serious challenges, including streamlining the command and control of stubborn juniors’, the commander added. In Kampala Metropolitan, where I spent most of my time, DPCs and RPCs averagely commanded about 400 and 2000 personnel, respectively. A DPC superintends over 4 relatively large stations, with about 15 police posts all located in densely populated geographic areas, which demand police services in different variations. Within the DPC’s jurisdiction, moreover, over 100 criminal cases are reported daily, many commanders revealed. DPCs have a heavy workload, unstable tenure, are susceptible to internal intrigues and vulnerable to influences from fraudulent businessmen (‘dealers’) and politicians. The majority of the commanders shared that Kampala Metropolitan command positions are the most lucrative because of the economic status of the area. ‘The more economically developed an area is the better possibilities of engaging in corrupt tendencies involving large sums of money’, some commanders put it. To some, however, Kampala presents a challenge because the majority of influential people in Uganda work and reside within the area. As a practice, influential people including members of the opposition repeatedly interfere with the commander’s discretion.

Fluidity in Command Strategies Depending on circumstances at play, most DPCs commence their day’s schedule at home immediately after getting out of bed by receiving the ‘situational report’, referred to as SITREP in police circles. SITREP can be received through phone calls or radio call depending on what works better, but in most cases DPCs determine the mode, regularity and who to transmit. In the age of social media, many commanders have adopted ‘the WhatsApp strategy’. Many RPCs have created WhatsApp groups involving all their DPCs and OC stations on which security incidents are posted for quick action. DPCs also create groups with their OCs for the same purpose. I was fortunate to be put on several of these WhatsApp groups. My

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observation was that these groups are also social forums through which officers share jokes, personal issues such as seeking contributions towards wedding functions or funeral expense in case one lost a relative. The groups also share several funny pictures, cartoons, gossip and political news not necessarily related to police work. If one is to follow the official norm, the communication room at the main station should receive reports from all police stations and police posts and the ‘communicator’ selects those issues demanding urgent attention and either briefs the DPC directly or through the OC of the main station. In practice, however, communication procedures are largely determined by a myriad of dynamics, including the magnitude of the issue and leadership style of an individual commander. Some DPCs prefer to be briefed by all OC stations under their command, while others favour getting information directly from the communicator. In other cases, a single DPC may use different modes of communication from one day to another, while others care less and only view SITREP occasionally. The communications room, meanwhile, is officially operational 24 h a day though this is hardly the case. Contingent on the issues raised, a DPC should brief the RPC or instruct his communicator to transmit the information to the regional communication room. The latter forwards this intelligence to the communication room at the headquarters, where a countrywide brief highlighting major incidents is prepared. Through the director operations, the countrywide SITREP is further synthesised for the IGP, ‘the IGP’s breakfast’ as is commonly called in police circles. Information flow configurations in Uganda Police, like the chains of command, seem not to follow a consistent or official formula and are highly fluid and unpredictable in nature. In practice, the official chain of communication is rarely followed. As the IGP once intimated ‘some of my senior people especially directors have no knowledge of how a SITREP is generated, if at all they understand its importance’. Most DPCs report to their main offices between 9:00  am and 10:30  am. Sometimes, those that are vigilant call for the station dairy (SD) to get an overview of what has/is transpiring at the station before instructing their OC CIDs or OC station to append signatures. As highlighted in Chap. 1, however, OC CIDs seem to follow their own line of logic and chain of command and many of them report to DPCs selectively. Moreover, many DPCs pay limited attention to the SD, which ideally is a mechanism through which a better overview of what has/is transpiring at the station can be derived from. Drawing from my field observations and interviews, it appears that only a few DPCs use highlights drawn from the SD book to structure how they may conduct their day’s business, including how to distribute tasks at the stations under their command. Once in a while, vigilant DPCs attend suspects’ parades that are organised by the OC CID. At this parade, the DPC will get an overview of who is in the police cells, a better perspective of the status of the cases of those in custody and how those cases are being handled. Sometimes, a few DPCs visit the cells to inspect the conditions or even conduct a head count of prisoners to avoid scenarios where juniors unofficially arrest ‘suspects’ for financial gains. It should be emphasised here that at busy stations, especially in Kampala, it is particularly difficult for commanders to get a

Fluidity in Command Strategies

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clear overview of what detectives and traffic officers are doing in the field. In the case of traffic, for instance, many cases are informally resolved on the roadside and, the public is  extremely supportive of this policing logic, some commanders reasoned. To avoid conflicting with both CIDs and traffic commanders, DPC usually pay limited attention to their activities. As is clear here, leadership styles differ, and individual idiocrasies play a profound role in determining the management of a specific policing jurisdiction in Uganda. In the mid-morning hours, most DPCs attend to the paper work in office, including communication from police headquarters and other departments, letters from lawyers complaining about a certain case that is or was or should have been handled at a station under their jurisdiction, a myriad of missives from civil society organisations, correspondences from local leaders, political activists intending to demonstrate, court orders, nominal roles for the station and cases of indiscipline among juniors, to list only a few. Around the precinct of the station, meanwhile, there are always crowds of people, with a myriad of issues, all waiting to meet the DPC face to face. DPCs personally rush to crime scenes or scenes of riot/conflict depending on the magnitude. For any DPC, public opinion matters; most commanders become hyper when an incident has potential to attract the media and automatically the attention of the IGP and, or even, the president. Incidents, in general, shape how commanders conduct their day’s business. Events, especially public disorder, have caused the dismissal or career stagnation of several officers. These events often spring up spontaneously allowing commanders little time to plan for an effective response. Such incidents are also emotive, highly politicised, and when they go wrong, commanders are used as scapegoats to appease the masses. On rare occasions some commanders have received telephone calls from the president asking what was happening in their areas of jurisdiction even without the foreknowledge of the IGP. Most DPCs go to the field to visit victims of crime or to address a community demanding police reaction or explanation or action, all these aspects unfolding without any clear pattern. Every DPC and RPC knows that there is typically no particular plan for a day; events which are fluid and unpredictable shape their day-­ to-­day schedule of duty. ‘For a tactical commander there is always something going on and demanding the attention of the police’, one RPC observed. The majority of the DPCs prefer going to the field in the afternoon to attend to other stations and police posts under their command or even to the streets to get an overview of the deployments. They return to the office late in the afternoon to attend to more paperwork, to meet those clients waiting to meet them face to face, hold meetings with those under their command and to respond to issues demanding immediate attention. A DPC must attend to complaints of the public and to his own troops that might have personal problems. Most commanders reasoned that the management of personnel is the single most critical resource that enables them to succeed. This involves several activities which include sensitivity and responsiveness to juniors’ personal challenges. Majority of the junior officers have unending family challenges. The rank and file are poorly paid, have no proper accommodation, have limited access to food and may

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sometimes lack proper uniforms. ‘Each officer gets one pair of uniform which they have to wear every day. We rarely get official shoes and many of the commanders find means to buy for themselves’, one RPC noted. ‘These issues demoralise officers who in turn depend on the goodwill of the people and some extort when they get a chance’, one commander revealed. ‘It becomes difficult to command people that are less motivated and with numerous problems and yet we [commanders] also have limited means to solve the challenges’, one DPC reasoned. Despite these complexities, commanders do find strategies to superintend over their juniors, sometimes rewarding those who show dedicated service while reprimanding those who deliberately and consistently underperform. Some commanders, as I was told by several junior officers, do have good skills of counselling and mentoring their personnel. Here, we see both leadership models at play. There are both notions of transaction between commanders and juniors in which the former provides rewards or penalties to the latter to encourage consent (Bass, 1985; Dobby et al., 2004), and individual commanders do possess idiosyncratic characteristics which enable them to transform juniors (Berson et al., 2006; Judge et al., 2002; Hoggett et al., 2019).

Arbitration ‘Experts’ Though ambiguous, one of the de facto roles of commanders is to help arbitrate between conflicting groups and individuals within their areas of jurisdiction. This resonates with a literature, which shows that the ‘peacekeeping’ role makes up the bulk of police work, and thus routine criminal law enforcement is the work of only a minority of police officers (Banton, 1964; Niederhoffer, 1967; Rumbaut & Bittner, 1979). Typically, at the commander’s office, one can observe several groups of people daily holding intensive negotiations in order to resolve one issue or the other. DPCs and RPCs command profound powers, their orders and signatures have considerable amount of weight, and thus many people reach out to them to intervene in their conflicts that range from as follows: • • • • • • • •

Land wrangles Mothers seeking child support from negligent fathers Estranged couples seeking redress Underage girls in sexual relations Citizens conflicting over unpaid loans Tenants/landlords seeking help regarding rent Witchcraft accusations Breakdowns in services such as electricity, water supply and bad roads

Many officers noted that the role of arbitration was uncommon before the coming of Gen. Kale Kayihura as IGP in 2005. The role gained momentum as the police got more and more engaged in the community policing initiatives and political mobilisation schemes. Many officers intimated that as citizens become active

A Day with an RPC

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participants in police activities, the more the police get involved in areas that are traditionally outside their jurisdictions. Meanwhile, the myriad of issues, most of which are civil in nature, bring both pressure and ‘good fortunes’ to commanders. ‘The more problems that are resolved the more possibility that a commander is tipped with money or the more his networks are widened’, one RPC put it. The RPC’s statement above is particularly thought-provoking. I have witnessed rich clients contributing large sums of money when commanders have private hospital bills to pay and functions such as weddings or when bereaved. Some wealthy clients contribute money for officers to enable them buy cars or towards the construction of their personal houses. These contributions are largely ‘legitimate’ in the context of Uganda Police. In police circles, it is a known fact that commanders compete to show off wealth or material acquisitions such as the latest motor vehicles, fancy houses and mobile phones. All commanders which I interviewed indicated that there has never been a single case where a commander is apprehended for getting ‘donations’ from citizens.

A Day with an RPC In November 2017, an RPC invited me to spend a day at his office, which inevitably entailed embedment in the field operations within his area of command. Prior to this encounter, meanwhile, I had enjoyed similar experiences with several other officers, at different levels of command. I arrived at the RPC’s office at 9:30 am and found about ten people seeking to meet with him. Ahead of the waiting lot, the RPC quickly ushered me to his office insisting that none of the people on the queue had made an appointment. After about 2 min of salutation, a detective ASP came into the office to negotiate that the RPC meets one of her clients, a relatively wealthy businesswoman, who according to the detective had a complicated issue that only the commander could solve. Shortly after, the businesswoman was given the chance to come in and provide a detailed account of her problem. The major issue was about her estranged husband who had refused to pay school fees and upkeep for their three children, yet, selling ‘their’ land without her knowledge to finance his extramarital relationships. This issue, of course, had no criminal element and was purely civil in nature, yet the RPC was expected to come up with a solution. The woman insisted that her husband might listen to the RPC and not the female detective she had reported the case to. The lady further argued that culturally in Uganda a man can hardly take a woman’s command or advice seriously, not her husband at least. The RPC telephoned the husband, the two agreeing to meet later at 4 pm in the evening. The RPC then told the woman to return at the same time for a mediation session, as the commander termed it. In between this discussion, meanwhile, a leader of one of the boda boda (motorcycle taxis) groups in the area had called requesting the RPC to go to their office and resolve a financial disagreement among members. The RPC had agreed to meet the group at 11 am.

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Before leaving office, however, the RPC had to attend to several people who were on the queue. One by one they came in and narrated issues ranging from those trying to help arrested relatives, others seeking the commander’s intervention into land wrangles to police officers whose salaries had not been deposited. In quick succession, the RPC attended to these issues. Judging from the facial expressions of the complainants, I would say that the concerned parties were satisfied with how the RPC handled their issues. At 10:45 am the RPC and I got onto his official pickup with four armed guards on the open cargo area. Our destination was the boda boda office for the RPC’s appointment at 11:00 am, which we would not make on time due to the usual heavy traffic. A few minutes later, the RPC received a call from a DPC at one of the stations under his command. The officer was requesting the RPC to quickly reach the station and avert a ‘huge threat’. An opposition leader was mobilising people to conduct ‘general cleaning’ in a certain suburb. The RPC immediately commanded his driver to turn the vehicle towards that scene at once. ‘Why the urgency?’ I ask the RPC. ‘You want me to lose my deployment? I have to respond to all political issues with utmost urgency’, the RPC responded. I noticed that the RPC’s attention completely diverted making one call after another alerting his DPCs to be on standby for a possible showdown with the opposition. This particular suburb, meanwhile, is known for its endless opposition activism and by all means an opposition stronghold. The RPC then reached out to several of his informers, some of whom were always embedded in opposition activities while others ironically part of the organisers of such undertakings. The informers provided the details of the opposition plans, which according to them was to gather enough crowds and demonstrate against the removal of the presidential age limit from the constitution. This further confirms what was discussed in Chap. 2 that police commanders are intensely involved in political policing. By 1 pm, the RPC had not yet officially postponed the meeting with the boda boda group, but at the same time he was not picking their calls; to him that would be diversionary. We momentarily camped at about half a kilometre from the theatre of action as the RPC’s men on the ground constantly provided updates. As it turned out, the whole operation was overestimated; the RPC, however, pointed out that ‘it is better to overestimate than to underestimate. In security one would rather plan to deal with a non-existent threat than not planning and a threat actually happens’. After the situation was put under control, the RPC then called the boda boda people to apologise. He then promised to meet them at 2 pm. Since it was lunchtime, we decided to go for a quick meal, but on our way, the RPC received a call reminding him of an appointment he had made a few days before. This was in relation to a land conflict in his areas of jurisdiction. The RPC calmly decides that this was a very urgent meeting because all the parties to that conflict had gathered awaiting his arrival. This sudden change of plan meant cancelling our lunch, of course. Surprisingly, the RPC decided to tell the four escorts to disembark intimating that ‘those people talk a lot’, a statement I did not want to ask too much about. This also confirmed that commanders do not necessarily trust their juniors.

Placed Between a Rock and a Hard Place

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On arrival at the scene, the RPC was received with grandeur by the six people who had gathered for the meeting. This was a land conflict where one family member had without the knowledge of others used family land as collateral security to secure a loan from a private moneylender. The moneylender had ‘legally’ transferred the land into his names due to delayed repayment. Again, this was not a matter for police but the courts. The RPC calmly mediated the meeting, which resolved that the family gathers funds to pay back the loan to rescue the land, which was valued at much more than the loan. The family later hosted us for lunch, an offer that the loan provider politely rejected. The RPC intimated that after solving such problems, people usually appreciate his service in financial terms, which is ‘very normal’ in the context of Uganda. After the RPC received a token of appreciation dubbed ‘fuel refund’ from the family, we set off at around 2:45 pm. We then drove towards the boda boda group arriving at 3:30 pm. The eight boda boda members had patiently waited since 11 am. The meeting with the boda boda members got heated up and after 2 h it had not resolved anything. Following the impasse, the RPC suggested that another meeting involving other stakeholders that were frequently mentioned during the deliberation should be arranged at a future date. Meanwhile, the moneylender that we met earlier at a family meeting called requesting to meet the RPC. On our way back to the RPC’s office, we briefly stopped at a certain hotel where he received another token of appreciation. In essence, both parties financially appreciated the RPC’s efforts. We proceed to the RPC’s office arriving at about 7 pm, 3 h late for the scheduled meeting with the businesswoman and her husband, who astonishingly had waited since 4 pm. The RPC had six other people waiting to meet him and all this time his phones were still ringing off the hook. Because I had an appointment with another senior officer at the rank of AIGP, I decided to leave. Later, at around 11 pm, the RPC called to give me an update that he was just leaving the office. When I asked about the woman’s case, the RPC responded, ‘I solved it and the two agreed on a number of issues to resolve their differences’. This experience clearly illustrated that commanders have no fixed schedules, and their work is majorly to mediate in societal conflicts. Above all, events that may attract political attention are a major concern to all commanders. One must politically satisfy the higher echelons to maintain a ‘wet’ deployment, as is called in police circles. The position of RPC is a ‘wet’ deployment because it involves interface with a multitude of people. Commanders do not necessarily depend on salaries or official facilitation but on the society appreciating their services, though some do extort and are involved in criminal activities as we have already seen.

Placed Between a Rock and a Hard Place Once a commander is appointed to a new district (DPC) or region (RPC), it is common to face some unexpected challenges, as if one is new to the game. As soon as one arrives to take over, it happens so often that a myriad of people including motor

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vehicle dealers, politicians, land dealers, owners of public transport buses, moneylenders/loan sharks, businessmen, fish dealers and smugglers of different merchandise especially in those districts that have international boundaries approach one after the other offering money as a welcome gift to the new assignment. Usually, some commanders reveal, one will approach offering some good amount of money claiming that it is a courtesy as is known in African tradition. In Africa, a newcomer must be well received for him/her to settle in with dignity. Often these people offer the money asking for nothing in return, which makes it awkward to turn down in the Ugandan context. This action, many commanders confess, is a catch-22 situation. One must balance between not being put in ‘somebody’s pocket’ or not to begin by confronting those who matter. ‘If one carelessly takes the money, there is a danger of being used in illegal schemes and if one refuses the money these people will do everything possible to fail you. Some of these people have networks in all circles that matter and in a matter of a few days can have a commander removed’, one RPC confessed. A moneylender would like to be in direct contact and in good books with the commander, just in case someone fails to pay on time, which is usually the case. Here, they will stealthily connive with the commander to use extra legal means such as executing an arrest on charges of obtaining money by false pretence to quicken the payment process. Of course, the commander takes a cut. Smugglers would like their merchandise to somehow navigate through the night patrol and a heavy cargo truck owner’s wish is to overload and avoid arrest. These dynamics are both ‘lucrative’ and ‘stressful’ to commanders, who are sometimes blackmailed if they try to stand on the side of the law. ‘A few years ago, a known smuggler came to my office when I had just taken over as DPC in a certain district in eastern Uganda and gave me 5 million shillings (about US $ 3,000) saying that we should proceed as usual. I did not know the details of the usual, so I politely requested him to come back. One junior officer later described to me the details of his credentials’. This particular officer, however, did not reveal if he later took the money or not, an issue I did not bother to ask much about. When new in an area, a commander must be careful because they hardly have enough knowledge of who else the people that offer such money are dealing with. In almost all cases, predecessors will not reveal how they have been dealing with different individuals and groups in that specific jurisdiction. Here, it is purely up to the newcomer to navigate the rough waters and find their own balance. The commander’s juniors that he/she has found in the new jurisdiction, meanwhile, have a better perspective but will of course not easily reveal how to go about the situation. As we have seen earlier, many rank and file officers tend to dislike the young commanders and occasionally provide misinformation that can cause complications. The ‘good intentions’ of these individuals are inspired by the desire to win the heart of the commander and perhaps corrode their sense of judgement at the earliest possible time, many commanders observed. When that is achieved then the commander may not boldly go against them whenever they are executing their plans, which by and large contravene with the law. To skilfully navigate the murky waters, the commander ought to be mindful of the many inducements likely to entrap him.

Managing Expectations: Balancing the Interests of Influential People, Kith and Kin

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A sense of moderation is extremely vital for the commander. To radically turn ones back against these offers is just as suicidal as to all heartedly embrace them, many commanders reasoned. Both extremes are a harbinger for one’s downfall. A commander that rigidly follows police work ethics as written in the book will attract negative outcry from the people in his jurisdiction just like a shrewd one who takes bribes overtly. Both extremes might lead to an officer being transferred, worse, still losing his/her wet deployment. A prudent officer should tread carefully, consciously assessing the motives of the people he encounters. A successful officer strikes a balance and should be able to be ‘half here, half there’ as one RPC put it. Successful commanders enhance their image and that of the Uganda Police by breaking their official routines to venture into social spaces such as popular local pubs to fraternise with the people, places of worship to be seen as ‘God fearing’ and at burials to commiserate with the bereaved. Some of these social events provide the officer with an opportunity to give a speech and update citizens about the security situation. My observations point to the fact that citizens feel pleased when commanders grace their functions. One might say here that such is the Ugandan view of a successful commander, one DPC intelligently put it. Such social events help commanders to develop social ties and networks that they later rely on to play it safe and decode intentions of every offer received.

 anaging Expectations: Balancing the Interests of Influential M People, Kith and Kin One of the most constant challenges commanders grapple with throughout their tenure of service is not only how to establish but also how to maintain good relations with any influential leader they encounter. Commanders endeavour to create a lasting impression whenever they get in contact with a minister, a member of parliament, a district chairperson (local council 5) or any other person of great standing. The possibility of people in such positions being personally known to the IGP or even the president is high. As a matter of fact, such encounters are exploited to maximum advantage. There are two ways to look at it. First, the officer fears being at loggerheads with persons of status because this could result into his own decline, especially if such persons gave negative reports about him. Secondly, a commander is very much aware that the same persons if handled well can create better prospects for him/her. The perception and judgement that people of status hold about a commander can so easily result in either one of the two extreme outcomes: a promotion/maintenance of a wet deployment or a transfer to a dry deployment. Faced with the ever-present possibility of fortunes going one way or another, the astute commander tirelessly ensures that he/she does not collide with leading cadres of the ruling party. Where need be, the officer might even subordinate general police procedures to political patronage to appease the politician.

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People of status are usually the same people who denounce police the loudest whether on camera, in the newspapers or on any other available platform. Ironically, the same people privately call police, asking for favours. Whenever police hold a suspect who has some blood relations with an MP, whether from the opposition or the ruling party, the lawmaker will not hesitate to contact the relevant commander to negotiate the release of the relative. Several commanders intimated that politicians tend to disregard the law, thus disorganising smooth execution of police work. Politicians, for instance, call the police to negotiate the release of suspects, even those that have overwhelming evidence against them. ‘A lawmaker more than anyone else ought to know that it’s exclusively the duty of courts of law to pronounce themselves as to whether a suspect is guilty or innocent. Why then must they bother police?’, one commander wondered. Politicians, in general, are not interested in procedures but in results that favour them irrespective of the means. Influencing the release or rescuing individuals from the teeth of the law is one way politicians build their political capital to later win elections. Regarding pressure from people of status, the commander also must strike a balance on what favours to execute. It is those commanders who strike a balance between satisfying the wishes of the people of status but at the same time not being too embedded in illegal schemes that succeed. ‘Wise’ commanders endeavour not to let off too much, especially when it comes to capital offenses. While executing their duty, however, many commanders when faced with a high-profile citizen are overwhelmed. To play safe, many commanders look for the slightest opportunity to avoid penalising individuals like MPs, renowned opinion leaders, the wealthy or any other person who they imagine is well connected. Even on night patrols, the soft targets are always the vulnerable groups such as prostitutes, vagabonds and the perceived poor. This tendency of segmenting who to arrest and who not to arrest basing on appearance and status is the reason why a police officer will promptly respond to investigating a burglary in upscale suburb but stay away from a capital offense, involving the murder of a lowly potter in a remote village. The logic here is that solving a case in the upscale suburb promises a better return, while the latter only brings him into contact with wailing peasants bereft of any financial incentives, many commanders intimated. As I highlighted in the preceding chapter, officers’ powers include the right to implement court orders. However, the craze in land grabbing seems to have taken the country by storm, placing police at the centre of this phenomenon. Some commanders have been cited in cases of illegal eviction or those where fake court orders are used. In some cases, depending on which side accesses the commander first, court orders are tactfully stayed until they expire. I have also observed cases in which commanders stealthily take money from both sides and then meticulously follow the legal procedures to enforce court orders. In such cases the commander will tactically shift the blame and tell the party that lost: ‘I tried my best but forces beyond me disorganised our plan’, one commander revealed. In some cases, the commander continued, ‘we just cut contacts with such a person’.

Managing Expectations: Balancing the Interests of Influential People, Kith and Kin

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Often, land grabbers purporting to be investors pay off commanders so that poor people occupying prime land are evicted, usually at night. According to my observation, there is no single logic and every case manifests differently. In some cases, technical know-who and social connections might work better than money, one RPC observed. A commander will use one method in one case and another in a different case even if the cases are similar in nature. Here, social and financial logics do overlap in the handling of court orders in relation to land. The commission of inquiry into land matters unearthed a lot of corruption within the land registry office, much of it implicating police as accomplices. In the oil-rich region of Hoima, for instance, a DPC ordered his men to eject peasants from large tracts of land even when they were the bona fide owners, a decision which was in total disregard of court orders. The commission of inquiry later led to the interdiction of the same DPC in September 2017. A similar case was cited in the eastern district of Jinja where another leading businessman from Kampala with the assistance of police threw tenants out of a public building in violation of court orders. The building was later refurbished and now houses a cosmetics business. In Kayunga district, police this time acting on a forged court order from yet another businessman rendered close to 17,000 residents homeless. ‘While in the execution of their duty many of our officers are not so much bothered whether court orders are genuine or fake, what they consider important is the amount of money the investor is willing to offer to settle their part of the bargain’, one of the senior police officers reasoned. As seen, the police have a legal mandate to carry out search operations. These operations, among other reasons, are intended to enable police gather exhibits vital to building a strong case against suspects. Surprisingly, depending on the value of the exhibits obtained, some police officers are overcome by temptation and end up stealing the very items meant to help further investigations.1 In one of the several examples, an OC station in Hoima district served a stint in prison after selling exhibits recovered from suspects. Stealing of exhibits, many commanders revealed, is a common practice in Uganda Police. It is worth mentioning that a police search is not supposed to be done by any officer below the rank of a sergeant and its incumbent upon the officer to fill a form called ‘Acknowledgment of Prisoners Property’ which is in essence a record of the suspect’s items. According to procedure, these items are supposed to be kept in a lockable cabinet. In some police stations, all these formalities are flouted, resulting in the loss of property due to lack of documentation and proper accountability. Often, police commanders find themselves at crossroads, caught between two worlds: the world of following the rule book and the world of sentiments where they feel it is their duty to rescue that relative or friend, on the wrong side of the law. In a situation as such, the officer faces a monumental challenge of conscience. He risks isolation and denunciation from family members and friends if he rigidly applies the

 This issue was highlighted in all the assignment papers that I gave commanders at the Police College. 1

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law by sending an errant relative or friend to jail. Yet at the back of his mind, it is not lost on him that the law is framed in such a way that it must transcend social and personal ties. It so happens that commanders often try to influence cases to save relatives and friends. Commanders that are aloof to helping, many police officers argue, are bond to get on a collision path with their relatives and might even get a barrage of curses from elders and clan heads. In Uganda, the officers added, social and family ties are venerated to the extent that every individual including police officers go an extra mile to preserve the seemingly sacred relations. It should be noted that such a situation is not unique to police but does exists in all public institutions in Uganda. ‘We observe people jumping queues in hospitals, schools, banks and in offices of different ministries’, one officer noted. It is very common for family members of a suspect detained at any police station to seek help from any commander they know regardless of the latter’s deployment. This modus operandi though based on trust and friendship tends to overshadow professional standards, yet it intrinsically bares a firm footprint on the way most institutions conduct business and, in the end, defining Uganda’s policing context, several commanders argued in a seminar I conducted with them in March 2017. Commanders perpetually oscillate between a myriad of interests especially those of the police top echelon and by extension the NRM party, the concerns of the people of status and ultimately their own individual aspirations. Often, moreover, commanders are caught up between competing demands and interests. As already seen, the to-do list of commanders is replete with a multiplicity of assignments. The commander’s operating arena is characterised with ambivalence such as coordinating with Resident District Commissioner (RDC), a representative of the president at a district level, the District Internal Security Officer (DISO) and other politicians, a task that is not well spelled out in the legal framework. The RDCs, moreover, look out for the interests of the president and often disorganise police operations, several commanders reasoned. ‘Political considerations usually blur our implementation of the law. For instance, when we get a court order to evict peasants that are illegally occupying somebody’s land, we cannot implement it if the elections are around the corner, in any case an RDC will intervene’, one RPC highlighted. For a commander to succeed, many officers observed, the judiciary, especially the courts, must be effective, and the police administration has to provide funding to at least cover the bear minimum. On the contrary, however, commanders must deal with a highly ineffective judiciary and the lack of resources to even do the basics. The society, including the political class, meanwhile, always demands quick results from the police even in complicated capital offenses such as defilement and murder. Some cases might seem clear cut to society and yet complex when one is standing on the side of the police and the judiciary, one commander reasoned. Take an example of defilement where a suspect might be caught ‘red handed’ defiling an underage girl by community members. Yet to successfully prosecute, several procedures have to be followed regardless of societal pressures. In such a case, officers explained, the victim must go for a medical check-up to confirm there

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was indeed penetration, a procedure that many Ugandans do not understand and consider a waste of time. The medical facilities where such an examination can be conducted, moreover, are limited in number and yet the few that exist are expensive for an ordinary Ugandan and the police. In what sounds even more complicated, the court further asks the victim to produce witnesses as a prerequisite for onward hearing. Usually, several commanders explained, the backlog of cases on the magistrate’s desk led to unending postponement of the much-anticipated hearing. As the case drags on, the society perceives the problem to be caused by the police, and additionally there is always a likelihood that the magistrate might as well be compromised. Compared to the police, magistrates face limited societal pressure, if any. In addition to this, even the witnesses that had expressed willingness to participate lose interest or might also be compromised by the suspect. The usual endless postponements of hearing, whether intentional or not, leave victims psychologically and financially exhausted, thus also losing interest. The victim and her family might as well be quietly compensated by the suspect. In the society’s perspective, however, it is the police that failed, and the commander is consequently viewed as either corrupt or an underperformer. Commanders are expected to deliver effectively by protecting the image of police, keeping crime at a minimum low, policing opposition activities and at same time networking with the community to promote the ruling party, the NRM. Any public outcry is construed as failure on his part to strengthen command and control in the respective units and might spell dire consequences for the commander. Even the image they project in terms of personal conduct and professional appearance are a matter of serious concern, which if considered inappropriate by superiors, could result in a transfer or being moved to a less lucrative position (dry deployment). As seen, commanders have an involving schedule and routinely make compromises, adjustments and last-minute decisions and even take gambles to remain relevant to all parties who look up to them as a panacea of some sort. The danger with this method of work is that once commanders slip slightly, they risk offending one party or the other with the likelihood that their career path might take a plunge; their downfall perpetuated by one of the parties they inadvertently snubbed. As we shall see in the subsequent chapter, the commanders’ working environment is mired in intrigue, machinations and conspiracies, with rival colleagues hovering and patiently waiting for an opportunity to strike and mess up the commander. Often, commanders deal with complex scenarios that arise beyond their control. Take the case of mob justice, for instance. These are usually executed with astonishing speed before the police can even prevent them. Thereafter, a lifeless body is left on the streets with no one willing to provide any information. The basis of the mob justice, meanwhile, is largely sanctioned by the majority making it difficult for witnesses to step forward. These gruesome killings embody a human rights abuse and the commander in whose jurisdiction this act has taken place has to provide a plausible account. The greatest of the commanders’ challenges emanate from the political elite especially during general elections where some actors on either side of the political divide, court commanders in the belief that the police officers will be instrumental

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in achieving political ends. Obsessed with achieving victory at all costs, the politician expects the officer to apply all means, lawful and unlawful, to incapacitate the rival camp by threats, physical intimidation and outright arrests. Worse, as discussed in Chap. 3, the commander risks being regarded a member of the opposition if he does not show sufficient solidarity with the ruling NRM party. And if the commander is again overtly pro-government, he still runs the risk of damaging the image of police of which he is the de facto ambassador.

The Question of Personnel and Budget Notably, the power and authority commanders embody put them in a position where they are able to strike deals with individuals or organisations in need of snap guard services, whether at night clubs, wedding functions or annual events. The money thereof collected goes directly not to the coffers of police but to the wallet of the deploying officer. Illegal guards, as it is called in police circles, are a common phenomenon in Uganda Police. It is a known fact that many commanders misuse their manpower for these unofficial deployments. Many commanders confessed that though the illegal deployments are lucrative, they are risky, especially if the commander does not share some of the proceeds with the lower-ranked officers that execute the guarding. Some disgruntled rank and file officers have led to the reprimand of their commanders who perpetually ‘eat alone’, one AIGP noted. There are many pointers to confirm that police stations operate on very lean budgets. Most lack an operational fixed landline, have no running water, electricity is sometimes disconnected and those in private buildings suffer under the weight of rent arrears. Moreover, patrol vehicles and motorcycles that are meant to ease mobility get grounded for lack of fuel or mechanical problems. That is why officers resort to demanding for fuel and airtime, in form of physical cash, from complainants to get to the scene of crime as we have seen in the preceding chapter. Many police officers, meanwhile, insist that it is not fair to entirely blame officers for all the corruption permeating within their ranks. ‘To borrow the old adage; it takes two to tango’, as one DPC cynically put it. ‘One party offers money and the other joyfully receives. In this case, the public does not escape censure’, he added. In some instances, many officers argued during a class discussion, citizens do entice police officers to take bribes, and given the perpetual brokenness, the officers happily accept. Many commanders believe that police work would be extremely complicated, if not impossible, if citizens did not contribute to facilitate officers, especially with fuel and airtime. Records in the finance department at police headquarters in Naguru show that DPCs receive about UGX 400,000 (US $ 120) every quarter (3 months) as information fund, while RPCs get around UGX one million (US$300) for the same period to co-ordinate about five policing districts. Though DPCs do not get operational funds, RPCs do get another one million UGX. Off record, many RPCs intimated that they must remit about 15% of this money back to headquarters in form of a

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bribe to some of their superiors. The funds availed in a quarter to do police work, many commanders reasoned, is not even enough to successfully support police operations for a single day. Though the police numbers as illustrated in Chap. 1 have been exponentially growing since 2005 when Gen. Kayihura took over as IGP, many commanders indicated that they are faced with limited manpower. Despite the official ratio of the police to population in Uganda being 1:800 almost double the UN standard of 1:450, Uganda’s population structure with about 49% being below 14 years of age signifies that the ratio might not be far below as it seems at first sight. My observations clearly show that the police hardly deal with individuals that are below 14 years of age save for a few problematic street children in Kampala city. To the commanders, however, the numerical strength of the force is inferior to the number of crimes and demand for police services. The police need officers to guard VIPs and vital installations such as courts, electoral commission and major banks and yet also retain enough manpower to respond to crimes and disorder. A further scrutiny shows that the police are faced with absenteeism from duty, desertion without official knowledge and some officers are undeployable due to sickness and drunkenness. A senior officer in the Directorate of Human Resource Administration and Personnel estimated that about 500 officers desert the force every year and that the top management is much more concerned with recruitment rather than documenting desertion, which is more difficult to compute. Moreover, 51% of the force’s manpower is deployed within Kampala Metropolitan leaving only 49% for the rest of the country. Therefore, many stations upcountry are understaffed, the reason why some officers are unable to get to the scene of crime within the required time for fear of being overwhelmed by suspects or a disgruntled community. Some police stations have as few as five officers meaning that commanders must constantly seek for reinforcement in case a security threat demands more manpower. If a police station receives a call for intervention to more than one scene of crime, the commanders have to sometimes make a quick assessment about which scene to respond to at the same time and have to leave behind at least two officers to man the station. The station, meanwhile, must be manned 24  h because people come to report cases and at the same time some suspects are detained in the cells. Amidst the manpower shortage, there is a lot of demand for police services including, guard duties, patrol duties, traffic control duties, standby forces for public order management, escort duties, station, administration duties, investigation duties and drivers among others. In some cases, like I observed at one police station, there was no single driver, and the patrol car was parked at the time patrol services were paramount. I was similarly told by several rank and file officers that there are cases when there is one driver working for 24 h without rest. Despite the manpower challenge, the commanders are expected and are pressured to be efficient and effective. To compensate for limited manpower, commanders do use some civilians they call crime preventers though this has caused some complications as seen in Chap. 2. As a rule of thumb, commanders are equally expected to work with a network of

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informers within their jurisdiction. ‘It is impossible to expect to command a region without being able to gather and utilise intelligence’, an RPC noted. Ordinarily intelligence here means information about a situation that may result into crimes or an existing crime. Though there is virtually no funding for this arrangement, commanders must find means of tasking their informers to gather such intelligence information upon which many operations are based. In sum, professional, social and political dimensions shape day-to-day lives of territorial police commanders. However, political facets, especially the zeal not to be seen as antagonistic to the interest of the ruling party, seem to be the overriding factor, which preoccupies the commanders. As stated at the introduction of this chapter the two dominant leadership models in police do play out in Uganda. It has been demonstrated that command constellations at the tactical level embody both notions of transaction between commanders and juniors in which the former provide rewards to the latter in return for the latter to consent to their leadership (Bass, 1985; Dobby et  al., 2004), and individual commander’s charisma also pays vital roles in the success of commanders (Berson et al., 2006; Judge et al., 2002; Hoggett et al., 2019). However, the command models are fluid and shaped by several factors, including the complexity of commanding juniors that seem not to be convinced of the commanders’ credentials, the culture of being on duty 24 h, political interference, social-cultural aspects, lack of funding, operating in a web of ‘acceptable’ enticements from citizens and the internal intrigue in the Uganda Police that I discuss in Chap. 6.

Chapter 4

Official Versus Practical Norms in Criminal Investigations

Introduction The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) is one of the most essential elements of the Uganda Police Force (UPF). Unlike in many other countries, including in the neighbouring Kenya and Rwanda, where CID has been separated from the mainstream police, this department is a core part of the UPF. In Uganda, each policing unit regardless of size or location has a CID unit. The CID is comprised of about 6000 officers, which is approximately 13% of the UPF’s total strength (UPF Statistical Data, 2015). Numerous officers that I interacted with viewed the CID as the lifeblood of the UPF and believed that the success of the force hinges on this department’s ability to solve cases and satisfy the public. In this chapter, therefore, I turn the focus to the CID. Based on my observations, the chapter answers the following questions: How is the CID organised? How do the detectives use their powers and authority on a day-to-day basis? How do the detectives approach investigations in practice? The goings-on in the CID precisely exemplifies the two conceptual models, Lipsky’s ‘Street-Level Bureaucracy’ and Olivier de Sardan’s ‘Official Versus Practical Norms’, which thread through this research. Detectives, Lipsky would have argued, interact and communicate directly with citizens and are the frontlines of the police/government operating at the interface of citizens and the state. They are the people that interpret the police investigative and justice systems that are put in place by policymakers. Based on the nature of their job, I will show that detectives in Uganda have developed routines and practices that help them fulfil their mandate and they are majorly the ultimate policymakers based on the discretion they embody. Detectives, as Olivier de Sardan would argue, rally both official and practical norms in their day-to-day work. In this chapter I argue that registers of practical norms have emerged in the day-to-day investigative work. Generally,

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practical realities do play a profound role in the way detectives operate in Uganda as they shape the norms that guide their work. The chapter proceeds as follows: for a better comprehension, I start with a brief discussion of criminal investigations from a conventional perspective before presenting the structure and functions of the CID department in Uganda. I then describe the police counter where most investigations in the CID commence. Dynamics of case files, the pervasive element of executing arrests before investigations and the dimension of pocket files (those case files that are only known to the investigating officer expecting financial returns) are thereafter elucidated. I subsequently present an analysis in case management, the issue of cost sharing expenses between the police and clients to investigate cases before concluding the chapter with element of how the department if often infiltrated by criminals.

Origins and Approaches to Criminal Investigations Looking through the history of policing across the globe, it emerges that the detective element seems to have emerged much later than the formation of the police as we know it today. Literature suggests that detective units became part of the policing sphere because of high-profile crimes especially murder. In Britain, the creation of independent investigative squads manned by plain-clothed detectives were created in the mid-nineteenth century despite considerable public reservations against the setting up of such units (Klockars, 1985; Kuykendall, 1986; Brodeur, 2010). In early medieval England, crime victims and their family had the prime responsibility of bringing the person who had caused them injury to justice (Radzinowicz, 1968; Beattie, 2001). And in the United States, private corporations were used to perform the detective role (Brodeur, 2010). Although the field of investigations has generally attracted the least academic interest in the field of police studies, some literature does exist (Kuykendall, 1982; Sanders and Young, 2002; Newburn, 2005). In one of the rare studies conducted to conceptualise the criminal investigation process, Kuykendall (1982) categorises it into two sub-processes, proactive and reactive. The proactive process, Kuykendall argues, covers the initial stages of the criminal act continuum (concept, plan and the incipient act), while the reactive process corresponds to the later stages of continuum (completion of the act, escape and disposal of evidence or stolen property). The first known detectives in England were aptly described as ‘secretive rogues’, who blended with criminals and acted provocatively (Kuykendall, 1986). By so doing, Kuykendall reasoned, detectives were increasingly despised by their fellow colleagues in the police, by the public opinion and by police reformers of the time (Klockars, 1985). For the modern times, in order to gain legitimacy, detectives had to break away from being associated with the ill-perceived descriptions. They achieved this by publicly distancing themselves from proactive investigation and redefining themselves as reactive post-factum crime solvers (Kuykendall, 1982; Brodeur, 2010).

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Criminal investigations, Brodeur (2010) states, are inquiries that are triggered by the perpetration of a crime and thus their principal goal is to find who committed the crime and to bring this person to justice. According to Brodeur this inclination that progresses from commission of a crime towards the discovery of its perpetrator dominates our understanding to criminal investigations. Its measure of success, therefore, is the ‘clear up’ rate of cases by linking the crime to its actual perpetrator(s). Investigating a crime is then seen as synonymous with solving it through the arraignment and eventual conviction of a suspect (Brodeur, 2010). As I shall show shortly, detectives in Uganda equally embody this orientation that commences from the commission of crime towards the identification and prosecution of offenders. Though the UPF uses informers, they are mostly active and relied upon when it comes to political policing as discussed in the preceding chapter. In regard to the CID, informer networks seem to be loose, and detectives usually rely on witnesses and those that volunteer information on a case-by-case basis. In some cases, moreover, individuals are coerced to provide relevant information. Though the intention here is not to get into a deep theoretical discussion on power that Weber (1922) understood as the ability to exercise one’s will over others, reference to the concept is helpful in the comprehension of CID operations. Drawing on renowned social psychologists French and Raven (1959), Hughes et al. (2009) observed that police officers have four bases of social power that define their interactions with citizens which are as follows: 1. ‘Expert power’, because the officers are presumed to embody a specialised set of skills that civilians do not possess. 2. ‘Referent power’, because people identify with them due to their position. 3. ‘Legitimate power’, since they have legitimate authority to enforce law and order. 4. ‘Coercive power’, which enables them to punish and apprehend. Many police officers, Hughes  et  al. (2009) argued, have a high need for power and derive psychological satisfaction from influencing others. These bases of social power are crucial in understanding the goings-on in the CID department in Uganda. Meanwhile, there have always been complexity and contradictions inherent in the exercise of police powers as Rumbaut and Bittner (1979) have argued. Some scholars understand police powers within the context of two basic theoretical models of the role of the police: the ‘functionalist’ and ‘divided society model’ (Weitzer, 1995; Gerber & Mendelson, 2008). A ‘functionalist’ model is where the police use their powers to provide services, enforce the law and preserve order in the general interest of society. Conversely, the ‘divided society model’ according to these scholars is predominant in authoritarian societies and with polarised social structures in which the police mainly use their powers to serve their personal interests, to protect the benefits of dominant elites and to suppress subordinate groups such as ethnic minorities, the poor or the political opposition. Even in the divided society model, however, the police occasionally solve crimes and arrest criminals (Weitzer, 1995). Though the intention here is not to place the investigative arm of the UPF in either of these

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categories, it would be fair to argue that both models do play out though the divided society model seems more predominant. Detectives work with substantial levels of discretion, regardless of country or region. A large volume of police literature, meanwhile, indicates that discretion is not just incidental but an essential and unavoidable aspect of police investigations (Goldstein, 1960; LaFave, 1965; Tieger, 1971; Rumbaut & Bittner, 1979; Livingston, 1997; Mastrofski, 2004). Goldstein, for instance, argued that police officers are usually free either to invoke or not invoke the law and might usurp the powers of judiciary if they decide not to invoke the law when the conditions for invoking it were met. In this case, Goldstein added, police officers claim even greater powers than the magistrate, for the officer could exonerate merely based on their own view of the facts and judgement and without explanation, while the judge can do the same in a similar case but only in accordance with rules of procedure in open court (Goldstein, 1960). In fact, Livingston (1997) puts it that courts have very little capacity ‘to constrain police and to control the discretion that they inevitably exercise in the course of their duties’. Tieger (1971) argued that the individual policeman’s exercise of discretion leads one man into the courtroom as a criminal defendant and leaves another man untouched even when they have committed a similar offence.

Structure and Functions of the CID The CID is headed by a director at the rank of Assistant Inspector General of Police (AIGP) and its main functions include detecting and preventing crime, gathering information and evidence and investigating criminals for purposes of supporting evidence-based prosecution. According to the official document on the restructuring and review of the Uganda Police Force (2025), the directorate is comprised of the Division of Crime Investigations, Division of Special Investigations, Division of Economic Fraud and Anti-Corruption, Department of Land Protection and Department of CID Administration and Training. During the time of Gen. Kayihura as the IGP, the CID structure has been expanded by creating new units. Notably, the division of special investigations was created to counter organised and violent criminal gangs, which previously necessitated the backup of military units especially the Chieftaincy of the Military Intelligence (CMI). Under the division of crime investigations, Gen. Kayihura created departments such as electoral and political crimes and department of media crimes, which enhanced the political policing dimension. These units, several detectives argued, were created to directly respond to the political challenges that the NRM party was facing. Specifically, the department of electoral and political crimes is tasked to, on one hand, develop and implement strategies for effective investigations of electoral and political crimes and, while on the other, to collaborate with the Director of Public Prosecution (DDP) and the judiciary in investigating election-related crimes. This,

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one of the senior officers revealed, was a direct result of electoral petitions that many politicians launched following the contentious 2006 general elections. Through the creation of this department, the police wanted to play a more profound and direct role in electoral petitions going forward. This, the officer added, would also help the police to facilitate the ruling party to win such cases.

Originating Investigations at the Police Counter To get a comprehensive understanding of the CID, I started from a police counter at one of the busy stations in Kampala Metropolitan. The counter is a place where most of the investigations start. For 2 weeks I was at the counter keenly observing its multifaceted role. There, I was able to see different patterns of interactions between the police and citizens: the kind of people that mostly come to the police counter, what they come to do and how officers dealt with them. It seemed clear that it was mostly the poor or the less connected that usually go to the counter. The connected and affluent mostly go to offices of senior police officers directly or sometimes the detectives move to these individuals’ offices or workplaces to record their statements and start the process of opening the case file. Every police counter is officially open 24 h a day. On weekdays, the counter is overcrowded, especially on Monday mornings. I was told that the reason for the overcrowding is that many crimes committed over the weekend are reported on Mondays. In general, counters are busy, people coming in to report or follow up cases and to visit their relatives and friends under police custody. At most stations including the one I was at, there is a huge poster ‘Police Bond is Free’ in both English and local dialects of the location where the station is. As I later learned, the bold pronouncement that police bond is free was only followed infrequently, if at all. Meanwhile, there was clearly written information on the schedule of the hours in which people can visit the ones in custody: ‘Visiting Hours, 8:00–9:00 am, 12:00–2:00 pm and 4:00–6:00 pm’. This timetable, however, was frequently deviated from, depending on the status of those in custody or those visiting. Several visitors usually came outside the specified timeframe but negotiated for the bending of the rules, these negotiations included financial inducements, of course. These hours sometimes coincided with ‘suspects parade’ or when a certain suspect is being taken to court and in such instances the visitor may be told to wait or return later. Abiding by the official norms, a case starts at the counter with the complainant coming in to report. Counters at large police stations have at least seven officers on duty: a Station Diary Constable, tasked to make entries of cases in the Station Diary (SD) and to guide people to different offices; two detectives, one to guide on which complaint to enter and the other to take statements; two cell guards, a female and a male, responsible for issues of people in custody or to process those being put under arrest; and the incharge counter usually at the rank of corporal or sergeant who supervises activities at the counter. These numbers however profoundly vary depending on the location and size of the police station. At rural police stations as I

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shall demonstrate in Chap. 6, all these duties are mostly executed by a single officer, who might on some occasions delegate to crime preventer or a spouse. My observation was that most officers disliked the roles at the counter because they restrict movements and are tiring. An officer may spend the entire day writing statements, this being true only at large stations, of course. The roles are not permanent and alternate on a daily or weekly basis depending on the dynamics at a particular station. Meanwhile, the same pattern of deployment should be maintained at night, a practice marginally fulfilled partly because activities significantly reduce. All investigable cases are recorded in the Station Diary, also known as Police Book 6 (PB 6), which has its own norms. Cases are registered using red ink and given a reference number. Blue ink is strictly for indicating the time the officer has booked on duty or booking out or heading to the field for investigations. In the SD, red ink is also used when an officer is signing for or returning a firearm at the station. At 0000H the SD is closed, and SD constable indicates close of business and then immediately opens it at 0001H. Cases then follow a specific sequence from the time they are reported. These rituals are however not followed to the letter, ‘it is boring and sometimes not so important; however, it can be risky when something goes wrong in a case. When that happens, lawyers, courts and our bosses ask for the SD to see if an entry was made’, one constable revealed. After the case is recorded in the SD, a detective then takes over for further management and extracts what they normally call ‘first information’, where red ink is used to register the bio data and blue for further details of the case. The detective will then determine whether to forward the case to the OC CID or to the OC Minor Contravention Book (MCB). The ‘Diary of Investigations’ has now commenced, and the file case properly be opened. There is also the ‘Exhibit Slip Book’, known as Police Book 19 (PB 19), in which all exhibits are recorded. It details the nature of exhibits and a signature of the officer who received and checked the exhibits. There is the ‘Lock Up Book’ or PB 33 that contains the details of the suspects arrested, including a serial number, name of suspect, date of arrest, offence committed, SD reference, officer incharge of the case, the date out (released or taken to court) and remarks. The incharge counter oversees this book, and it has blue ink used for suspects freshly put under arrest and red for those who have spent a night/s in custody. The counter also has the Acknowledgement of Prisoner’s Property Book (APP), the PB 33, which has a serial number, the name of the arrested, the name of the officer recording, SD number, the property received, including hard currency, when the property was returned to the prisoner and the prisoner’s signature. The official procedures are however minimally followed and the majority of police stations lack the police books and forms. Some officers that I interacted with at rural police stations did not have the requisite knowledge about the procedures and some had never seen the official police books and forms.

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Dynamics of Case Files As Brodeur has argued, detectives classify cases according to the expected difficulty of solving them. At the one end of the spectrum are cases that are ‘self-solvers’ where perpetrators are caught in the act or give themselves up, while the other are those cases where there is no available clue as to the identity of the perpetrator (Brodeur, 2010). Between the two extremes, there are also intermediary or hybrid cases (Ericson, 1981; Kuykendall, 1986; Manning 2006). According to Kuykendall (1986), it is the complexity of the cases rather than the skills, methods and techniques of the investigators that determines the probability of solving them. Hence, detectives concentrate on the problems with easy solutions and screen out for investigation the cases most likely to result in an arrest, this practice being known as ‘skimming’ (Waegel, 1982; Greenberg et al., 1977). This is not different in Uganda Police except other dimensions to differentiate cases do exist. For instance, detectives prefer ‘wet cases’, which provide opportunities to make some personal money or connections. Relatedly, political and social pressure do play a role on which case to take seriously. Here, even in complex cases, detectives must make a move to ‘solving the case by at least pretending that investigations are on course’, as one commander intimated. Unfortunately, this often involves arresting innocent people. On receiving a case from the detective at the counter, the OC CID puts a minute and allocates the file to one of the detectives under his/her command. Usually, the OC CID has an officer or two they regard as confidants or the ‘trusted ones’ to whom most ‘wet files’ will be assigned. I interfaced with several detectives who were unhappy about the file distribution dynamics. Some, especially females, would be left redundant for several days with no case to handle, yet others had too much under their control. Once, at a suspects’ parade, one bold female officer bitterly put it to the OC CID that preferential treatment in the allocation of files was negatively affecting their morale at work. Even when the OC CID promised to thoroughly look into the issue, the female officer later told me that she expected nothing to change. An OC CID’s minute could read ‘visit the scene’, ‘arrest the suspect’, ‘record further statements from the relevant persons’, ‘draw a sketch map of the scene of crime’ and return the file for further instructions. On finishing the inquiries, the investigating officer forwards back to the OC CID who will minute it to the Resident State Attorney (RSA), in police circles referred to as the ‘state’, seeking for a legal opinion. The RSA peruses through the file and minutes it back to the OC CID. His/ her minute may advise the OC CID to gather further evidence, to take the suspect to court or to drop the case based on its weak legal basis. At some stations, however, it is not possible for a person to move from one officer or office to another. It is common to find stations where manpower is a huge problem; at times one might find only one officer is doing everything and in one room. From the counter, I sat in one of the busiest CID offices mostly handling general crimes. There are several desks within the CID, including homicides, economic crimes, land issues, gender-based violence, anti-narcotics, anti-corruption, cyber

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crimes, political crimes and scene of crime officers’ desk (SOCO). At most stations, however, these desks share office space. I purposely spent most of my time in the general crimes office because I found it busy, ‘exciting’, and I had established a good relationship with one particular officer in there, an elderly corporal who has been with the police since 1985. This office, like most of them, had limited space and officers occupied workspaces depending on what they were doing at a particular time. Officers would negotiate on who gets the priority to use a workspace depending on what they were doing, including taking statements or interrogating suspect. Meanwhile, clients would also be given chairs, in most cases suspects of lower status would be ordered to sit down on the dirty floor. At times, an officer would ‘host’ several people concerned with a specific case at the same time. These dynamics would sometimes necessitate me to stand in a corner to continue observing the proceedings. I observed that there is limited privacy and sensitive matters under discussion can be clearly heard by everyone in the room. I could sense that at times people would hold back or try to speak in ‘scripted’ codes. Often, it happened that two to three officers would be interrogating different suspects in the same room at the same time. In other instances, different officers continually interrupted an interrogation in progress to make comments to the same even with limited context. Officers have a habit of even interrupting their own interrogation sessions to casually pick phone calls and chat about unrelated issues altogether. It occurred on several occasions that disputes of various nature would be ‘solved’ in the particular office. Officers acted as arbiters witnessing some intense negotiations between complainants and suspects, including those drawn from the cells. I would hear ‘if you accept to compensate the complainant or return the stolen property then you will be freed at once’ as a bargain chip. At times, one might argue, the officers produced a win-win outcome. Here we see practical norms at play. If a detective is stuck to the official procedures, then the police would lose relevance, many officers suggested. The bottom line was to produce a solution that is agreeable to parties to a conflict especially in offences that are not capital in nature. However, the officers also benefit by receiving monitory tips sometimes from both parties to the conflict. This office formally received case files from the OC CID assigned to specific officers. Of course, self-allocated ‘pocket files’ is part of the dynamics as we shall see shortly. In instances where the matter is ‘resolved’, officers would walk to the office of the OC CID and physically present him the file with a minute the ‘dispute is resolved’. When the case has taken the official channel, officers must get the clearance of the OC CID before any suspect is realised on bond. On a few evenings, I retreated to one of Kampala’s biggest slums to a pot of local brew, ‘malwa’ with detectives drawn from the lower ranks. Though I tasted, the brew was quite tough for me to appreciate. I often pretended that all was okay in order to blend with the group. At the pot, officers would talk about their day’s work including the ‘deals’ they had successfully executed. They shared strategies to circumvent the established systems, decried ‘dry days’ that produced no deals and enjoyed moments to backbite their bosses who had tendencies of ‘eating’ alone. The

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word deal here was used to mean cases that helped the officers to generate personal money. In some instances, the detectives continued to work, unofficially of course, in the different parts of the city. Here, they would organise meetings or hold phone conversations with clients, including suspects on how to go about a certain case. In quite some contrast, I sometimes hang out with senior offices at posh hotels and restaurants, a clear indication of two worlds apart. The work strategies of both ranks, however, were nearly similar in nature. The informal meetings provided me a structure through which I could better understand the interactions at the station on the normal working days. Investigations in police go far beyond official channels and official working hours. The powers of officers can be seen at the station but even more lethal behind the scenes. The detectives, as Lipsky would argue, are indeed ‘policymakers’ in practice. Their actions and decisions profoundly influenced the nature of the cases and the direction of investigations. The aura of power embodied in the officers is clearly observable in the way the majority of clients relate to them. Clients of low status are visibly in subordinate posture trying to negotiate a favourable outcome of the proceedings at the station. There is a culture of physical beatings when officers want to extract a statement of guilt as fast as possible. Suspects, especially of low social status, sit on the dirty floor, shirtless (for males) and without shoes. One can easily tell the asymmetric treatment between suspects and complainants. However, those clients of status are treated with caution and in many cases are mostly handled by senior officers. For instance, I did not see any politician or person of means being ordered to sit on the floor or remove their shirts. Meanwhile, many suspects are treated as guilty even before investigations commence. This is an entrenched culture at police stations, which is widely accepted by the general population, as many officers explained. Not even social activists of opposition politicians seem to protest the sight of shirtless suspects sitting on the dirty floors. ‘Suspects cannot be treated with kid gloves’, many officers reasoned. Officers and citizens alike perceive it that the rough treatment on the suspects is a form of accountability to the aggrieved and society in general. Here, people at least perceive it that the police are doing something about the criminals, another practical norm, one can strongly argue. The police are even much better at handling suspects compared to those who start from the hands of the ordinary people. Cases of mob justice are quite common and suspects that are brought to the police stations by community members usually arrived after a thorough beating. The UPF continues to struggle with the phenomenon of mob justice and mob action. Mob action is defined as the situation where people decided to inflict physical harm through beating, lynching or burning of suspects, which often results into deaths. In 2018 alone, for instance, 636 people were murdered by mob action. These were mainly suspected to have committed offences such as theft, robbery, murder, witchcraft and burglary (UPF Annual Crime Report, 2019). Many detectives intimated that mob justice is popular because people prefer quick action. Ironically, some police officers tacitly support this vice either by turning a blind eye when such an offence is taking place or in the way they talk about it.

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Therefore, mistreating suspects, especially suspected hard-core criminals, at the station are acceptable by Ugandan standards at least. It is a practical norm that resonates with the general public I argue. The manner in which the police operate therefore reflects norms shared more widely by society. The police are socially embedded that their working practices are much shaped by the generalised common sense. Which means that the police is a reflection of society at large. Meanwhile, after estimating the ‘potential’ that a certain case presents, the first officer that interfaces with the complainant may hijack the procedure and proceed to handle it on his/her own. Potential here means that there is a higher possibility for an officer to financially profit personal gains from the case. These are the ‘pocket files’ that I will come back to shortly. In Uganda most people with means usually prefer to shorten the process by not even reporting at the counter. Most have contacts at the police or will get the contacts prior to going to the police station. I have seen many individuals ignoring the bureaucratic procedures, bypassing the counter and walking straight to the OC CID, DPC or RPC to discuss their cases. Others come to the counter insisting that they would only want to speak to the highest-ranked officer at the station. The senior officers in these cases must work backwards by instructing their juniors to expeditiously register the case and act. Often, this usually produces mixed results. It sometimes sends juniors into panic mode, and in their attempt to abide to the wishes of their bosses, they pay less attention, if any, to those who diligently tried to follow the due process. These are some of the cases where the police hurriedly arrest before proper investigations are conducted. Going straight the senior officers might help an individual to navigate through quicker and avoid being tossed around, including paying unnecessary bribes to lower-ranked officers. I have seen situations where this strategy produces reverse results. In the context of the Uganda Police, the juniors are sometimes the most experienced, have spent longer in the force and are much older than the graduate officers ordering them. Some hate to be ordered around or have limited respect and can subtly frustrate their bosses. They can methodically create hurdles in the case that even their boss may not easily resolve. Many act like they are abiding by every order issued and yet exploit the situation to hit back at their bosses. Here, the junior can either fail the case by omitting some important details to frustrate the boss or can subtly ‘take charge’ of the case by not revealing what a rich client is offering as facilitation. Investigation procedures, meanwhile, are severely interfered with when people of status find their way to the IGP and a few to the president to discuss their cases before police officers even have any knowledge. Some officers revealed that though it is usually people of status who engage in this practice, there are also those from the lowest strata of society who navigate through to the top. This can be confirmed when one visits the police headquarters, which is usually crowded with IGP’s visitors from all walks of life. The IGP Gen. Kayihura preferred interacting with the masses at public forums through which people would air out their issues. Some reached him through their elected politicians, while others tried their luck by calling him on the phone. One

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DPC in Kampala intimated ‘I have received several calls from the IGP directing me to sort out an issue in my area of operation that I had prior to his calling known nothing about’. Many detectives have observed that such cases are difficult to reconstruct. Moreover, it so happened that sometimes it is the offenders that managed to reach the higher offices, and when that happened the cases were severely affected, one OC CID shared. It was of course difficult to go against the orders of the IGP though he would sometimes be duped about the details of the case, the OC CID added.

The Practice of Arresting Before Investigations The CID detectives have enormous powers including to arrest, issue bonds, search, institute criminal proceedings, seize and retain property. Detectives can be classified as street-level bureaucrats par excellence. They apply their discretionary powers in a context and often navigate through their spheres to enhance their professional careers, to solve societal problems and those of their friends, neighbours and kindred and more often to financially benefit. The detectives manoeuvre to remain relevant, to protect their jobs and to even curve out further spheres of influence. There is a shared perception at all levels of the police that criminal investigations are the fulcrum of the force, but they are simultaneously the most delicate, complex and require patience and meticulousness to realise results. Criminal investigations, according to most officers, are the most challenging task of the UPF. In my personal interactions with the IGP, he expressed his displeasure at the way CID officers executed their duties, and he had made several attempts to reverse the overall picture with limited success. Many police officers, however, thought that the IGP has overconcentrated on building the operational capabilities of the police yet neglecting investigations. For political reasons, many officers offered, the IGP was more concerned with controlling opposition activities on the streets. Many added that the military capabilities that the force has accumulated do not achieve results for the investigative dimension. In September 2016, the IGP invited me to the western city of Fort Portal to be part of his face-to-face interactions with his officers. This was part of his countrywide tours to exchange ideas, motivate and get a better perspective of why the force had continuously underperformed and drawn widespread negative attention. The interface was dominated by discussions on how to strengthen and improve the investigative arm of the force. Selected leaders of crime preventers who, according to the IGP, are the eyes and ears of the police in different localities were as well invited. During the meeting, a visibly disturbed IGP asked his officers, ‘surely officers, why do you arrest before any investigations? How do you expect this method to succeed? I know it is a way many of you extort from the public. We shall get you…from today I do not want to hear this business of arresting people before investigations are conducted. We should actually begin judging you by the number

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of successful prosecutions made, at the moment some of you have zero successful cases and call yourselves detectives’. Whoever I interacted with in police circles agreed that arresting before investigations is a deeply entrenched tradition in Uganda Police. This normalised tradition seems difficult to eliminate and has a long history if one is to read the commission of inquiry into corruption in the UPF that was set up under Legal Notice No. 2 of 1999. The dynamics that existed by 2018 are a replica of what used to happen in the 1990s, one might even say far back. Inter alia this inquiry uncovered numerous cases such as corruption, bribery, impunity, ‘empire building’, nepotism and miscarriage of justice especially in investigations, and all this was found to be much severe at the top echelons. I equally observed that the same issues continued to shape police investigations during the time I was conducting this research. During a seminar I conducted in March 2017 at the Police College, officers claimed that there are also strong reasons why they arrest before investigations are conducted. In developed countries, the officers argued, suspects might afford to keep going about their business the usual way even when under investigation, which is impossible in a country like Uganda with no proper physical address system or national data bases. Once people get to learn, even by the slightest indication, that they are under investigation, their first action is to disappear, the officers further argued. The police, meanwhile, does not have resources to track people and how then will criminals be brought to book? The officers wondered. Officers further claimed that they faced immense pressure from the general population to produce quick results. This pressure does not only come from clients but from the politicians and even the police hierarchy itself. When a crime has taken place detectives are commonly asked, ‘have you made any arrest so far? Often a no is not a very pleasing answer, and this pressure tends to motivate detectives to execute arrests’, a senior detective added. However, other officers contradicted this perspective by reasoning that hasty arrests were usually triggered by personal interests of the detectives. In the same discussion during the seminar at the college, some officers argued that detectives have constructed elaborate networks and have the knowledge that citizens adore quick results and, in most cases, tacitly grant detectives extraordinary powers. Of course, the detectives have the leeway of which law to cunningly apply and when. Shrewd detectives have a better sense of who should or who should not be their target. Those who have stayed in the trade for some time have developed the intuition to detect danger and determine what to share or not to share with their immediate bosses, one senior detective stated. The officers added that when detectives put their mind and all efforts on getting on the heels of a suspect, there are limited chances of eluding them. They will pull all strings and cards at their disposal to get the person, including tracking phones and location, trailing from home to office and at other times even holding an innocent wife to get the husband. This commitment is however absent when the officers have limited personal interest in the case. Personal interest may range from commitment to solve a sensitive case that has attracted public attention, to resolve a case

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that may earn them recognition, the financial benefits expected, to assisting kindred that have been victimised.

The Pocket Files Pocket files are those case files that are only known to the investigating officer who in most instances is expecting financial returns. The file is a semblance of an official file but privately administered. Here, detectives transform themselves into the final arbiter and unilaterally ‘resolve’ the issue through trickery and coercion. However, some of the pocket files, especially those that involve large sums of money, can be a product of a racket of conniving detectives including the OC CID, several officers revealed. The original intention of a pocket file is not to take the case to court, but to stay in the confines of the detectives who create it. Armed with the file, the officer can also reach out to the suspect behind the back of complainant and make a deal of how such a case can be killed. Many officers revealed that in some instances, clients prefer taking this route to get quick results. It is common, for instance, that clients take bounced bank cheques to detectives and hastily make deals. In such cases, the detective creates a pocket file and pressures the one who issued the cheque to pay up or else face jail. ‘The law says that any person who is convicted of issuing a bounced cheque pays ten (10) times the amount owing or faces a 10-year jail term’, one OC CID revealed. To convict someone, however, is a laborious process and might take several years to achieve, he added. Therefore, clients prefer the shorter route of using detectives to pressure those that issued such cheques to them. In turn, detectives use all the powers at their disposal to pressure the suspect to comply. Therefore, when the payment is made, the detective takes a percentage. I personally observed scenarios where detectives record a case in the SD, and before any investigations are conducted, they together with the complainant proceed to arrest the suspect. The suspect struggles by all means to bribe the officer or face jail. Of course, people dread cells and therefore make desperate calls to their relatives and friends to come to their rescue. Ugandans rarely try to ascertain if the grounds for arrests are valid or not. The most important issue is to get out of the cells. I have visited several police cells across the country, and it is clear why people focus on getting out above anything else. Cells are filthy and crowded, and as a norm suspects enter without shoes, are fed on poor-quality food and share space with hard-core criminals. In police cells, buckets substitute toilets, the ‘bucket system’ as is commonly known in police circles, and prisoners clean in turn. At some stations, cells are makeshifts constructed out of heavy-gauge corrugated iron sheets that emit overwhelming levels of heat during the day and cold during the night. Being in a police cell is, of course, a humiliating experience, to say the least. At different police stations, I observed clients asking the ‘kayungiri’ (the interlocutors) or police officers ‘how much does the investigating detective want?’ This is not a surprising phenomenon since there exists a strong shared belief that one

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cannot get out of a police cell without paying money. It is this perception that ‘plays in favour’ of the schemes of detectives yet simultaneously facilitating the practice of pocket files, many officers reasoned. Often the officers are approached and given money even before they demand for it. Meanwhile, many people dread the thought that they have a file at the police and will do whatever it takes for it to be withdrawn. Detectives relish getting involved in cases that are purely civil in nature. Such cases are like precious stones and are highly competed for, especially if the clients are rich or if the case involves huge amounts of money. Officers can strategically reconstruct a civil case into a criminal case. For instance, a simple loan not paid back can be turned into obtaining money by false pretence, a land wrangle into criminal trespass or malicious damage of property that did not exist in the first place. I heard and observed some clients that use detectives in vengeance schemes against their partners suspected of extramarital affairs or against those individuals believed to be cheating with their spouses/partners. These are civil matters considered outside the parameters of police, but officers are involved because they offer a great monetary potential. Officers know that to ‘survive’ one must learn the art of making money from the different options available. It is common for officers to benefit from both the complainant and the suspect, depending on their negotiation skill, and still resolve a contentious issue within the confines of a pocket file. Many officers revealed that it is common at some stations that as night falls, deceitful officers smuggle in their own suspects on non-criminal charges. The ‘suspects’ are dragged into the cells and forced to pay money as soon as possible before senior officers or management of the station get wind of the despicable action. In some cases, however, OC CIDs and the officer in charge may be part of the collusion and ‘suspects’ need not to be hidden. That said, officers of lower ranks such as corporals, sergeants and the inspectorates, who in actual sense are executers of police operations, do a lot of things without the knowledge of the superiors. Important to note is that in the confines of the law, a suspect can only be released between 0800H and 1800H, a procedure that is routinely abused. Though the culture of pocket files does exist, officers are aware of the official norms of case management and thus continuously study the dynamics to avoid being caught by the system. Case management is the process of handling a particular case from the time of reporting to the time of its disposal (UPF Crime Report, 2019). It is a game of ‘ekibaro’ (loosely translated as mathematics) because one must calculate the consequences, many officers shared. Here, a detective has to assess whether the client has connections that might create a problem or whether the case could escalate and draw the attention of the superiors, the media or the politicians. Many experienced detectives might create two files, the official and the pocket. This helps the detective to resort to the official file in case the situation turns in favour of the client, several officers shared. In cases where the case file is not procedurally constructed, meanwhile, it cannot go beyond the RSA. In the over 70 essays that officers wrote answering the question on police powers that I assigned them, it came out clearly that many cases have been quashed by court based on technicalities of not following the official norms. So, detectives try to look as official as possible to remain in good books, which is a prerequisite to retain a

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wet deployment within the Directorate of CID. ‘Smart detectives eat but in a wise way’, to use the words of one commander. Experienced officers, one detective reasoned, are keen on official norms even when they are privately profiting from a case. In complex, sensitive and high-profile cases, detectives apply a number of official strategies including ‘case conferencing’. In police circles, case conferencing is when detectives continuously consult with their superiors. Detectives closely work with the OC CID, the DPC, the RPC, the regional CID or even director CID depending on how the case involves. This strategy, according to many low-ranked detectives, is sometimes counterproductive. The ideas of the lower ranks that might even understand the case better are often supressed and senior struggle for limelight. ‘Once I started constructing a case of the murder of a high-profile businessman in Kampala but on the second day the OC CID had taken over. Thereafter, I heard that the case was taken over by CID headquarters. To the best of my knowledge that particular case was messed up. I was called to testify in court as the first investigating officer, but I had somehow lost touch with the case. Police looked bad in court and the lawyer of the main suspect had a good day. That case seemed lost’, one detective corporal intimated. Case management is a challenge and despite some improvements compared to past years, the rate of conviction is generally low as the table below illustrates for the year 2018 (Table 4.1). According to the UPF 2019 crime report, there were 238,746 cases reported in 2018, as the table shows 101,116 cases were submitted to the DPP or to RSAs across the country. This means that 137,630 of cases that were officially reported to police did not go beyond the police itself. This does not even account for the cases that ended into pocket files, of course. Only 73,035 cases were taken to court of which a mere 22,263 secured convictions. Therefore, if one is to consider, the number of cases reported vis-à-vis those in which a conviction was secured the percentage of conviction was 9.3%. However, the reasons for low crime conviction rate go much further than the CID and the police in general. Besides the inefficiencies in the CID, criminal prosecution in Uganda is profoundly affected by the thin reach and inefficiencies in the judiciary, technological inadequacies and the public that may either give up on cases or Table 4.1  UPF Case Management Statistics 2018 No. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Status of the case Cases submitted to DPP/RSA Cases taken to court Cases with convictions Cases with acquittals Cases with dismissals Cases pending in court Cases under investigations

Number of cases 101,116 73,035 22,263 1248 11,121 38,425 90,763

Source: UPF 2019 Crime Annual Crime Report 2019, p. 62 with authors adjustment

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prefer other alternatives to their problems. The UPF Annual Crime Report (2019, pp. 62–63) indicated that the low conviction rate was attributed to a number of factors including the following: cases reported and suspects are not identified or not arrested or suspects are abroad waiting for extradition or deportation; cases reported and victims lose interest and withdraw them before being taken to court; delays of expert opinion (such as forensic audit, handwriting reports, post-mortem reports and fingerprint reports) to help the DPP and RSA form opinion; cases reported as suspected murder and later post-mortem indicates the victim died of natural causes; cases reported and later parties are advised to seek civil remedies; cases where the victims and suspects agree to settle it out of court; and delayed reporting of cases. The above are the official explanations, but mismanagement of case file is a fundamental problem that continues to hinder successful prosecution of cases. For instance, case files do get lost in transit, with no duplicate copies having been kept before they are moved from office to office. Meanwhile, there is considerable delay of files as they move from office to office. Files move from one level of command to another and to the DPPs office and then courts. Moreover, some officers tend to issue important instructions orally especially via mobile telephone, which sometimes creates problems for prosecutors. The issue of missing or misplaced files is a long-standing problem in Uganda as the Sebutinde Commission report (2000, p. 341) highlighted. In a few cases, several officers noted, crucial facts or pages are plucked out of case files or some information that was not previously there might be added to favour one party, ‘file doctoring’ as is commonly called in police circles. Additionally, other police records such as Station Diaries, registers, exhibit records sometimes get misplaced or are destroyed due to poor storage and maintenance at the station. Detectives are aware that conviction rates matter. The majority of OC CIDs I talked to usually referred to it as a measure of success. In September 2015, I was based at one of the big stations in western Uganda, and on many occasions the OC CID repeatedly emphasised to me that he had achieved a 95% conviction rate of the cases that were taken to court that year. He occasionally pulled out files to illustrate this success and his diary had details of what had transpired at the station. Of those officers that I interacted with, he was the only one who kept a diary. Not surprising perhaps, the same officer was in 2016 transferred and given a bigger responsibility in Kampala. The director CID emphasised to me that senior detectives are mostly judged by their performance which is reflected in the annual crime reports. In these reports, she added, ‘we can tell which station has solved the greatest number of cases’. It is clear, therefore that convictions matter and these are only obtained when official norms are followed. However, several detectives highlighted that though conviction rates count, connections matter more. To maintain a wet office in CID, one must be in good books of the powerful politicians in that jurisdiction and to have godfathers at the CID or police headquarter; moreover some detectives have connections in state house.

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Cost Sharing Expenses of Investigations On five separate occasions, I was privy to court proceedings when I accompanied my corporal friend taking suspects to court. He and I would squeeze in the front passenger seat of a police patrol pickup and the hand-cuffed suspects, usually two to three in number, would be bundled on the open cargo area guarded by about three armed police constables. Transporting suspects was not as straightforward as it should be. Often, delays occurred because drivers were not available or due to delays in mobilising fuel. Some striking incidents stood out on two particular occasions. First, there was a time when a client who was interested in the prosecution of one of the suspects provided money for fuel in order for the pickup to move to court. Second, we once failed to get a police vehicle and one ‘good Samaritan’ who had come to the station to report a different case altogether offered us a ride to court. A few months later, I narrated about these two incidents to a group of senior officers who interestingly described them as normal and innovative. There exists a semi-official and deeply entrenched culture that complainants facilitate officers if at all their cases are to succeed. This may appear in form of money for fuel to enable the officer to reach the scene of crime or to arrest a suspect or in form of money to buy airtime credit for easy communication. A complainant may also literally transport officers in his/her private vehicle to go and make an arrest or assess a crime scene. At police stations, it is common to hear senior officers overtly asking juniors, ‘has the complainant facilitated you?’ Many commanders, including those in the top echelon, shared that when an officer under their command asks for a reasonable amount of money for transport, fuel or airtime credit from a client, they keep a blind eye. This is a clear example of a practical norm that has emerged in UPF. At the same time cost sharing can easily be understood given the context that detectives operate in. However, some detectives tend to exaggerate and may demand a client to pay up to tenfold the actual amount required for an operation. It is an age-old tradition that most people who come to the station are prepared to spend some money to have their cases filter through the processes, several officers shared during my seminars at the Police College. As highlighted, earlier police investigations demand paperwork and the force uses over 100 police forms (PF) and police books (PB). Each case demands a particular type of form and these are almost never available at police stations. For instance, one needs PF18 to secure a bond, PF3 for medical examination and PF3a for medical examination for a victim of sexual assault, among others. Therefore, clients must either buy directly from detectives or are sent to a particular photocopier nearby the station to secure one. The photocopiers, so I was told, are either owned by senior police officers, their wives or relatives and usually the price is twice the average price of photocopying in the city. Definitely, a very senior officer stated, the police cannot afford to provide all these services for free. Though there has a been a discussion about changing the way these forms are handled, no practical steps have ever been taken, one detective argues.

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Meanwhile, it is common that those officers in charge of the cells illicitly benefit from ‘their prisoners’ in some ways. Traditionally, when one is arrested, relatives and friends bring them food at the station. As indicated earlier the food provided by police is usually of poor quality otherwise considered for the underprivileged. The incharge cells encourage relatives and friends of suspects to bring large quantities of ‘good food’ so that they too get a share. Here, two forms of cost sharing emerge, on one hand, the relatives of the suspects are indirectly subsidising the police budget for food for suspects and, on the other, individual officers benefit a meal. Meanwhile, there is an established practice that clients, as a sign of gratitude, tip officers when satisfied with a service provided. In some instances, this could be large sums of money depending on the nature of the case. At one of the stations, I was once privy to an intense discussion between a seemingly poor old lady who was insisting that a police officer accepts her 20,000 Ugx (US$ 6) as ‘mukago’ (friendship) for the latter’s services. She pleaded that if her son (the officer) rejects the offer, her conscious will never rest, the two settling for 10,000 Ugx (US$ 3) instead. The officer in question was of a high rank and relatively well off. Many officers told me that this is a common practice at police stations and even beyond. The officers claim, perhaps rightly, that they also do the same at other public offices in the country. ‘We tip nurses for better services at hospitals, teachers to follow our children’s academic performances, at land offices to quickly process our land titles and the list is endless’, one officer argued. According to my observation, the official resources at the station are limited and cannot be expected to solve even a tiny fraction of what is required for officers to succeed. The director of CID estimated that to successfully investigate one simple case of assault, her directorate would need about UGX 500,000 (US$ 150) yet the OC CID at a busy station gets about the same in operational fund for a quarter (3 months). At busy stations, she added, the OC CID can receive about five cases of assault daily. Moreover, this is before counting the more serious cases such as murder, defilement and robbery that the same officer has to solve. Moreover, detectives are incapacitated to swiftly commence investigations largely due to the absence of vehicles and motorcycles or if the vehicle available have limited or no fuel. This is a serious hindrance to efficient investigations especially up-country. In many murder cases, for example, corpses are buried without proper post-mortem examinations being carried out due to distances to the police station and hospitals and of course the social stigma surrounding death. Many Ugandans, some officers argued, find it unacceptable to easily let bodies of their loved ones to be taken over by the police. In case of rape and defilement, victims need to be examined on time. In many cases due to lapse of time, material evidence is destroyed or tampered with, making it difficult to prosecute suspects. Parents of victims of rape and defilement are encouraged by investigating officers to settle matters quietly out of court. The reason given in such circumstances is lack of transport to travel and carry out investigations. This dilemma was also prevalent in the 1990s as the Sebutinde Commission report (2000, p. 341) highlighted.

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Criminal Infiltration While addressing mourners at the funeral of assassinated AIGP Andrew Felix Kaweesi in March 2017, President Museveni decried the infiltration of the police by criminal elements and pointedly called on the IGP to clean his house. He went on to shed light as to the cause of his frustration, citing instances where members of the public who whistle blow or tip police about criminal elements end up being arrested instead of police going after the criminals. The president discussed one particular suspected criminal that the police had arrested several times but failed to produce in court even when, according to him, there was irrefutable evidence to charge him for murder. The president added that the detectives had botched up the investigations against that criminal yet turning on his accusers whom it jailed. The president reasoned that it was because of such irrational methods of policing that the public is no longer interested in giving information to the police. An informer would rather disclose to the president if at all the president can be accessed, than risk sharing with the police and end up behind bars. By arresting the informer and leaving the criminal/suspect at large, police is doing a disservice to the people, the president concluded. Though one might read the president’s claims as political gimmicks, there is evidence that can be used to vindicate him. But before going further, it is important to shed more light on the president’s revelation that people directly give him information about criminals. This happens and ironically also causes problems in investigations. It is procedurally wrong and majorly causes panic among detectives. Here, detectives will abandon everything they are doing to process the case from the president, one commander noted. Meanwhile, the commander added, people are good at altering facts when they get to the president. When that happens, innocent people are arrested. Gladly, however, the commander concluded, such cases are always thrown out by court. Many officers revealed that indeed some criminals have deep networks within the police. ‘No hard-core criminal can survive and operate without protection from the police’, one officer intimated. Most botched-up investigations are either because of the criminals are working with the police or due to the disorganisation in the investigation department. During the investigations into the sequential assassinations of several Muslim clerics in eastern Uganda, for instance, the head of Special Operations Unit (SOU) unilaterally arrested and interrogated suspects without informing the CID director. High-placed sources intimated that the SOU commander refused to surrender those arrested to the CID team forcing the latter to pull out of the case altogether. The SOU commander held the rank of SSP four ranks below the Director of CID who is at the rank of AIGP. The irregularities in the CID directorate were expounded on by several commanders who intimated that some senior officers within the force connive with criminals to rob citizens and obstruct investigations. I on several occasions heard relentless rumours about officers of good moral stand who have been victimised

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because of trying to pursue criminals. That such officers are instead targeted and mad slug by colleagues who connive with criminals. Largely, the CID department is a complex arena and some detectives depending on their rank and position have developed multifaceted strategies to navigate the system for personal gain. Below is a summary of ways in which detectives mess up cases, which were derived from the essays of the task I gave them on police powers: 1. Advising suspects on details of the file, including all the evidence against them. 2. Providing suspects with tips on how they can be exonerated from cases against them. 3. Frustrating complainants with unnecessary delays for them to lose interest in cases. 4. Destroying some evidence in the files. 5. Omitting some crucial facts during the investigation process. 6. Some especially mid-level and senior detectives collaborate with state attorneys to ‘kill’ and as one senior officer reasoned, ‘state attorneys are another cancer in the investigation processes in Uganda’. 7. Stealing files and sometimes plucking important information out of the files. 8. Harassing or even arresting witnesses. 9. Framing innocent people for financial benefit. 10. In some extreme cases, some officers have aided suspects to escape from police custody. As shown earlier the case prosecution rate in Uganda is at about 9.3% of the all the cases officially registered in the Station Dairy. According to several detectives, many cases are actually closed before any serious investigations are commenced. Officially, meanwhile, a case can only close through court or when the complainant withdraws interest by making an additional statement, the latter being a common practice. Many detectives cunningly prefer cases to close within their jurisdiction since they control the process and financially benefit compared to going to the courts of law where they have limited or no influence. As some officers argued, the police force has also been consumed by a ‘what is in it for me’ syndrome, which pervades many government offices in Uganda. As street-level bureaucrats, detectives wield considerable discretion in the day-­ to-­day implementation police investigations. The detectives labour under huge caseloads, ambiguous investigation procedures and inadequate resources. As Lipsky would argue, when this is combined with the substantial discretionary authority and the requirement to interpret investigation procedures on a case-by-case basis, the difference between police investigations in theory and investigations in practice is of course substantial. As seen detectives rely on some predominant practical norms but at the same time some use their authority for personal gain. To sum up, observations presented in this chapter clearly show that police detectives in Uganda are street-level bureaucrats and unofficially make policies in the course of implementing their work. Most of the policies made drastically deviate from the official regulations and procedures. Over time there are several practical norms such as arresting before investigations, tipping detectives to execute arrests,

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cost sharing between clients and the police in the investigation of cases and the entrenched habit of pocket files that have emerged. Deployments into the CID are considered lucrative because in the process of investigating cases, most detectives interface with large numbers of people whose problems are often solved at a cost. The poor and underprivileged citizens are disadvantaged, while the connected and wealthy clients can easily influence cases through manipulating procedures. Detective work goes far beyond police stations and policing working hours and several cases are determined behind the scenes. Though the UPF has profoundly grown in numbers and military capacity, the investigating arm is still weak. Moreover, the CID is often infiltrated by criminal elements who stealthily work with detectives. The political will to fix the deficiencies in the CID is minimal because the directorate does not significantly contribute to the regime security project.

Chapter 5

The Traffic Police: The ‘Devils in White’

Introduction Routine traffic stop encounters, many scholars have observed, are the single most recurrent type of police-citizen interactions (Engel, 2005; Engel & Calnon, 2004; Langan et al., 2001; Ross, 1960; Skolnick, 1966; Weitzer & Tuch, 2005; Schafer & Mastrofski, 2005). It has also been argued that for many citizens, routine traffic stop encounters are their only contact with police (Bayley, 1976; Durose, 2007; Kowalski & Lundman, 2008). Though this argument might not necessarily hold for rural Uganda, my observations in Kampala Metropolitan and other large urban centres in Uganda clearly confirmed a similar pattern. Traffic stop encounters do remarkably illustrate the situationally absolute positional authority of police officers (Bittner, 1970; Klockars, 1984). Though some drivers might be defiant, majority have no choice but to acknowledge the positional authority of the officers and immediately stop driving even when they may perceive it that the officers’ reason for stopping them is irrational and illegitimate (Harris, 2002; Kowalski & Lundman, 2008). As I will show in this chapter, the relations between clients and traffic officers in Uganda evidently confirm the positional authority of the latter. Over the years, Uganda has experienced a heavy burden of road traffic incidents (RTIs). The country’s RTIs deaths are estimated at 28.9 per 100,000 people compared to an average of 24.1 for Africa and 18.0 worldwide (Balikuddembe et al., 2017). On average, not less than 3000 and 15,000 victims were killed and injured, respectively, due to RTIs every year between 2010 and 2018 (UPF Annual Reports, 2010, 2011, 2013, 2019). This is further reflected by Ministry of Health statistics This subtitle is derived from President Yoweri Museveni’s speech on September 14, 2014, during the centenary celebrations of the Uganda Police Force. The president complained about the conduct and corrupt tendencies of the traffic police officers. He referred to them as ‘devils in white’ based on their official white uniform. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 J. Kagoro, Inside an African Police Force, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-14992-4_5

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that place traffic injuries within the top ten causes of mortality in the country (MoH report, 2013). The task of reducing the number of accidents falls under the traffic police. In this chapter, therefore, I turn the focus to traffic police with a specific set of questions. How are traffic police organised? What are the targets and objectives of traffic police officers? In practice, how do officers conduct traffic operations? What configurations exist in the interactions between traffic officers and their clients? For police officers, what counts as a successful day on duty? As explained in the introduction, I started my ethnographic research with the traffic police at Jinja Road Police Station in Kampala in November 2013. There, I was able to witness first hand how traffic police operates. This period provided a good platform for a deeper insight into what it meant for officers to have intense interactions and closer proximity with clients. Traffic police offices especially in Kampala and other large urban areas are perpetually crowded with a myriad of traffic issues that officers must resolve. Like the CID detectives discussed in the preceding chapter, traffic police officers are a classic example of Lipsky’s (1980) street-level bureaucrats. They interact and communicate directly with clients on behalf of the Uganda Police Force and by extension the state. These officers are the ones that deliver road safety and traffic regulations as have been constructed by policymakers. These officers must continuously interpret the laws and apply them to a particular situation often in limited time and with no full information. Traffic police officers in Uganda, as Olivier de Sardan (2009, 2015) would say  here, have developed a multitude of practical norms to facilitate their operations and resolve their clients’ problems often in a limited time frame. Officially, these officers are poorly paid yet labour under huge caseloads, ambiguous agency goals and inadequate resources. Often, traffic police officers embody substantial discretionary authority and are required to interpret policy on a case-by-­ case basis. With this background, Lipsky’s (1980) has argued in the context of street-level bureaucracy and discretionary powers, the difference between official road traffic laws and regulations in theory and what the officers implement in practice is substantial. Traffic police is considered a lucrative (‘wet’) deployment in the UPF and officers lobby and compete to be recruited in the department. I will proceed here by first providing an overview of how the traffic police directorate is structured as well as highlighting its stipulated functions. I will then pay particular attention to how working in the traffic police is largely considered a lucrative venture and in the Uganda Police context, a ‘wet’ deployment. Thereafter, I provide an account drawn from inside the traffic police office at a police station and my experience with the traffic police officers on the road. What follows is an analysis of the tensions, anxieties and at the same time excitement that traffic police officers endeavour while managing the movement of the presidential convoy, referred to as the ‘long one’ in the police jargons. I conclude the chapter with a discussion on the drink-driving operations commonly known as ‘Kawunyemu’, a local slang loosely translated as breathe into it. These operations, I argue, provide

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one of the most intensive platforms through which configurations of interactions between the police and clients can be observed.

The Structure and Mandate of the Traffic Police The Directorate of Traffic and Road Safety is headed by a director at the rank of Assistant Inspector General of Police (AIGP) and constitutes three departments of traffic enforcement and operations, traffic training and data management and the Inspectorate of Vehicles. The directorate is principally mandated to enforce traffic and road safety laws with a view of ensuring safety for all road users (MoPS, 2015, p. 75). As of 2018, traffic police officers dressed in all white as their official uniform and were noticeable on the streets and major highways across the country. In the IGP’s perspective, these officers should play an important role in promoting the image of the police. The traffic police operations, as highlighted in chapter one, supplement the budget of the UPF through express penalty scheme. Traffic police officers have the mandate to stop, divert and regulate the course of traffic for the purpose of preserving public order and safety and to prevent obstruction on roads, parking places and other places of public resort (Police Act, 2006, Sec. 22; the Traffic and Road Safety Act, 1998, Chap. 361, Sec. 142a). In case of an emergency or a public function, officers have powers to temporarily close a public road or parking. A person who does not comply with the traffic directives commits an offence and is liable on conviction to imprisonment not exceeding 3  months or a fine. Additionally, traffic police officers have the mandate to demand the production of a driving permit and registration documents for a vehicle. Any person driving a motor vehicle, a trailer or an engineering plant on a road shall carry his or her driving permit and, on being so required by a police officer in uniform, produce it for examination. If the permit is not at hand, the law requires the driver to produce it at the police station within 50 days (The Traffic and Road Safety Act, 1998, Sec. 146). Of course, officers rarely give drivers a chance to produce the permit later. The prevailing culture is that drivers must instantly produce the licence, which in most cases is not enough to let one off the hook as another offence might be somehow created as we shall see shortly. In case of a vehicle breakdown, an officer can order for its removal from the road using private breakdown services at the cost of the owner (Ibid, Sec. 154). A traffic police officer above the rank of Assistant Inspector of Police (AIP) has powers to order for a mechanical examination of a vehicle, at specified time and place, if he or she has reasons to believe that it has ceased to be fit for the purpose it was licenced (Ibid, Sec. 155). An officer can also order for a vehicle to be driven to a police station if he or she suspects that it was involved in the committal of any offence ranging from accident and others (Ibid, Sec. 156).

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Previously, the traffic police fell under the Directorate of Operations, but in 2013 it was made independent because of increased road networks, motorists and motor vehicles. Statistics show that between the years 2000 and 2010, the number of vehicles in Uganda increased from 300,000 to 800,000 (MoPS, 2015). According to Uganda Revenue Authority (URA), there were over one million vehicles in Uganda as of March 2018. Additionally, the director of traffic police explained that the number of boda bodas (motorcycle taxis) in the country was estimated at more than 1.5  million by 2017, majority of which unregistered. These numbers, of course, increase the volume of work for traffic officers in both traffic flow operations and management of accident and bad driving cases, several officers argued. According to my observations, this directorate is one of the busiest and possesses an extensive reach. It literary exists at every police station across the country.

The ‘Wet’ Deployment The job of traffic police is tedious especially for the frontline officers. These officers work under hard conditions including harsh weather, yet most of the frontline officers still view it as a privilege. In August 2016, I gave a ride to three mid-level police officers who at the time were deployed at the Police Senior Command and Staff College located along Entebbe-Kampala Road. On approaching Kajjansi, a suburb between Entebbe and Kampala, we noticed two traffic police officers ‘diligently’ working despite the heavy downpour. An argument ensured amongst the three officers. One was claiming that the officers on the road should be commended while the two were insisting that those officers under the downpour were only motivated by the money they make daily. Shortly, even the officer who was sympathetic changed her mind and remembered that those in traffic are already ‘privileged’. The same perception was objectified in a conversion I overheard in March 2017 during my visit to a certain office at the police headquarters in Naguru. An officer from the traffic department had been selected to undergo a refresher course and was trying to feign an excuse not to attend. In this discussion there was a shared understanding that going for the course would be taking the officer off a lucrative position and his family might suffer a financial loss. One officer however advised that since the affected officer had worked in traffic for over 10 years, he must have made enough investments and savings. Important to note here is that when an officer is sent on course, his monthly salary is uninterrupted. In fact, while on course, one can save on transport to work, lunch and other expenses, several officers reasoned. In this case, this particular officer was worried about missing out on the personal money he makes from clients while on duty. There is of course a shared perception within the UPF that the traffic directorate is a wet deployment. Generally, officers intensely lobby and some pay bribes to be deployed in traffic. Meanwhile, some officers who perceived it that I was close to the IGP and other top police bosses approached me on several occasions to help them get deployed in traffic, a wish I had no means to fulfil.

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Recruitment into the traffic directorate is carried out in two ways. First, there are those officers that are recruited right away from the training wing. When basic training is done, officers are identified and recruited. Second, when there is a manpower gap, the directorate also makes a call for applications that is circulated amongst the serving officers deployed in other directorates. Officially, those who recruit should look out for specific qualities such as discipline, moral character and commitment to work, the director of traffic police and the command traffic operations in Kampala Metropolitan separately explained. The officers that are shortlisted then appear before the committee for further scrutiny. The candidates sit an examination with questions that are specific to traffic operations. To be considered, one must score above 50%. Thereafter, the selected officers undergo on job training. ‘…And should an officer in that period make mistakes he or she is disqualified. For those who are successful their names are forwarded to police headquarters such that an official message is issued indicating that they are now deployed in traffic police’, the commander traffic operations in Kampala Metropolitan explained. Though the official recruitment procedures exist, it is lobbying, negotiations and networks that work, many officers reasoned. The laborious and unique process of recruitment is equally an indication that traffic police is lucrative. Ironically, these officers do not receive any extra payment or allowances. Officially, they earn the same as their counterparts in other directorates according to their ranks. ‘So why the laborious recruitment process yet the officers already have a job? It is simply because the police administration knows the practical realities in the field. In a way, administration implicitly sanctions the officers work ethics’, one old-timer complained. I learned that the lower-ranked officers that control traffic on the road wield vast avenues to make personal money. Moreover, some do pay their bosses who sit in offices what is coded as ‘SITREP’ as a strategy to retain their positions. SITREP is a conventional abbreviation for situation report in the field of security. Here, the slang carries a double meaning; it is both used in conventional terms and as a code referring to the bribes which are paid to bosses. SITREP, in form of bribes, was even more prevalent in the 1990s and early 2000s (see the Sebutinde Commission Report, 2000). Before 2000, the Sebutinde Commission highlighted, some bosses used to arbitrary order their juniors to literally carry money to them on a regular basis. Failure to pay SITREP usually resulted into a transfer to a ‘dry district’ like Karamoja where there is hardly any traffic or a reversion to regular police (Sebutinde Commission Report, 2000, p. 367). The logic here is that the more the traffic, the more the opportunity to make personal money. Though the IGP Gen. Kayihura attempted to fight the practice by dislodging the old-timers who he replaced with young university graduates as was discussed in Chap. 1, the practice only reduced in magnitude, senior officers offered. One of the strategies to decrease the practice was the introduction of frequent transfers of

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senior and mid-level officers. The frequent transfers, many officers argued, do not allow the materialisation of strong bonds between bosses and the frontline officers. In general, some senior traffic officers that basically do office work somewhat depend on the exploits of their frontline juniors on the streets. I was told of several cases where officers pay bribes in order not to be promoted. A promotion to a rank of gazetted officer in the traffic directorate, for instance, may take an officer away from the streets into an office thus depriving him/her the proximity to the wider public. Traffic police officers perceive it that they deal with ‘rich clients’; by Ugandan standards if one can afford driving or owning a car, then he or she must be relatively rich. Often, traffic officers cunningly use their discretion to create offences even in situations where the offences do not necessarily exist. Most Ugandans, moreover, have no time to follow the cumbersome legal dynamics while others simply do not understand the procedures. It is better and quick to negotiate with a police officer instead of following the law. Officers exploit this shared mentality to grant themselves more authority to their advantage. The officers can simply order a client to drive to the station arguing that the vehicle is in bad mechanical condition. This can be anything ranging from a slightly broken indicator tyres that might not look new to insisting that the driver committed a traffic offence. When a driver complies, he or she must wait for many hours before a statement is extracted. If this begins in the morning, then the statement might be taken in the afternoon and then the offender is taken to court where the plea may not be read until evening. If the offender pleads guilty and is fined, it will take another 4 h for the file to move from court to the cash office to enable the convict to pay the fine. If after pleading guilty the offender has no money to pay the fine, he is sent to prison. The prospects of being sent to prison on a Friday afternoon are high. If the offender does not plead guilty, he faces possibility of remand in prison since he will not have had time to contact his relatives and/or lawyer to arrange sureties for him. The practice seems to have a long history as the Sebutinde Commission Report (2000) also highlighted it. To avoid running in circles or to escape arrest, remand or prosecution, a driver will find it much easier to negotiate, in money terms of course, rather than taking other available options. This is common amongst public transport drivers who routinely abuse traffic regulations by overloading passengers or cargo. However, many drivers know the game and make arrangements that benefit both the officers and them. Bus owners, so I was told, usually have working agreements with police bosses to enable both parties abuse rules for personal gains. In September 2014, the Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni publicly complained about traffic police referring to them as the ‘devils in white’ based on their official white uniform. The president revealed that he had received several complaints from the public about the extortion habits of the traffic police. In my several interactions with the director of traffic directorate, he revealed that within 3 months after the president’s complaint, he had acted and removed 400 ‘bad apples’ from his 1400 strong force and by then he was actually still ‘weeding out’. The director was also faced with pressure from the IGP who used to telephone him almost daily

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complaining of the same. These suspensions, however, did not mean that the officers were fired from police. The affected officers were deployed to less lucrative positions including Field Force Police (FFP), guard duties and general duties. To fight corruption in the traffic police, the director implemented the IGP’s strategy of deploying civilians who would move around the city spying on the officers on the streets. Many officers however intimated that this strategy only ‘worked’ for a few weeks and died out as expected. In some cases, many officers argued, the strategy was misused to remove people and lobby for others to take their positions. Meanwhile, many officers in traffic even those of lower rank have some connections within the police hierarchy or even the political circles. The director of traffic police was equally bemused when during his ‘weeding out’ exercise he got to learn that many of his officers were either children or blood relatives of senior police officers. ‘Many of my colleagues called me and some did side meetings with me during management meetings which were organised to discuss other issues altogether. They would say please do not fire my son or daughter… what will they eat, my comrades would urge me’, the director intimated. One of his colleagues also a director had three of his biological children in traffic police. This confirms that some officers in the top management of the force directly promote the corrupt tendencies in the traffic police.

Inside the Traffic Police Office At Jinja Road Police Station where I start my ethnographic research, the traffic office is a small room with four large desks. One desk for the sergeant, who was the most senior in the office, and all the other officers about 20 in number shared the remaining desks; of course, not all would be in office at the same time. Save for the sergeant, none of the other officers had a permanent desk and would occupy any space available. The office was littered with a large volume of papers and files all over the place. At first glance, the office looked messy, but then officers knew exactly where ‘their’ files were placed. I observed that each officer had the requisite knowledge of navigating through the seemingly disorganised files to find ‘their’ file. These files included different police books and form such as Police Form 53 (charge sheet), Police Form 36 (demanding particulars of driver from the owner), Police Form 30 (warning notice), Police Form 28 (particulars of motor vehicle) and Police Book 34 (request for production of driving permit, car insurance and car registration logbook) to list but a few. The office doubles as the counter for traffic cases and one officer, usually at the rank of a constable, must be in the room to attend to the Traffic Station Diary (TSD). The OC traffic sat in the next office and would often come looking around to get a feel of what was transpiring. I observed that the officers operated with a great deal of discretion and the OC traffic cannot have a comprehensive picture of the goings­on, the OC station, DPC and the RPC far less.

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This confirms Lipsky’s (1980) conception of the discretion enjoyed by street-­ level bureaucrats as well as the basic paradox of police hierarchy in which autonomy tends to be greatest at the lowest levels where police officers make fundamental decisions far removed from their supervisors (Wilson, 2000). Officers deal with ambiguous situations that often fall into the grey and their decisions are frequently influenced by a variety of extra-legal considerations (Bittner, 1967; Kelling, 1999; Wilson, 1968). On the road as I shall show shortly, officers also possess profound levels of discretion. After visiting other stations, conducting interviews and informally interacting with hundreds of officers, I concluded that the office set-up is almost similar across the country, especially in large urban areas. Commanders usually have tacit agreements with frontline officers on how to benefit from events they do not control entirely. The juniors subconsciously know that to survive and continue enjoying a wet deployment, their commanders must be happy. As noted in the preceding section, commanders are frequently changed thus lower-ranked officers have a better perspective of a particular jurisdiction. The more cases an officer handles the better for him or her, one frontline officer noted. Each case presents an opportunity for officers to magnify their influence, to be seen as busy solving clients’ problems and ultimately to make more personal money. At this office, the ritual was that officers go to the field to control traffic flow at peak hours or to accident scenes and then return to attend to a myriad of issues in the office. When a traffic accident is reported, it is entered in the Traffic Station Dairy and first information extracted for the attention of OC traffic. A corresponding entry is made in the traffic accident register (TAR) for ease of reference. However, several officers revealed that many cases are not entered into the TAR. Yet procedurally it is only those cases reported in the TAR that have a chance for being considered for the next level of traffic offence register (TOR). Even when a TOR is opened, it is not a guarantee that the case will be taken to court. The officers are selective of the cases they take to court. I on two occasions accompanied traffic police officers to accident scenes in January 2014, luckily none was fatal. At the scene, I observed that the officers lacked some basic equipment such as tape measures, stretchers and first aid kits and there was no ambulance. Going by the official standards, all traffic teams are supposed to be equipped with these items. In the absence of these items, however, officers creatively improvise. At both scenes, for instance, officers quickly called for a police patrol pickup on into which the injured individuals were placed and transported to hospital. Instead of a tape measure, the officers counted steps using their own feet and for the stretcher they relied on volunteer citizens who directly carried the injured. As Olivier de Sardan (2009, 2015) would put it, practical norms are at play here. Meanwhile, the officers rushed to the scene with no paramedics and all confessed that they had limited knowledge of first aid, though they had some lessons during their training. The lack of equipment and strategies of response are somewhat a paradox given the fact that accidents are quite common on Ugandan roads.

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Table 5.1  Accidents per year (2012–2015 and 2018) Category of accident Fatal Serious Minor Total

2012 2611 9030 8220 19,861

2013 2616 8874 6874 18,364

2014 2518 9259 6909 18,495

2015 2749 9422 6324 18,495

2018 3689 9541 1188 14,418

Source: UPF Statistical Abstract (2015, p. 10) and the Annual Crime Report (2019, p. 108)

As the accident statistics show below, the average number of accidents between 2012 and 2018 was about 19,000. Important to note is that these are the reported accidents, yet many are not necessarily entered into records as explained above (Table 5.1). Both filed and unfiled accidents trigger intense negotiations between involved parties and traffic police officers. These negotiations are only better understood at the traffic office. Some clients would camp around the police station for several hours, while others returning for several days for their traffic-related issues to be solved. The office is a space for several negotiations including those between officers and drivers/owners of vehicles that were involved in accidents and officers acting as arbiters between drivers and pedestrian victims, in other cases with relatives of those who had died in fatal accidents. Other negotiations included those between officers and owners of impounded vehicles on grounds of mechanical deficiencies or reckless driving. In conversions amongst officers, it is clear that they personify cases. Officers proudly make references like, ‘my victim’, ‘my suspect’, ‘my car’ or ‘my motorbike’. One can observe the aura of control officers exude. Often, officers tell the perceived errant drivers and victims of the same to step out and negotiate and return to report the results of those negotiations. Here, the negotiations were not about who is guilty or innocent but how much the perceived offender was to compensate the victim. These negotiations were usually intense, and some went on for days, especially when large sums of money were involved. Often, one party would return alone to complain that the other is not fair in what is being offered or what is being demanded. In some instances, officers would lose their patience and shout at a victim that is exaggerating figures of what he or she should be compensated. Similarly, they would do the same for the ‘offenders’ offering unreasonable compensations. Interestingly, I observed that after successful negotiations, both parties, victim and offender, would later return separately to give a ‘thank you handshake’ to the officer. The handshake, as officers called it, meant that the officers received money. These transactions mostly seemed to be based on a ‘willing giver-willing receiver’ logic, and many officers don’t see this as corruption. It is an appreciation of a job well done, many reasoned. The unwritten rule, or a practical norm as Olivier de Sardan (2009, 2015) would call it, at the station is that parties should agree and in very rear circumstances go to court, the latter seen as a total failure. Judicial courts are rarely used in traffic cases;

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most of the cases are resolved at the police stations or with a police officer on the roadside or in express penalties. I witnessed instances of drivers who had caused death, due to recklessness, and given a chance to compensate the families of the victims instead of being taken to court. Here, offenders would, for instance, pay for burial expenses, provide extra money for the bereaved families or pay for the medical expenses in cases where the victims were hospitalised. In such transactions many traffic police officers act as intermediaries. These practical norms, however, seem to produce some good results. Though many of the practices are illegal, they seem entrenched and semi-acceptable. I do not penalise officers who take a bit of money from clients as longer as there is no coercion and the problems are solved, one RPC reasoned. The practice of monetary appreciation for services provided by public servants is deeply entrenched even beyond the police. In the context of Uganda Police, this arrangement is generally viewed as a win-win bargain. Many officers argued that it does not make sense to take a driver to court, yet the victims and their families are not compensated. The compensation in this case is perceived as justice served. This is a clear case of how officers use practical norms in a specific context or a typical example of how street-level bureaucrats ‘make’ policy as Lipsky (1980) would put it. Moreover, courts are aloof, limited in reach and do not provide instant solutions to people’s needs. Here, it is not necessarily that people have limited knowledge of the law but prefer the workable solution. I observed that even affluent clients including lawyers preferred to solve their traffic problems at the station or on the streets. This confirms Goldstein (1960) argument that many police officers freely use their discretion either to invoke or not invoke the law and often appropriate the powers of judiciary if they decide not to invoke the law when the conditions for invoking it were met. I observed that in some cases, officers seemed to weigh the financial means of the clients and then strategically make the perceived rich compensate the perceived poor even when the latter were in wrong. There was one case of a lady, a causal worker with Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA), who had been knocked while running the red light (on foot), but officers influenced the negotiations to have the perceived rich driver pay for her medical bills. When I sort for reasons why the officers favoured the lady who was in wrong, one officer at the rank of sergeant reasoned that it was on humanitarian grounds. ‘Where do you expect the lady to get money for treatment?’ She asked me. A few times I overheard officers sharing their intentions to solve the case in favour of the weaker party even before the negotiations begun. This should not be read as an argument that the officers are always looking out for the interest of the weak. My own observation was that the personal interests of the officers were vividly profound in the transaction at the traffic office. Self-presentation of clients similarly mattered and though police officers are generally the powerful ones in their interactions with clients, there are exceptions when they are awed by certain clients. Officers frequently assessed their clients and tried to get more information about those who exude confidence or appear to be people of status. Individuals of status always construct relations in the police, and it can be observed that when they have a problem, some senior officers try to

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intervene. In most cases senior officers who intervene on behalf of friends, relatives or people of influence tend not to overtly order around those working on a particular case. One director at police headquarters intimated to me that almost all taxi drivers that operate on the highway from Kampala to his home area call him when they have a problem with the traffic police. He prefers to negotiate with the officers on sight to be lenient. ‘Where possible, I ask the officers to issue an express penalty ticket instead of impounding their taxis which affects business. The officer handling the case still controls the options and if not handled well might cause unnecessary delays’, he added. There are those clients who play the humble card and navigate through the processes smoothly while some might find the processes cumbersome and act domineering. Officers control options and even when they play subservient, they can indirectly make the clients run in circles before their issues are solved. As Goffman (1959) might have argued, officers assemble clues from the conduct and appearance of their clients which allows them to apply their previous experience with individuals roughly similar to the one before them. Of course, in face-to-face interactions, many crucial facts lie beyond the time and place of the interaction or are concealed within it. Both clients and officers try to act so that they intentionally or unintentionally convey an impression which is in their interest to convey. These interactions, Goffman might have added, are defined by the reciprocal influence and both clients and officers have the motives of trying to control and sustain the impressions created.

On the Road with the Traffic Police Occasionally, I joined officers on the streets of Kampala to learn what is entailed in regulating the heavy traffic. At every major junction in the city, traffic police officers become substitutes for traffic lights making all sorts of body language communication that are different from one officer to another and from time to time but somehow still achieving their main objective. Police and KCCA frequently clashed over the issue of traffic lights and organising traffic in the city in general. Both institutions are mandated by law to handle traffic in the city. Apart from installing traffic lights, Section 7(j) of the KCCA Act mandates it to organise and manage traffic. The then executive director of KCCA, Jennifer Musisi, occassionally blamed the police for causing traffic jams and urged them to allow the traffic lights installed by the city authority to work without interference. So, one day in October 2014, the IGP angrily directed his traffic police officers not to report on duty. This directive resulted in one of the worst traffic gridlocks in the history of Kampala City, several officers remembered during a class discussion at the Police College in 2017. It literally took several people up to 5 h to drive a distance of less than 5 km from work to their homes. From that day, the IGP explained to me, many high-ranking

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government officials appreciated the traffic police in as far as managing the traffic flow was concerned. On a typical day, officers are on the street directing traffic under the scorching sun, in other cases heavy rain, from morning to late evening. At the beginning I sympathised thinking that the officers’ workload was quit heavy, but after working with them and interacting with those envying them, it came to my knowledge that compared to their colleagues on guard duties, in general duties or in FFU, these officers were somewhat better off. Typical of street-level bureaucrats (Lipsky, 1980), the officers embody enormous discretionary powers freely choosing who to punish and who to absolve. At the junction the officers would choose which lane to let through and which one to halt, often but not always, following the traffic logic. Some officers are known within traffic police circles for their excellent skills in organising traffic flow. ‘Am well known as the master of traffic and when am not there my colleagues suffer’, one officer bragged. In the mornings I observed officers organising two lanes going into the city centre and one out of the city and then reversed the logic in the evening, sometimes they changed the flow dynamics several times in a day depending on the traffic logic. For the drivers who disobeyed their orders, the officers would decide who to give a warning, wave away and issue an express penalty ticket, and the unlucky ones would have their cars impounded. ‘I never disturb humble people and those who show respect. I will always find a way to squeeze [make it complicated] the bossy ones’, one officer told me. Often, money exchanged hands even in my presence since the officers had established trust that it was not my intention to report their actions to their bosses. I observed that most taxi drivers and boda boda drivers have no regard for other road users. They habitually break traffic rules to pick up passengers, run the red lights and drive at reckless speed in order to make as many rounds as possible. Some taxi drivers play loud music, which obstructs other road users especially in heavy traffic. Many overload while their vehicles are in dangerous mechanical condition including some driving with noticeable worn-out tyres. Both taxi and boda boda drivers have a habit of dangerous loading. These drivers recklessly compete for passengers by parking at undesignated parking areas, sometimes in the middle of the road without regard for other road users. It is common to see up to four passengers on a boda boda meant to carry one or a passenger sharing a seat with an animal such as pig or goat. This is largely facilitated by police officers because the cost of breaking traffic laws is negotiable. On major highways, traffic officers usually mount roadblocks by placing sharp spikes leaving a narrow passage, which necessitate drivers to move at a walking speed to navigate through. Here, the officers can profile and easily stop which ever car they suspect of having committed an offence. The officers are mostly interested in heavy load trucks, buses and public omnibus, which are usually suspected of breaking one rule or the other, especially overloading passengers or cargo, including livestock and agricultural produce. On the same highways, many drivers that regularly interface with officers seem to have developed mutual codes of what works to benefit all sides. As mentioned,

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many owners of buses and heavy load trucks enter secret arrangement with some police officers. These arrangements, of course, involve exchange of money. Officers, however, must occasionally issue express penalties. The number of vehicles on major highways is high, and officers are expected to generate reasonable amount of income for the police in express penalties. It is clear here that both official and practical norms are at play as Olivier de Sardan (2009, 2015) would put it. So, the drivers must continuously negotiate because what works with one officer may not work with another. Meanwhile, one might meet up to three roadblocks on a distance of 300 km say from Mbarara in western Uganda to Kampala City. In the wake of a traffic offence, a driving permit is one of the first things officers demand for. Though the law allows the offender 5 days within which to avail the driving permit, most officers insist it must be produced instantly. My observations revealed that this was a form of negotiation that gives the officer latitude to extract something from the driver. Sometimes there would be haggling of how much should be given and in other cases the officers would issue an express penalty ticket. In other instances, officers impound the cars at the station or pluck off the registration number plates until the penalty is paid and a bank slip presented. This immediacy disregards the law which gives the driver a time frame of 28 days within which to pay the fine. With the Ugandan roads plagued with old fleet of cars, it is always easy for an officer to find something that is not ‘proper’ on a vehicle. Most of the officers have no expertise to definitively access whether a car has a mechanical fault or not. ‘Usually we use our eyes’, one officer told me. Though they genuinely lack the mechanical expertise, the officers still embody ‘expert power’ and ‘coercive power’ as French and Raven (1959) would call it. This is possible through the different technical terms and paperwork they use and of course the possibility of impounding vehicles. When challenged about their competence to access the mechanical condition of a vehicle, the officers can readily issue Police Book 31 (request form for inspection) which results in the vehicle being taken to the Inspectorate of Vehicles (IOV) which is also within the police structure, and thereafter the IOV would use his/her discretion while compiling Police Book 24 (IOV report). Often, officers randomly stop any car of their choice, and depending on their mood or subsequent interaction with the driver, they might issue a penalty ticket, stripe off the number plate, impound the car or negotiate for a bribe. Many officers told me that drivers should not risk daring the traffic officers during days when schools are about to open or towards festive days such as Christmas. This is when the officers are looking for money to pay school fees for their children or to spend with their families on Christmas. Of course, officers do not always have it their way. In a few incidences, some rogue drivers have physically assaulted them or even intentionally knocked them dead. As a result, the traffic police, especially on the highways, have devised a strategy that each traffic team moves with an armed officer from the FFP for protection.

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The Presidential Convoy: ‘The Long One’ Traffic control in Kampala Metropolitan area is a hectic undertaking especially for commanders. Many traffic commanders confessed that they regularly receive phone calls from high-profile politicians demanding for an explanation when traffic hold-­ ups seem out of control. For the traffic commander in Kampala, moreover, it is impossible to go off duty before the president has completed the day’s movements. This commander has to embody attributes of capability and trust because he has to continually keep in touch with the president’s convoy commander to get clues on when the presidential convoy christens ‘the long one’1 is expected to move and from where to where. Like it is all over the world, movements of a head of state are extremely sensitive, one senior officer explained. The traffic commander in Kampala must make sure that the president moves smoothly wherever he goes. This task of managing ‘the long one’ is quite an ambivalent task. For a start, traffic police officers are not necessarily entitled to detailed information of the president’s movements, a senior officer at the strategic level explained. Often, the traffic commander Kampala gets information on the presidential convoy just a couple of minutes before it sets off. This means that he must expedite his co-ordination with his subordinate traffic commanders along the proposed route to clear for the long one. As the long one is moving, the commander must continuously monitor that all his juniors are on stand by along the route. The commander must issue orders for all vehicles to briefly stop and give way for the presidential convoy and then reissue another for cars to start moving when convoy has passed. The commander continues to monitor the movement until the convoy has safely ‘landed’, to use the police slang. Over time the commander of traffic in Kampala must acquire a skill set of issuing orders in quick succession to different commanders along a certain route to avoid predictability of the exact route the president has taken. Sometimes the commander has to issue diversionary orders such as keeping his junior commanders on different routes on stand by and yet the convoy will use only one of the routes. Meanwhile, the long one itself has an extensive security detail that can avert potential threats. The president’s official residence is in Entebbe and his main office in Kampala, a 42-km distance that the president frequently journeys back and forth. Before the completion of the Entebbe-Kampala Express Highway in June 2018, there was only one road that connected the two cities. The old highway is one of the busiest roads in Uganda and is perpetually encumbered with long lines of traffic jams daily including weekends. Despite this fact, traffic commanders must ensure that the long one is not held up. Interestingly, ‘the president has often directed that traffic police should not clear the roads for him… that he does not want to inconvenience the people. But which sane  The term, ‘The Long One’, has been coined by the traffic police officers and denotes the size of the presidential convoy which is often comprised of more than 12 vehicles. 1

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commander can allow the president to be caught up in traffic jams that may sometimes remain stationary for hours’, one senior officer reasoned. Procedurally, however, all vehicles must stop when the presidential convoy is approaching. Entebbe-Kampala traffic is a very sensitive affair as this road also leads to Entebbe Airport, Uganda’s only international airport. This means that all visiting heads of state use the same route back and forth between the capital city and the airport. Nothing should disrupt a convoy carrying a visiting head of state, one commander emphasised. Under the law, the president, the first lady, the speaker of parliament and the chief justice are the only dignitaries entitled to the right of way. On humanitarian grounds, an ambulance rushing a patient to hospital and a fire truck on duty fall under this category. Besides the president, however, other VIPs are only expected to use their lead cars to clear the road, an arrangement that is not fully co-ordinated by the traffic police. For instance, it is known in traffic police circles that the first lady despises the privilege of right of way. She hates inconveniencing other road users, one senior commander intimated. Even though a limited number of VIPs are entitled to a right of way, some traffic officers seem to have recreated the rules. So often, traffic police officers enable many ‘upper class’ citizens to enjoy the right of way in order to navigate the heavy traffic on the muddled narrow streets of Kampala City. Anyone, especially those driving pricey cars, may negotiate for a right of way, several commanders highlighted. The lower-ranked officers on the streets might either fear to stop them or have prior arrangements with such individuals, many commanders further explained. Relatedly, any individual can hire a lead car fully equipped with emergency lights, siren and in some cases pay for police’s escort vehicles, outside the official norms, of course. It is clear here that some of the police services are informally commercialised. On the other hand, such practices illustrate that policy in theory and in practice do not necessarily tally (Lipsky, 1980; Olivier de Sardan, 2009, 2015). At the same time, we see that frontline officers, as Lipsky (1980) would argue, make their own practical ‘policies’ in their day-to-day implementation of the official policy. Occasionally, it is the connections within the police and not money that work. ‘Sometimes I am just sitting at the restaurant and I look through the window… when I see a lot of traffic, I call the traffic guy at the Central Police Station (CPS). In a few minutes the guy deploys and the traffic clears’, a senior journalist perceived to be a confidant of the IGP Gen. Kayihura revealed. The same journalist is believed to be close to the first family including President Museveni. This claim clearly being perceived as a friend to the IGP aids one in influencing both the response rate and perhaps getting privileged services by the police.

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The ‘Kawunyemu’: Drink-Driving Operations Section 112 of Uganda’s Traffic Control and Road Safety Act 1998 outlaws anyone from driving or manning an engineering plant if they have consumed alcohol which exceeds the specified legal limit. In response the traffic police execute drink-driving operations commonly known as ‘Kawunyemu’, a local slang loosely translated as breathe into it. These operations provide one of the most intensive platforms through which configurations of interactions between the police and citizens can be observed. The Kawunyemu operations are conducted with the aid of the breathalyser technology that was introduced in 2003 but effectively put into use in 2008. To comprehend Kawunyemu I attended 16 of such operations in the Kampala Metropolitan area between 2013 and 2017. The operations are usually conducted on Friday and Saturday nights when there is a higher likelihood of apprehending as many offenders as possible. There are several procedures prior to execution of a typical drink-driving operation. First, the officer in charge of traffic (OC traffic) at a specific station prepares an operational order. Once the order is written, it is presented to the unit commander, often the District Police Commander (DPC) or officer in charge of station (OC station) in the absence of the former. The DPC/OC signs the order and forwards it to the RPC copied to Traffic Commander Kampala Metropolitan Police (TC-KMP), the Regional Traffic Officer (RTO) and all the OC posts in the specific jurisdiction where the operation is to be conducted. Thereafter, the RPC puts a covering letter about the operation and addresses it to the KMP commandant who in turn forwards to director operations. Finally, the order is forwarded to the IGP through the deputy IGP. Though seemingly laborious and over bureaucratised, the process takes only a few hours to be completed. Depending on a needs assessment, however, the operational order can be initiated by an RPC or TC-KMP instructing lower levels to conduct an operation, a senior officer in traffic explained. The officer added that even KMP commandant can make his own operational order instructing all his heads of department under KMP including TC-KMP, RPCs and RTOs to conduct an operation. When an operational order is initiated from above, the operations are usually extensive covering a large territory. For instance, the traffic police can launch multiple Kawunyemu operations across the entire Kampala City. Meanwhile, the director traffic must be informed about any Kawunyemu operation before execution because he or she has powers to stop such an operation if anomalies are detected. Following each operation, moreover, the director gets an accountability of the operation. These rituals matter and no operation can be conducted if not followed. Here, much as the traffic police officers routinely apply informal or practical norms, official norms do play a role as well. This is true for any bureaucratic set-up as many scholars have argued (Blundo & Olivier de Sardan, 2006; Olivier de Sardan, 2015). The operational order highlights the objective, time frame, rules of engagement, logistics and the stipulated personnel for the operation. Usually, the objectives of a Kawunyemu operation are to apprehend and prosecute drink-driving offenders,

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curb down accidents resulting from drink-driving, reducing other related traffic offences, and sensitise the public on the dangers of drink-driving. Furthermore, the order avails information on how the personnel will be assembled and briefed, where the operation will be staged, how the equipment will be used and how the offenders, their vehicles and properties will be handled. Besides those officers responsible for the technological aspects of the operation, others are integrated to perform backup duties including blockading the road, profiling suspected drunk drivers for testing, escorting the offenders to the testing spot and the ones that are responsible for transporting those that have failed the test to the police station. Prior to assembling for briefing, the officer in charge of the operations calls each officer on his/her mobile to confirm the time, date and the exact spot of assembly. In the backstage, as Goffman (1988) would call it, only those officers that are to be deployed in each operation are privy to the details, as one officer explained. ‘We have to out-smart the offenders who use all tricks to evade us… the key to a successful Kawunyemu is thorough preparation and control of information flow’. Once the logistical matters of the operation are cleared, the unit concerned can execute the operation. These operations usually begin between 2200 and 2330 h. First, the officers converge at a parade and are addressed by the incharge of that particular Kawunyemu. A roll call is conducted to ascertain the officers present. Thereafter, the incharge delves into the details of how the operation is to be conducted. The officers discuss the landscape and all the advantages of the particular spot where the operation is to be conducted and how they are to deal with suspected offenders, including the stubborn ones. The incharge advises on how the officers should skilfully put up a performance to look friendly yet authoritative at the same time. Breakdown operators are alerted before the officers enter different vehicles, usually three or so, to head to the operation spot. On arrival at what they call the ‘rendezvous’, stop signposts and sharp spikes are erected leaving about 40 m between the two. One officer is stationed at the signpost to signal vehicles to stop. On stopping the vehicles, the officer explains the reason for his actions and lets the drivers slowly drive into the space between the signpost and the spike strip. Based on their discretion, three to four officers profile those suspected to be drunk by ordering them to step out of their vehicles. Thereafter, the keys of the vehicles are withheld as the suspect is ushered to the location next to the spike strip where two officers are stationed. One of the officers does the paperwork (filling in forms), while the other does the actual testing with the aid of the breathalyser and accompanying test tubes. The suspected offender is handed a test tube, still sealed, and is advised to open it. The officer in charge of handling the device illustrates to the driver how the test tube is to be placed on the breathalyser. The particulars of the driver, name, car registration number and permit number as well as the name and number of the testing officer are all entered into the breathalyser machine. The machine is then set to ‘read’ mode and the suspected offender is instructed to blow air into it through the test tube. After the suspected offender has blown air into the machine for at least

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12  s, the machine makes a particular noise indicating that a reading has been captured. A reading is interpreted against the accepted national BAC level for operating a vehicle under the influence of alcohol. Those below the limit are cleared to go. For those who fail the test, their results are recorded on the test form and countersigned by the testing officer and the witness and the officer that does the paperwork. For all public service vehicles such as taxis, buses, minibuses and boda bodas, the accepted national limit is 0 ug/100 ml (micro grams of alcohol per 100 ml of blood/breath). For all private vehicles, the limit is 035.0 ug/100 ml. I observed that suspected offenders rarely have the capacity to interpret their results, and officers use their discretion to categorise those who have failed and those who have passed. It so happens that those who are tested when officers have just launched the operation are usually unlucky. A test that is slightly below the limit might be categorised as above the BAC level. The officers are interested in getting as many offenders as possible. Ironically, after getting large numbers of suspects, the officers loosen up and some who are slightly above may be let off the hook. On average, every third person tested in the operation is above the accepted limit. Those that fail the test are secluded and guarded at a specific spot and after rounding up about five to six, officers assigned to guard duties escort them to the station aboard a police patrol pickup. At the station a case is registered in the Traffic Station Diary (TSD) Book 6 for each offender and a detention order made out on Police Form 94. At the main police counter, the offenders’ belongings are recorded in the Acknowledgement of Prisoners’ Property (APP) book and he/she countersigns. One copy of receipt of property is given to the offender, his/her name additionally recorded in Police Book 33 (lock-up register) before being escorted to custody (cell). The offenders’ vehicles are towed by breakdown services and parked at the police yard and an entry for custody is registered per vehicle. The breakdowns are privately owned and I discovered that some belonged to police officers or friends or temporary business partners. The breakdowns charge about UGX 150,000 (about US$40) for a distance of 2  km, which is twice as much as the known charges. Definitely, the officers get a cut for every breakdown service paid for by the offender, several officers explained. The operation continues through the night, but the officers continuously shift location. The constant shift enables them to stay ahead of offenders, many officers explained. Drunkards have a network and have created several ‘Kawunyemu alert WhatsApp groups’ and constantly share information, some officers explained. In many cases the drunkards also hire boda boda drivers to drive ahead of them such that they are alerted when a Kawunyemu roadblock is spotted, the officers added. When satisfied that the mission is accomplished, the officers are called by the overall commander to withdraw and assemble at the station for debriefing. The officers thereafter discuss challenges faced during the operation and solutions are suggested. One of the leading challenges is of course the violence meted out on officers, which occasionally leads to officers getting some minor injuries. At the debriefing, accountability for the personnel, equipment, offenders and vehicles is also made

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and the operation is declared concluded. Officially, each of the drivers that failed the test is supposed to be in police custody for 12 h. According to the officers, 12 h is the appropriate time for the offenders to get sober. The next day, the offenders’ files are forwarded to the OC traffic who then assigns them to officers on duty. Offenders are removed from the cells and their further statements recorded. The offenders must show their permits and prove ownership of the vehicle they were driving that night by producing the vehicle registration card/ book. Thereafter, receipts for payment of a fine usually fluctuating between UGX 200,000 (US$ 55) to UGX 800,000 (US$ 220) payable to the bank are issued. An offender’s vehicle can only be released on evidence that the drink-driving fine and additional breakdown fee of about UGX 150,000 (US$ 40) have been paid. The case file can now be closed or put away and records adjusted accordingly. Notices of Intended Prosecution (NIP) are issued to those offenders who opt to go court. However, offenders, even those who verbally contest their results, rarely opt for court. The police-clients’ interactions during Kawunyemu operations are ambivalent, to say the least. In police circles, a drink-driving offence is described as a ‘luxurious crime’ or ‘a crime of the rich’ and this is not helped by the disrespectful attitude that most suspected offenders display during the operation. Many drivers that are pulled over start out with an attitude of false bravado by mocking police officers. Some drivers threaten violent and must be handcuffed. In the process of testing, moreover, many test tubes are put to waste as some suspects intentionally drop them to the ground to foil results. Ironically, some of those who are sure of having drunk no alcohol hesitate to do the test as well. When those who have tested below the limit are told to go, one would clearly read the disbelief on their faces, suggestive of the mistrust that have dogged the police-­ clients’ relations for many years. A few would loudly express that they never thought police would be that professional, a clear sign that they held a deep mistrust of the police and its technology. One such individual exclaimed, ‘Oh my God! Am I dreaming or is it true that the police have stopped me and taken no money from me?’ On the contrary, some of those found to be above the drink-driving limit complain of how defective the machines must be. Some claim that nothing in Uganda works thus the police’s machines must be old fashioned. Some offenders request for the test tubes and to have their pictures taken with police officers on ‘Kawunyemu’ duty as souvenirs. Others vehemently express that the police force is deceitfully manipulating the machines to implicate them for the purpose of extorting money. This not entirely a far-fetched perception, as I occasionally witnessed bribes stealthily being paid out. When the offenders are bounded on a police pickup truck guarded by AK-47 wielding constables and headed to the police station, they get panic-stricken and hysterical. At the station, most offenders, even those who were looking down on the officers suddenly become submissive to its authority.

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The Social Interpretation of the Breathalyser Technology The breathalyser technicisation, to borrow from Blumenberg (2009) concept, simultaneously presents prospects and uncertainties. On one hand, police officers appreciate that this helps them to control the ‘luxurious crime’ of drink-driving, while on the other, those on the receiving end perceive the technicisation as an encroachment on their social life and as a deceitful manipulation for the purpose of extorting money. As Abimanyi (2013) wrote, even a drop of alcohol could land one in jail. The technicisation used in Kawunyemu operations seem to follow the global strategies geared towards curtaining drink-driving, and their intensification appears to have coincided with the World Health Organisation (WHO) that dedicated World Health Day 2004 to the issue of road safety (see WHO, 2007)2 and the 2011 proclamation of the United Nations Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011–2020. Drink-driving has been and continues to be framed as a social ill, and many scholars have presented alarming accident statistics drawn from different parts of the world attributed to the same (Benson et al., 1999; Eisenberg, 2003; WHO, 2007). Technicisation that generates legally binding evidence is enabling the Ugandan police to charge drink-driving offenders in a much more efficient manner. Following after Bernet et al. (1993), one can argue here that the police through this technicisation are constructing a practice that adds to the lifeworld by superimposing a layer of validity. Through this technicisation officers enjoy monopoly of knowledge, and though those on the receiving end most times temporary contest, they must go by officers’ construal. Blumenberg might see it here that there is ‘waiver of sense’ amongst officers applying this new technology and thus its rationalisation. As has been argued, successes in technicisation in the social world require one to apply it without having to prove it repeatedly. Premised on the habitualised culture of negotiations, people continue to negotiate even after testing positive as one man in his late 30s urged the police to release him as quickly as possible because if delayed some misfortune would befall South Sudan. The man claimed that he had vital information that would aid both protagonists in the South Sudan civil war, Salva Kiir and Riek Machar, to come to a peaceful resolution of the conflict. Another man in his 40s negotiated claiming that his blood alcohol content (BAC) results could be wrong because he had taken local brew which in his perspective cannot be detected by European made machines. In another case a lady in her early 30s driving a seemingly expensive vehicle and as it later turned out a wife to a wealthy businessman in Kampala shouted instructions to the police, ‘do not waste my time because I am a breastfeeding mother and not ready to jeopardise my marriage! My husband is not aware that I am out’. The officers, however, treated her like all the rest that failed the test on that day. These  Proceedings marking this day were conducted in more than 130 countries to raise awareness about road traffic injuries, stimulate new and improve existing road safety programmes (see WHO, 2007, p. XV). 2

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examples are only a microcosm of a larger spectrum of the negotiations that go on during Kawunyemu operations. One might argue that this technicisation irritate many on the receiving end because it distorts their lifeworld, a world dominated by negotiations with fellow humans. People in Uganda are accustomed to perpetual negotiations and not to blindly or subconsciously follow the rules as written. Here, the technology disrupts their usual world; they cannot circumvent or negotiate their way out after being tested because the machine is in their way. People do not have any idea how the machine works and must begrudgingly accept the results that officers produce through this technology. People possess less power, and the power odds are with the officers armed with the technology. Some have learned the art to beat the system; they begin negotiations with the first officer they interface with, who most likely, and indeed I observed this a lot, wave them through untested. Negotiations here mostly meant exchange of money of course. This can be used as another classic example of how street-level bureaucrats are de facto policymakers (Lipsky, 1980). Here, discretion is used selectively following the logic of the negotiations and a bribe to facilitate the process. After testing positive some mock the officers, others try to ‘educate’ officers to ‘observe’ their rights, majority choose to intensively negotiate while a few use humour to interest the police into letting them free. When all these strategies have not worked, they complain of how defective the machines must be and some further claim that nothing in Uganda works. We might read this as a contradiction to Blumenberg’s (2009) idea of ‘waiver of sense’; though it can be applied to the officers who use the technology without questioning its logics, those on the receiving end work with a counter logic that illustrates less faith in the same. In conclusion, it is clear that traffic police operations are in resonance with the two frames of interpretation, Lipsky’s (1980) street-level bureaucracy and Olivier de Sardan’s (2009, 2015) concept of practical norms, as stated in the introduction of this book. In essence, traffic police officers are policymakers on the streets as they enjoy enormous discretion on who to punish and whom to pardon as well as which law to apply and in what circumstances. To strictly follow the judicial procedure is of course impractical; thus an array of practical norms especially negotiations on financial compensation rather than legal arguments have emerged. Though not perfect, traffic police still produce results and some of them win-win solutions. Working as a traffic officer is considered a wet deployment in the context of the Uganda due to officers’ proximity to ‘rich clients’ and the discretion they enjoy while on duty. The general mentality of the police officers in traffic police is not necessarily about fulfilling their official mandate of road safety.

Chapter 6

The Policing in Rural Areas

Introduction One day in January 2015 while driving from Mbarara City to Fort Portal City in western Uganda, I stopped at one of the trading centres in Bushenyi district due to a tyre puncture. As my tyre was being fixed, I spotted a police station at a short distance and decided to go there. The station was a two-roomed unpainted building probably about 15 m2. I found one police officer seated on the roadside in front of the station, but no one was actually inside the station itself. The officer seemed bored and disinterested, but I still managed to start a conversation after introducing myself as a researcher. At first, he was apprehensive and later explained that he thought I was there to access his station and report to the headquarters. After a few minutes, he appeared calm and started telling me the challenges of policing in a village set-up. He felt disadvantaged and according to him his colleagues at urban police stations were enjoying money and life. He complained that he does not have a complete uniform the very reason he was wearing a green T-shirt for the military, a faded police uniform trouser and a dirty pair of white canvas shoes. He explained that his station did not have the basics including paper. ‘Everything we improvise within our means’, he stated. The officer wrote down his mobile telephone number and encouraged me to call in case I needed more information. Thirty minutes later I continued with the journey, but I kept in touch with the officer for several months. My first impression was that this particular station was in a deplorable state and perhaps not fit to conduct any serious police work. This encounter triggered my curiosity and I decided to pay some more attention to the police in rural areas. In this chapter, therefore, I focus on the Ugandan police in rural areas. Until the turn of the twenty-first century, policing in a rural context had received limited scholarly attention. It has been argued that governments across the globe, including those in the western world, provide fewer resources for criminal justice © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 J. Kagoro, Inside an African Police Force, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-14992-4_6

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processes to remote regions (Barclay et al., 2004; Weisheit et al., 2006; Donnermeyer, 2007). Studies on rural crimes and policing in the United Kingdom (Dingwall & Moody, 1999), the United States (Muhammad, 2002; Weisheit, 2005; Weisheit et al., 1994) and Australia (Barclay et al., 2007; Hogg & Carrington, 2006) illustrate that characteristics of policing in rural seem to be similar regardless of country or region. In general, rural policing is on one hand characterised by inadequate resources, less staff, less discretion, while on the other, follow fewer written policies, commonly apply the law to fit the social context and deal with significant numbers of agricultural crimes. Police officers in rural areas are also isolated from their colleagues in urban centres and tend to have stronger social ties with the communities they serve. In different degrees and variations, I demonstrate that rural policing in Uganda is principally imbued with similar characteristics as listed above. With this chapter I attempt to answer several questions: How is the Uganda Police Force organised in rural areas? How do the police respond to crimes and law and order challenges in rural areas? What are the perceptions of police officers about their duties in rural communities? What are the marked differences between rural and urban policing in Uganda? And what kinds of cases are prevalent in rural areas? The chapter proceeds are as follows: first, I use one particular rural police station to describe the set-up of a prototype rural police station in Uganda. Here, I underline a particular facet of rural policing, which is the explicit blurring of private and official lifestyles of police officers. What follows is a description of how rural police set-ups are isolated from the centre especially the headquarters in Kampala. Thereafter, an analysis of how a harvest season influences the increase of crime, and the blending of police strategies and cultural solutions in countering disorder is provided. I then provide a detailed description of the policing dynamics on the market day. I wind up the chapter by turning the focus on investigations and case management. Here, two strategies stand out: first, the use of ‘crime albums’ where photographs of suspects carrying or standing next to what they are accused of stealing are displayed at the police counter for several years, and second, identification of potential suspects by secret ballot.

Isolation from the Centre Between June and August 2015, I immersed myself in rural policing. I chose western Uganda partly because I speak the languages there and of course I share a similar culture. So, I went to a certain district located over 300 km west of the capital Kampala. I mostly sat at a police station located about 15 km from the district police headquarters. I will call this station ‘Bantu’ for purposes of anonymising it. First, I had to speak to the DPC and RPC who subsequently alerted their juniors at Bantu to receive me. While discussing about the most suitable station to study, the DPC and I agreed that it would be exciting to go to a station which also has a relatively large market that operates weekly.

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The DPC encouraged me that the policing dynamics on a market day were unique and ‘action packed’ to use his words. We also came to a similar understanding that the Bantu station would particularly provide a good picture on both the general policing in rural areas and the undercurrents of policing on a market day. I then headed to Bantu station starting my research there on a quiet Sunday. The time to start was also important because the DPC and other police officers at the main station thought that it would be a good experience to see how ‘momentum is built towards the market day’, to use their words. The Bantu station is a two-roomed building that previously housed glossary stores. At that time the station was staffed with five officers who would be complemented by civilian crime preventers. The crime preventers seemed to be more enthusiastic, talkative and appeared to show off as individuals of status and knowledge, especially in the way they behaved around people who came to the station. The OC station occupied one room and all the other officers and crime preventers shared the remaining room. Both rooms were multipurpose, for instance, the general room also acted as a counter and an interrogation area. Meanwhile, the cell was a couple of blocks away at a sub-county headquarters. Save for the market day, to which I come back to shortly, there was no particular time when all the five officers were present, some would call off sick or to attend to personal matters, and on many occasions the OC station would go to the main station to follow up on something ‘official’, as he claimed. The station had one motorcycle that frequently ran out of fuel. This station was established in 2006. Like in other rural set-ups across the country, there was no police presence in this area before Gen. Kayihura took over as IGP. The station did not have any of the police forms and books that were discussed in Chap. 3. For instance, a 32-page exercise book substituted the Station Dairy, which in some cases was overseen by a crime preventer. The station must be open 24 h a day and it was not unusual to find a wife of one of the policemen at the counter temporarily standing in for the husband. Officers, however, explained that people can stand in for them, but their role is only limited to providing simple information to people reporting at the station. For instance, a wife standing in for the husband should only tell those intending to report a case to wait until the husband returns. In cases of an emergency, the wife would quickly call her husband. However, I observed that crime preventers do get involved in trying to do the actual police work including taking statements. At this policing jurisdiction, residences of police officers seemed to be an extension of official police work. It was common for people to find officers at their places of abode to report a crime or seek advice on how to proceed with a certain case. Officers revealed to me that their professional and private lives are profoundly intermingled. This might be read as a phenomenon not limited to Uganda but common in rural policing set-ups. Many scholars have showed that police officers in rural areas across the globe find it difficult to separate their public and private lifestyle. This means that officers and their spouses may be on duty continuously (Moore, 2003; Adcock, 2002; Jobes, 2002; Weisheit et al., 2006; Mawby & Yarwood, 2011).

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While at Bantu station, I observed that the relationship between police officers and the community members around the station seemed quite intense and sociable. Besides coming to specifically discuss or report crime-related issues, many community members hang out at police stations, as an extension of their social life, so to say. People would come to the station, sometimes sit at the small lawn in front of it to share a snack of mangoes, sugarcane and roasted maize with police officers. The conversations between officers and community members were mostly casual and one might say replete with rumours and local gossip. At first, I thought this was unprofessional behaviour, but as I continued to embed myself in the nitty-gritty of police duties and operations, it clearly emerged that these relations and social discussions were extremely important for police work. Such relations, it came to my attention, were solidifying the foundation upon which rural policing is grounded. The seemingly casual relations indirectly help officers to consolidate their acceptance in the community. During one of the informal discussions with officers at the station, they explained that local gossip and rumours enable them to comprehend dynamics in the community which are crucial. For instance, the officers added, investigations can draw clues from the local gossip. Here, the officers already have clues of who is an eternal enemy of whom, who the violent individuals are, who the chronic thieves are, which people are involved in bitter love triangles, who had suddenly accrued unexplained wealth and which stranger was seen around the community. The officers added that the informal discussions aid them in the construction of excellent security maps for the community. In sum, the OC station explained ‘we are able to understand the people and the issues in this community that we police’. Weighed against the period in the 1970s and 1980s, when police stations were associated with terror (Kagoro, 2015), the informal relations at the stations, I argue, have relatively transformed people’s perceptions about the police. Subsequently, though corruption and mishandling of cases do occur, several ordinary citizens still perceive the police as part of approachable social network. Some scholars have argued that the acceptance of the police especially in rural areas is not only dependent on performance or outcome related factors but equally on its position in local networks of social groups (Baker & Scheye, 2007; Downie, 2013). State institutions, in this case the police, must associate with informal institutions that construct the private realm surrounding local communities to be accepted and trusted by citizens (Ekeh, 1975). Police officers in rural areas, unlike their urban counterparts, personally know many of the clients they deal with including their names and family relations. Officers seemed to enjoy less discretion regarding handling of the issues that concerned those community members in the precinct of the station. Officers seemed to have a better overview of the history of crimes and who would most likely commit which kind of crime. Most of the population around the station knew the police officers by name, rank, their actions and the cases they might be working on at a particular time, a phenomenon common to rural policing in general (see Eisenstein, 1982; Muhammad, 2002; Donnermeyer, 2007).

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Community members around Bantu station seemed to have a say in what was, and should be, happening at the station, unlike at most urban stations. Community members could easily influence the sacking or punishment of a police officer either by going through their local politicians or directly calling the main station and sometimes headquarters. I observed that officers strategically showed more respect to local elites to forestall potential clashes. To survive in a rural setting, one officer intimated, one must clearly understand the dynamics of a particular village and avoid antagonising those that can ignite troubles for him/her. In the areas near the station, community factors seemed to matter, and officers would largely reconfigure their institutional norms to fit the social cultural contexts. For instance, officers used ‘crime albums’ to shame suspects and used a ‘secret ballot’ system through which community members would note down potential suspects in a particular crime. I return to these aspects shortly. At Bantu station the officers felt isolated from the police headquarters, and the majority thought that they were denied better deployments due to their lack of godfathers in the system. Three of the officers had only served in rural set-ups since they joined the force, each having served for more than 15 years. One could clearly see the disgruntlement in their body posture and attitude towards work. The OC, a young man in his early 30s was always in full uniform, but the rest never followed the dress codes as stipulated by the rules. One would come dressed in a checked shirt, police uniform trouser and a pair of slippers (flip-flops), a deportment of the police dress code if one is to go by the rules. The officers argued that the system forgot them including denying them new uniforms for several years, a factual statement confirmed after I counterchecked with the logistics and engineering department in Kampala. Every rural station or post is within a command structure of a District Police Command and a Regional Police Command, and though most of the headquarters of district and regional police are located in relatively large towns, some are located in less developed and newly established districts that commanders dread being deployed to. The limited resources such as imprest, fuel and operational fund that come from the police headquarters to the districts and regions hardly flow to the rural police stations. At Bantu, for instance, even the basics such as paper and pen, not alone, and the fundamentals such as police books and forms were unavailable. Some of these rural stations are not even visited by their overall commanders, DPCs and RPCs. The headquarters in Kampala has little knowledge of what goes on there, if any. Moreover, I observed that the police management at the headquarters had plans for infrastructure improvement but only for urban set-ups. Crimes, including murder, take place in rural areas without drawing much attention of the police headquarters and the media, which makes it difficult for officers to appropriately respond. Moreover, officers at this station complained that any case within their jurisdiction that attracts some slight attention is quickly taken over by the main station. To them, this was a demoralising factor and a hindrance to their career development. ‘When will the IGP know you, when every case is taken away from you?’, one corporal retorted. The takeover of cases, the officers highlighted, dents their credibility in the community. Affluent community members hardly come

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to us when they want to report a case. They tend to contact the main station or sometimes the headquarters’, one officer explained. It is common for officers in rural areas to resort to side jobs such as boda boda riding or even engaging in small scale agriculture or livestock farming to supplement their income. Here, officers fend for themselves largely depending on the community for support. They are incapacitated to perform much of the police work and thus navigate procedures and improvise to remain relevant in the community. Many communities across Uganda provide land on which some police officers and their families can grow food for their consumption in some cases donating real food. The practice of police officers supplementing their income by cultivating food stretches far back to the colonial period (Beaden, 2009). Officers here are indeed ‘forgotten’ and usually miss out on promotions because ‘no one knows what they are doing’, one commander observed. Even better in-­house training opportunities are rarely extended to these officers. In fact, several Regional Police Commanders confessed that they minimally knew what went on at rural police stations. One commander intimated that he would occasionally get shocked when some mischiefs by officers at rural stations under his jurisdiction came to his attention. Amongst several mischiefs, the commander added, one of his officers in charge of a rural station, whom he described as a ‘vimper’, had a habit of selling off every exhibit brought to the station. The same officer would insist on clients paying a certain amount of money before registering their cases in the Station Dairy. Many officers at those rural stations have limited knowledge of what goes on at the headquarters in Kampala, are not conversant with the organisational structures and many organisational changes seldom affect them. In rural areas, there are limited social amenities and officers deployed there find it difficult to put their children in good schools or to access good health facilities. Their spouses cannot find jobs and those not used to rural lifestyle can hardly adjust. Some of these rural stations are located in areas with no electricity or running water putting some extra burden on the officers’ lifestyles. This has caused a few divorces, several commanders revealed during a class discussion at the Police Senior Command and Staff College-Bwebajja.

Crime Rates During the Harvest Period As highlighted earlier rural police forces across the globe deal with a significant number of agricultural crimes, and this phenomenon is vividly pronounced in Uganda. Officers at Bantu station explained that they do some night foot patrols through the villages, especially in harvest seasons when agricultural crimes are on the high. The harvest periods, essentially December–January and June–July every year come with increased levels of criminality for two main reasons. First, there is increased food produce that thieves target. It is common for criminals to come in the night and steal the entire yield from someone’s garden. Second, there is obviously increased circulation of money in this period. The criminals have

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networks to enable them accrue knowledge of who has sold and at how much. Because many farmers do not actually deal with banks, the money is always kept in their houses. The criminals break into the houses of farmers and demand for the exact amount of money the farmer accrued from her/his sales, the OC explained. The officers at this station argued that agricultural crimes had significantly increased majorly because of three reasons. First, the escalation of food prices due to both increased local demand because of the surging population growth and the improved road network which enables farmers to sell their produce to the larger markets in big cities including Kampala. Moreover, the officers added, some food is exported to neighbouring countries of South Sudan, Kenya and Rwanda. Second, as the population grows, the land for cultivation diminishes. So, people in the villages literary have no place on which to cultivate. Third, many youths especially the males have abandoned cultivation preferring other livelihood activities such as riding boda bodas. Many youths have in fact sold off land to buy boda bodas and when the business does not work out, their options are limited and thus start targeting the produce of others, the police officers offered. Harvest period is associated with increased levels of crime across the entire country. A focus group discussion with the senior commanders drawn from Greater Masaka in Central Uganda, a coffee-producing area, revealed that the coffee boom period comes along with complex security challenges.1 The annual coffee boom in this region especially in the districts of Bukomansimbi, Kalungu, Lwengo, Masaka and Sembabule attracts criminals from urban areas, including Kampala. The criminals have widespread networks that connect with those in the rural set-up specially targeting proceeds from the coffee sales. Important to note here is that Uganda is the second leading exporter of coffee in Africa after Ethiopia and is amongst the top ten in the world. Therefore, the coffee boom period is associated with large amounts of money in the farmers’ coffers. Traders from Kampala usually arrive with trucks to purchase coffee for export. Most of the transactions are moreover accomplished in hard cash, officers explained. In this period, the officers added, the police prepare to deal with massive numbers of criminality including murder. Some criminals have an elaborate intelligence structure and sometimes attack people with full details of how much money they have in the house and the amount of coffee sold on a particular day. A few police officers, especially the rank and file, are believed to be part of the criminal network in this period, one RPC claimed. The agricultural crime waves are similar in Bundibugyo District located on the western border with DR Congo. In this area there is the cocoa boom between January and March and October and December. The police in Bundibugyo together with the local population have even evoked a by-law that people should only harvest on 15th and 30th day of a month such that whoever is found harvesting outside the prescribed dates is a thief, the former DPC in the district explained. Meanwhile,

 The focus group discussants included the RPC, DPCs and regional CID officers. The FGD was held on 15th November 2017. 1

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several police officers argued that the harvest period also triggers other issues including drunkenness because people have money to spend. There are also increased cases of domestic violence because couples tend to conflict over control of the money. The semi-urban centres in central Uganda are also associated with high house break-in during the period of Ruspolia differens, bush crickets or grasshoppers, locally called ‘nsenene’, a delicacy and a source of income especially in western and central Uganda. From April to May and November to December, people are out late collecting nsenene, while criminals take advantages to break into empty houses or operating under the guise of collecting to commit other crimes. Several police officers with a rural policing experience argued that police headquarters has not necessarily taken the harvest period security dynamics as serious. To these officers, the headquarters should get involved in designing specific policing strategies to address this unique pattern of crime. For instance, the officers argued that rural police stations should be expansively equipped with both skills and tools to patrol on foot. Unlike their urban counterparts, who do a combination of motorised and foot patrols, the rural officers exclusively use the latter. First, because there are no vehicles at rural stations and second, the roads are not motor vehicle friendly, some being footpaths. The rural patrols are jointly conducted with crime preventers and with other volunteer members in the communities. Often, community members join in the patrols. Some bring along dogs, completely untrained for any police work, but nevertheless officers gladly use them to ‘enhance’ the operation. The community members, meanwhile, are usually armed with all sorts of crude weapons including machetes, sticks and spears, officers at Bantu revealed. However, these patrols are sometimes successful because the participating community members possess some prior knowledge of what suspects are targeting and who those suspects might be. Suspects are mostly arrested with goats, chicken and bunches of bananas, amongst others. Arrests during these patrols, however, are ridden with heavy beating of suspects which both the police and community members participate in. Suspects are not only beaten but also tied with ropes and at dawn taken to the main station for further management. Most of these cases, however, flop since witnesses sometimes have no means to regularly report to the courts, some fear the court processes while other lose interest especially when they have recovered their property or have been compensated. It is difficult to keep someone interested in a case as a witness when his/her goat has been recovered, one officer reasoned.

A Blended Approach of Police and Witchcraft Officers at Bantu station recounted that policing dynamics in rural areas are also influenced by the geographical distances vis-à-vis the station. The further one moves away from the station, the more alien the police become, many officers explained. The households located about 15–20  km away from the station and

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further ‘deep’ into the villages have limited contact with the police, and the latter may have no clear picture of what really goes on there. Moreover, reaching such places is difficult. For instance, ‘riding the only available motorcycle for long distances in a rural setting might imperil the lives of officers, especially if it is already dark, the time when most offences are committed’, the OC station offered. One experienced commander, however, argued that some rank-and-file officers might have some overview which they often misuse for private gains. Often, those rank-and-file officers, especially the detectives, use their enormous discretion to conduct illegal operations and investigations without the knowledge of any commander, he continued. There is a lot that goes on in the villages including community members negotiating on how to ‘resolve’ capital offences such as murder and defilement without involving the police, many commanders shared. In some cases, it is the rank and file, some of whom hailing from the same localities, that might be told and sometimes are unofficially part of such negotiations. It is difficult for police to go into a village and easily arrest a suspect; the people might not provide information and in many cases even enable suspects to hide. Many scholars have argued that in rural areas, most conflicts arise in the basic units of society such as within families, clans and villages. Amongst most African communities, there are other frameworks than the police in place for the resolution of conflicts and for preventing the destruction of the social fabric (Fayemi, 2009; Kariuki, 2014, 2015). Traditional dispute resolution schemes such as elders’ forums and clan structures continue to play a key role in conflict resolution in African societies even in those countries with no formal state recognition of such schemes (Kariuki, 2015). These cultural schemes are even more pronounced in rural areas where the majority of the people share a common identity. Many officers explained that besides relying on what is written in their legal documents on how to handle cases, they still pay attention to cultural mechanisms. Elders and clan mechanisms do facilitate the police in resolving several conflicts, though in many cases especially in rural areas, they also work in conflict with what we as police are doing, one commander argued. It is common that these mechanisms attempt to resolve criminal cases such as rape, defilement and murder. And in other cases, people use both systems, report a case at the police, but at the same time run to the cultural mechanisms. Often this causes confusion and complexity in criminal proceedings. The localised and cultural-specific dispute resolution mechanisms are embedded in the culture and customs of communities, which makes it tricky when the police attempt to apply the conventional, one commander argued. It should be noted here that the traditional justice systems are characterised by features such as viewing any problem as that of the whole community or group; they put emphasis on reconciliation rather than police procedures. Moreover, recognised arbitrators are community members appointed based on their status or lineage, and in conflicts that arise, there seem to be a high degree of public participation. To the people, meanwhile, customary law might be more credible than the state judicial processes rendering police operations difficult. In the conflict resolution processes, the rules of evidence and procedure are flexible, penalties are restorative, the

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decisions are confirmed through rituals aiming at reintegration and of course there is no legal representation (see, e.g. Fayemi, 2009; Kariuki, 2014, 2015). Though perceptions of witchcraft influence policing in urban areas, the creed’s impact seems to be more pronounced in rural areas, several officers revealed. Many police officers claimed that several of their own colleagues within the force including those in urban set-ups do believe and use witchcraft. Sometimes the same officers encourage their kin and kith to equally seek remedies from witch doctors while at the same time using the police processes. It is a ‘double strategy’, as one officer sarcastically put it. So, it is very common that people run to a renowned witch doctor to help them ‘unveil’ perpetrators of a certain crime even before going to report the case to the police, if they do at all. Officers also revealed that they know of several people who rely on traditional beliefs to protect them and their property against any intrusion. People are totally convinced that their ‘supernatural powers’ work and are solely responsible to keeping criminals away. Though officers did not confess to me that they used witchcraft, several acknowledged that they believed it exists and live in fear of the same. In fact, several commanders revealed that there are some areas that police officers would fear to conduct any operation. This was confirmed by the officers at Bantu station. They claimed that they would not risk arresting certain individuals known to be witch doctors or to even conduct investigations. They pointed out one specific locality that they all dreaded. At the station, meanwhile, narratives of witchcraft were regularly recounted. Some people have become victims of accusations of practicing witchcraft. Here, elderly women especially widows have on several occasions be labelled witches. ‘As police we cannot easily tell people to produce evidence before declaring someone a witch… it is very difficult to change their views’, the OC station reasons. Unfortunately, some people have lost lives through mob justice, some banished from the villages after being accused of practicing witchcraft. In most of rural Uganda, moreover, misfortune, including death, is attributed to witchcraft making police work there even more delicate. The people may not necessarily resort to witchcraft because of long-standing trust issues with the police, but their belief system shapes their basic understanding that witchcraft solves their problems. If the needs of the people are being addressed through other means, some scholars have argued, then there is limited motivation to resort to the police (Warner & Fowler, 2003; Weitzer & Tuch, 2002). In this case, however, we see that the people mix the two when they bring suspected witches to the police station. This seems to show some levels of trust in the police, which they try to fit into their paradigm. For instance, at another rural station in western Uganda, I witnessed a group of angry people who brought an old lady accusing her to have sent a rat/mouse to steal mobile phone handsets in the community. The police swiftly reacted by putting the lady in the cell, a strategy I was later told was an attempt to cool down tempers and protect her possible mob justice. This case did not hold any conventional logic and the old lady was later set free but also advised to leave the community for a few weeks.

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The Market Day ‘Bonanza’ The market which operates once a week can be described as the most engaging experience for police officers at Bantu station. When I shared my market day experience with commanders attending a course at the Police College, a conclusion was drawn that policing dynamics in rural set-ups with weekly markets are more or less similar across the country. The market day triggers a sudden increase in the population, sometimes up to 20-fold, and of course the economic activities trigger circulation of large amounts of money in comparison to the economy of the area, one RPC explained. According to statistics drawn from the local authorities, the taxes collected from this market amounts to UGX 150,000,000 million (US$ 40,000) per year. Of course, this does not show how much is lost in tax evasion and to corrupt officials that collect the taxes. The RPC of this jurisdiction estimated that although it was difficult to arrive at a conclusive figure, ‘what was lost could even double what is collected’. The large open market attracts over 20,000 people. Local traders are joined with those coming from other large towns including the capital Kampala and some from as far as the neighbouring DR Congo. Typically, thousands of people roam amongst the endless sea of vendors and stalls. One can get fresh produce, vegetables, clothes, shoes, livestock, used bicycles, bric-a-brac and locally made crafts such as baskets, pots and mats. At the meat section, one can literally buy pieces of beef or chevon/ goat meat that still has skin on it, the animals having been slaughtered at the same place. There are open and enclosed food restaurants where people take a break from shopping to enjoy a meal and a cold or hot drink. The market is well known for its second-hand clothing selection, commonly known as ‘ebikade’ where endless piles of unsorted clothes sit on tarps in many sections of the market. Particularly, small boutique owners from different towns including some from DR Congo get their stock from this market. A typical market day is intense with an array of activities and very noisy. Every seller is singing loud about his/her fair prices to attract buyers and there is price haggling everywhere. Several large trucks and pickups can be seen loading and offloading food produce and other merchandise in rather unsystematic patterns. At the market periphery, meanwhile, the market authorities are running around in a cat-and-mouse game with those traders who are trying to avoid taxation. For a first-­ time visitor, the market is disorganised and walking through it is quite a challenge, not alone driving. Regulars, including police officers, however, know their way and can navigate through quite easily. Rain can be a nightmare here as one can see merchandise covered with tarpaulins as traders run for the limited sheds around the market. The area gets flooded leaving many traders displaced from their stalls. Rain is dreaded on this day because it disorganises business. If the rains start early, fewer people come and the sales are low, one officer highlights.

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Officers eagerly look forward to this day, a day of prospects and a day that makes them feel worthy, one junior officer explained. People mostly report crimes on the market day, which means that some of the crimes would come to the attention of the police as many as 6 days after they were purportedly committed. For obvious reasons, the station is extremely busy on this day handling several cases of petty theft and assault that are part of the intense social activities. By around 4 pm, some people are already getting drunk, which heightens physical fights and other conflicts. I was told that the market day is the most convenient time for most people to report cases because they ‘kill many birds with one stone’, as the English adage goes. They come to trade, to shop for their families, to socialise and then report cases. It was also the most opportune time to arrest suspects because they also come to the market. This day is quite important for this community; sometimes even funerals are postponed if their dates coincide with the day, the OC station claims. On this day, officers revealed, stolen items including livestock are recovered having been brought to the market especially from far away communities in the hope of avoiding detection. During my time at this station, I noticed that on this day the officers are enthusiastic and report to the station early. I was later told that this was their day to make some ‘little money’ from those that are arrested or even those wishing to have ‘offenders’ apprehended. ‘My Crime Intelligence Officer (CIO) who is usually sick on other days is suddenly fine on the market day’, the OC sarcastically revealed. Meanwhile, some officers are also traders simultaneously shifting from one role of trader to another of police officer several times a day. The market  day normally ends in a lively  ambience  with most of the officers retreating to the bars, pork joints, and makeshift cinema halls to socialise. A closer observation reveals that this weekly tradition is a much-anticipated gathering for residents of the area. Everywhere groups of people can be seen engaged in conversations, talking about local politics, the dynamics of the agricultural season and general events occurring in their communities and beyond. For rural areas, therefore, the market and the market day mean a lot to police officers and policing dynamics.

Investigations in a Rural Set-Up I observed that at Bantu station, officers seemed to concentrate more on the issues that were nearer to the station. They rarely ventured into ‘far away’ villages. In fact, many suspects were brought to the station by community members who frequently effected arrests in the remote areas. As mentioned earlier, an average Ugandan hardly understands the intricacies of the legal procedures and, when they do, dreads the amount of time and resources required to go through them. This knowledge gap or and limited desire to go through legal processes contributes to police’s underperformance, officers’ abuse of powers and mishaps in the justice system in general,

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many officers argued. I will illustrate this by several observations from the Bantu station. First, two young men perceived to be chronic thieves were arrested by some community members ‘red-handed’ with a goat belonging an elderly widow. Apparently, this was not the first time for the two young men to steal from the same person. On arrival at the police station, the captors recorded statements as witnesses and the officer in charge of the case seemed happy that all evidence required had been gathered. The file was then forwarded to the main station for further management. The file was further processed by the state attorney for the two to be prosecuted. The state attorney managed to secure a date for court hearing the following week. On the day of the hearing, all the witnesses that arrested the suspects including the widow never turned up. Based on the absence of the complainant, the court dismissed the case. According to the police officers, the interpretation of the suspects’ release in the community was divided, some thought the police must have foiled the case, others claimed that it was useless to hand over suspects to the police since the state will release them anyway while a few even claimed that the officer in charge must have taken a bribe. Second, I witnessed a dramatic case of defilement in which there was some strong circumstantial evidence that a certain teacher had defiled a 13-year-old girl. At 5 pm, a ‘vigilant’ group of community members arrested the ‘defiler in action’ at his rented two-bedroomed place, which was about half a kilometre from the police station. According to the OC Bantu station, the suspect’s profile (hailing from another district and of a different tribe) could have also motivated the community members to ‘teach him a lesson’. Meanwhile, there was a shared perspective that the suspect had been defiling many of the ‘good’ girls in the area. On receiving the suspect, the police quickly locked him up before any paper work could be done, an action that is illegal at first glance. Later, I learned that the immediate locking up of the suspect was a wise move because the gathering crowd could have possibly executed mob justice. As we saw in the preceding chapters, mob justice is a common phenomenon in Uganda. The cell being located a couple of blocks away the OC instructed two of his officers and three of his trusted crime preventers to keep a close watch at the premise. The officer assigned to this case took statements of the witnesses before walking to the cells to take the statement of the suspect who at the time was sharing space with four other suspects. The space issue here meant that there was no privacy. The next morning, as standard procedure, the ‘defiled’ girl was taken for a medical examination, which, as I later learned indicated that sexual activity could have taken place. Armed with the medical report and witnesses’ statements, the OC station personally took the file to the main station for further action. The same morning, meanwhile, a few people came to visit the suspect and a couple of hours later drama unfolded. The father of the defiled girl came to the station throwing a tantrum, commanding the police to release the suspect and swore that his daughter would not testify. Here, the case had become huge; the community being at the centre of the processes closely following its unfolding. The police

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officers then advised the father to go to the main station because the case had already gone beyond their jurisdiction. Instead, as I later learned, the father made a phone call to a politician in Kampala seeking his intervention. As it was discussed in, earlier politicians are often involved in what takes place at police stations. As it turned out, the politician called the DPC at the main station sharing a completely changed version of what had happened, the OC intimated. It later turned out that the father had received money from the suspect’s kith and kin, which, in a side drama, had also caused a serious rift between him and the mother of the girl, both of whom wanted a bigger share. The focus of the parents thus zeroed in on the money and the defilement case, in essence, turned into a monetary opportunity for the parents. The parents’ focus on the money and fights disoriented the officers who sensed that the case might collapse if the two withdrew their cooperation. Meanwhile, a rumour had spread around the community that the police had been bribed and the suspect set free attracting a sizable crowd that gathered at the police station. On seeing an irate crowd, meanwhile, the father somehow disappeared from the scene. An angry crowd demanded that the police should walk with them to the cells to prove that the suspect was indeed in custody. Luckily, one of the ‘trusted’ members of the crowd managed to reach the cell and somehow peep through to confirm that indeed the suspect was still in custody. According to the crowd, the suspect had to be condemned to a harsh prison sentence there and then. They did not comprehend, nor did they have the patience for the nitty-gritty of the judicial system. The patrol pickup with armed officers only arrived from the main station at about 11 am, about 12 h after the arrest, to take the suspect away from the poorly built and guarded cell. I was later told that this case collapsed and the suspect was released. The main reason for the collapse of the case, the OC station reasoned, was that the parents of the girl and most of the witnesses completely withdrew their cooperation. Here, we see how a community, especially at rural police station, can heavily get involved in cases. Defilement, meanwhile, seems to be perceived somehow differently if compared to the urban stations. I was later told that the character of the victim matters a lot in rural areas. If an underage girl is considered ‘good’ in this sense not known to be sexually active by the community members and to a large extent even to police officers, then whoever defiles her is ‘guiltier’ and deserves severe punishment. In the above case, the girl was both considered ‘good’ and moreover the suspect came from a different tribe to ‘spoil’ her. In cases of girls that are known to be sleeping around, no one is guilty because it is ‘business as usual’, police officers claim. Ironically, in the perspective of some citizens, it is size and not necessarily the age of the girls that mattered most. The smaller in size the victim the ‘guiltier’ the suspect, one junior officer explained. This perception also illustrates another common phenomenon in police processes. Police procedures are often converted into money making ventures by the people. Police’s medical examination forms, including assault and defilement, are commonly used by ordinary people, especially in rural areas, to extort money from suspected offenders. In such cases, a police form confirming that an offence has been committed is used to intimidate the suspect into

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paying money behind police’s knowledge. So clearly, Uganda’s society is also failing the police and the justice system in general, one commander reasoned. In Uganda following the law does not make sense sometimes, a senior officer at the strategic level argued. For instance, ‘Uganda follows the international norms that any girl below the age of 18 is underage but many girls are out of school at the age of 12 and “ready” for marriage’, the officer added. In the villages, parents and elders see nothing wrong with a 14-year-old girl getting married. ‘Sometimes we are compelled to disregard the law… Here is a girl aged 15 and out of school happily living with a man with the full support of her parents and clan members. After like 2 years the police get to know when the girl has even given birth to one or two children and she threatens suicide if her marriage is foiled. If the man is detained no one would provide for the children. Legally, there was defilement, but what do you do?’, one commander wondered. ‘In many cases we simply ignore, we cannot enforce law like robots. The law is supposed to bring harmony and not to be enforced for the sake of itself. In many cases the parents never cooperate and yet they are principal witnesses. Many are actually interested in dowry than pursuing a defilement case’, another officer emphasised. ‘In many cases the parents actually use police to extract money from suspected defilers. Once a case is registered and a medical form proving defilement is signed the parents use it as a bargaining chip or a physical tool of intimidation. The form is like a cheque waiting to be banked. After the suspect fulfilling his side of the bargain the parents withdraw from the case’, one detective summed up.

 rime Albums and Determining of Suspects Through C Secret Ballot Over time, police especially in some rural areas have devised an ambivalent method of handling criminals to provide some satisfaction to the communities surrounding them. Here, the police use what they have named ‘crime album’, a concept not even known by most top officers at the headquarters in Kampala, as I observed. At some rural police stations including those I visited and particularly Bantu, police officers order for the photographing of suspects carrying what they are suspected of having stolen or standing next to it if the first option is unfeasible. These pictures are then displayed on the walls of the station especially at the counter where anyone coming in can easily see. One can clearly observe pictures of suspects carrying pigs, goat, batches of banana, chicken and bicycles, a quite humiliating scene even by Ugandan standards. In some cases, the suspects are made to sit on top of a slaughtered cow. The images, I was told, can stay on the display for several years. Though the practice is outside the official norms, it seems to perform some profound functions. One, it demonstrates that the police is doing something by shaming perpetrators of crime, especially theft. In many cases when the suspects are taken to court, the cases end quietly and the community is not well informed nor satisfied

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with the punishment given. Sometimes when the suspects come back to the community after being released by court for lack of evidence, the community members think that the police have been bribed. I later learned that when community members go to the police station and find the picture of the suspect displayed, they derive some satisfaction. Second, the crime albums are a deterrence measure since the thieves fear being stigmatised by their community. As it has been severally discussed in this book, people in Uganda prefer to see quick action. The display of the picture, therefore, acts as a measure to pacify tempters of those community members that do not understand legal procedures or those who find them alien, lengthy and a waste of time and money. Here, the police, and by extension the state, is at least doing something about their situation. Crime albums seem to be an improvisation portraying the power of the police to shame deviance. Third, officers also noted that in the absence of fingerprint technology, the crime albums help them to quickly identify repeated offenders. This made sense as pictures of serial thieves taken on different dates and with different exhibits can be seen on display. ‘When a suspect is brought in, we first cross-check whether he/she is on our display’, the OC reveals. The album is therefore a database of some sort. Fourth, with this album everyone knows who a potential thief is, one junior officer reasoned. However, based on the crime albums, some people are used as scapegoats for every crime that occurs, especially theft. When a neighbour’s chicken goes missing and the culprit cannot easily be traced, the entire village points an accusing finger at the usual suspect, the one whose face is on display at the police station. Two junior officers at the station confessed that sometimes these ‘suspects’ are completely innocent. Unfortunately, village folks may, out of misguided zeal, drag a ‘suspect’ to a police station as if he or she is guilty. Meanwhile, many of those displayed are not necessarily convicted by any court of law. Most of the cases only stop at the jurisdiction of a particular police station. At an urban station, shaming is also common as suspects are paraded in front of both the press and television cameras. It is common to see police officers interrogating some suspects in full view of the press, a practice that is completely illegal. ‘We are lucky that these suspects mostly have no means to press charges otherwise the police would be in big trouble’, an officer in the legal department intimated. In trying to explain the rational of this practice, two commanders separately argued that by nature criminals fear being exposed because their trade depends on discretion. Sometimes, one of the commanders reasoned, the police use the threat to expose suspects on cameras to extra confession. This is common with suspects of ‘white-collar crimes’. They fear that when exposed their peers and those they exploit will blacklist them, the commander added. The crime album practice is, of course, largely unconventional, and illegal, but at the same time serving some purpose. Many top officers I discussed the issue with were genuinely embarrassed and had no or very little knowledge of the practice, a clear indication of social and operational distance that exists between the headquarters and the rural stations.

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The crime album policing strategy ties in with another unconventional alternative approach of identifying suspects through a secret ballot, which I personally encountered at Bantu station. Some officers confirmed that it is used but in rare circumstances and without real intentions to criminally prosecute. There were increased cases of agricultural and livestock crimes in a certain village surrounding the jurisdiction of Bantu station. As a measure, the OC station, the village Local Council 1 chairman and some trusted crime preventers called a village meeting to find solutions within the framework of community policing. At the gathering the OC distributed small pieces of paper tone from an exercise book encouraging community members to write down those people they suspect to be the main culprits. Diligently and with a lot of excitement, community members wrote down the names, then the papers were collected and the counting commenced. Obviously, some names appeared several times and those with the majority of votes, in this case three young men, two of which were present at the meeting, were singled out. After the counting the two were called to stand in front of the gathering. The OC then instructed some crime preventers to look for the third person who had not attended the meeting. One could clearly see the excitement on the faces of the people who seemed to overwhelmingly embrace the strategy. After about 10 min, the crime preventers come back with the third ‘suspect’ and the three are then publicly questioned. Surprisingly, the officer orders for the arrest of the three, and I was later told that two of them confessed to a few crimes, but not to all that were reported by the community. In a follow-up interview, the OC in charge of these proceedings told me that what he did was only a mind game to satisfy the community but to also warn those suspects. The entire exercise was not intended for criminal prosecution. To the officer, the community’s satisfaction is paramount otherwise his role can never be recognised. The three suspects were released after 24  h with a stern warning. Some RPCs acknowledged that they also apply the strategy in urban areas to, on one hand, get an overview of who the suspects could be, while, on the other, devising strategies to keep a close watch of those listed. Here, we see that policing in rural areas also resonates with the two frames of interpretation, Lipsky’s street-level bureaucracy and Olivier de Sardan’s concept of practical norms, as stated in the introduction of this book. Police officers in rural areas are in essence policymakers and what they do to improve their ratings in the community may not necessarily be approved by the police establishment in general. For instance, the two strategies of the crime albums and the voting of suspects that are used at Bantu and other rural station, yet the headquarters establishment may not have a clear overview of the same. We see that practical norms play a profound role in order for police officers to remain relevant in the community. They don’t follow the official book most of the time and culture also plays a role in the day-to-day implementation of the law. As demonstrated, rural policing in Uganda is principally imbued with similar characteristics of rural policing elsewhere as was discussed at the beginning of this chapter.

Chapter 7

The Power Game: Organisational Politics and Intrigue

Introduction Police scholars have paid limited attention to organisational politics and intrigues within police forces. In this chapter, I analyse the complex web of the Uganda Police’s organisational politics configured in the relationships amongst individual police officers, operational structures, administrative hierarchy and sometimes stretching beyond the confines of the force. The organisational politics are characterised by different strands of relationships, but I particularly concentrate on rivalry and intrigue, which seem opaque to ‘outsiders’ or difficult to disentangle in detail if one is not looking at the police from ‘inside out.’ With a deep insight into the police’s organisational politics, we shall better understand some of the factors that shape police operations and officers’ attitudes on a day-to-day basis, what influences promotions and deployments, the distribution of resources and above all comprehend the pressures, motivations and premises upon which officers make decisions. The insight also helps us to partly understand police culture in Uganda or what Bourdieu (1977) might have called a police habitus, a system of embodied dispositions, tendencies that organise the ways in which officers perceive and react to the social environment, as well as the police internal field in which social interactions, transactions and events occur. The chapter does not infer that rivalry and intrigue in the Ugandan police is profoundly different from that in other institutions or professions. Bonifacio (1991) argues that there are many institutions in which rivalries and intrigues are obvious but not like in police forces where intense networks of loyalty and comradeship are mixed with strong feelings of anger and a kind of every man for himself struggle for advancement. Loyalty combined with suspicion makes an officer depend on his peers and at the same time is predisposed to seeing them as dangerous (Bonifacio, 1991). Tjosvold and Johnson (1983) aptly put it that institutions including the police cannot operate without conflict and colleagues in an institution cannot interact without conflict. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 J. Kagoro, Inside an African Police Force, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-14992-4_7

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Observing from the outside, one might think that the Uganda Police Force (UPF) operates as one unit and, as it is generally perceived, a solid force fortressing the power of the incumbent regime. What may escape attention is that the force is also a victim of itself and of its internal rivalries and intrigues. Many officers at different levels are afraid of becoming victims of blackmail, while others are perpetually engaged in power games. The force, it came to my attention, is comprised of highly intricate and fluid relationships. In these relationships, individuals may sometimes matter more than official structures. The chapter proceeds as follows. First, I present an account of how as an ethnographer and consultant for the Uganda Police I indirectly became a minor player in the organisational politics. To strengthen the analysis, I then present a theoretical perspective of organisational politics. Here, it emerges clearly that organisational politics do exist in all institutions regardless of country or region, the difference being the magnitude and the manner in which they are dealt with. What follows is a discussion of the nucleus of Uganda Police’s organisational politics. Here, I argue that the Inspector General of Police (IGP) is the fulcrum of the rivalries and conflicts the police. Thereafter, I analysis the strategies that officers use to stay in the game or not to be overshadowed by their rivals. I conclude the chapter by elucidating on the internal struggles for the limited wet deployments and the schemes that are at play to avoid dry assignments.

Observing Organisational Politics in Action The long-term ethnographic immersion into the Uganda Police enabled me to certainly build a much detailed picture of the organisational politics that play out within the force. Doubling as a researcher and a consultant, I inadvertently became a ‘minor player’ in the organisational politics, as those that I associated with most had rivals who, as it came to my knowledge later, automatically categorised me as a foe. Of course, I made many friends who shared accounts of how their colleagues in the force perceived me to be a confidant of the IGP Gen. Kayihura. This shared perception was certainly blown out of proportion because my relationship with the IGP was majorly professional. However, several officers especially in senior and mid-­ level positions continuously approached me with the hope that I could influence the IGP to have them in his good books. The shared perception of my closeness to the IGP was certainly not build out of nowhere. I was told about how the IGP spoke highly of me in top management meetings even in my absence. Once at the police council meeting in December 2016, the IGP publicly told officers that I was going to head the Police College and that in his view I was equivalent to a ‘general’. On several occasions, the IGP invited me to attend top management meetings such as PAC with the hope that I could share some expertise. He also surprisingly appointed me on a top-notch team that was to write ‘The Police Doctrine’. These circumstances, amongst others, certainly fuelled the perception that I had the ear of the IGP.

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I observed that some officers did not only want me to put for them a good word but also tried to paint a horrible picture about their rivals. Many shared of how officer x or y was a thief or how officers were undermining the IGP. Those that got close to me recounted of how their rivals were having nightmares with the perception that I was the ‘game changer’, as two officers shared over a drink. These organisational politics were intense, and no officer took them lightly. Several officers were hypersensitive always perceiving it that colleagues were ‘plotting against them’ to use their vocabulary. Often, I observed that most of the conflicts were out of proportion and some imagined. Gotsis and Kortezi (2010) would argue here that the Uganda Police is a power system in which members often resort to influence tactics to effectively achieve their goals or to maintain, secure and enhance their privileges and benefits. Officers continuously foment and stimulate informal alliances to rebuttal or disproof rivals. Broadly, the need to accumulate power and control resources, authority and status and the competition for who takes the best position fuelled intrigues. The organisational politics had been routinised and were expected to unfold almost naturally as a norm rather than an exception. When one gets through one rivalry battle, he/she is looking around for the next. Who is on the rise and who is on the fall and how they stand in relation to each other informed these politics. The internal balance of power and influence were critical to the power game. The intention here is not to pass judgement on the institution per se but to provide a better understanding of the internal dynamics of the police force. The chapter is not a value judgement about the police and the dynamics here may not necessarily be limited to Uganda.

Interpreting Organisational Politics Here, Norbert Elias’ (1978) conceptual framework of figurational sociology may enable us to better understand and explain the meaning of the relationships in the Uganda Police. Figurational sociology deals with shifts in power balances, chains of interdependencies and power relations. Elias believes that the notion of figuration involves the conceptualisation of power as a characteristic of all human relations. Figurational sociology enables us to position individuals/actors, groups or organisations in a web of connections in which they are facilitated to act or reason and which also confine them. Actors can impress through application of their individual abilities. Their success, however, would not be independent but reliant on rules of social conventions and relationships with partners, antagonists and observers (Elias, 1978). Elias’ framework sheds light on the balance of power between chains of interdependency within the Ugandan police. If institutions are to be effective, Tjosvold and Johnson (1983) argue, they must be capable of managing and resolving conflict constructively. Other scholars opine that political games in an organisation have a positive dimension and could present an opportunity to secure desired outcomes. Subsequently, political behaviour is viewed as a normal element of organisational social life and political tactics such as

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persuasion, networking, coalition-formation and mentoring are equally logical (Kurchner-Hawkins & Miller, 2006; Gotsis & Kortezi, 2010). Kurchner-Hawkins and Miller (2006) consider organisational politics as ‘an exercise of power and influence that primarily occurs outside of formal organisational processes and procedures’. In these games players adopt influence tactics devised to further self- and/ or organisational interests, and its basic aim is to reconcile and effectively manage such potentially competing interests (Kurchner-Hawkins & Miller, 2006). Wexley and Yukl (1984) have stressed that rivalries and conflicts are a natural part of social relationships and are bound to occur in any organisation. The sources of rivalries can stem from personality or style differences or from the intrinsic human nature to compete for limited resources or even clashes over interests, needs and values. The challenge is not to eliminate rivalries but to minimise their destructiveness (Wynn, 1985; Johnson & Johnson, 1987). Baron (1991) has similarly opined that conflict in an organisation is not necessarily a negative feature and a certain degree of stress, based upon competing value structures between the individual and the organisation, can in many instances provide an environment that fosters greater attainment of institutional goals. Consequently, there are two clear-­ cut categories of conflict – the functional that builds stronger cohesion and working interrelations that support creativity and positive change and the dysfunctional forms that could destroy the cohesion and consistency of an institution, especially when victory over rivals at all costs is the ultimate focus. Organisational politics, referred to in some scholarly circles as the dark side of organisational behaviour, occupies an important place in organisational literature (Conner, 2006; Cropanzano et al., 1995; Ferris et al., 1989; Kacmar & Baron, 1999; Kacmar et al., 1999; Vigoda, 2002; Vigoda-Gadot & Kapun, 2005; Vigoda-Gadot et al., 2003; Gotsis & Kortezi, 2010). It has long been an unfortunate ‘fact of life’ (Burns, 1961; Ferris et al., 2002; Kacmar & Baron, 1999). Power is a vital and ubiquitous reality in organisational life and politics in general (Dahl, 1957; Zald, 1970; Zalesnik, 1970). In the same vein, Mintzberg (1983) describes organisational politics as individual or group behaviour that is informal, ostensibly parochial, typically divisive and above all not sanctioned by formal authority. Burns (1961) considers it as an outcome that occurs when ‘others (individuals) are made use of as resources in competitive situations’. The politics have also been described as a social influence process in which behaviour is deliberately premeditated to maximise interests, which may either be consistent with or at the expense of others’ interests’ (Ferris et al., 1989: 145; Kacmar et al., 1999; Valle & Witt, 2001; Miller et al., 2008; Gotsis & Kortezi, 2010). In organisational politics members embrace and often use Machiavellian techniques as ‘situational manipulation’, ‘dirty tricks’ and ‘back-stabbing’ (Cavanagh et al., 1981). The politics are fuelled by conditions such as uncertainty about organisational decisions, ambiguity about expectations, procedures, or roles, and competition for scarce resources (Ferris et al., 1989, 2002; Kacmar & Baron, 1999; Parker et al., 1995). Manifestation of organisational politics, whether actual or imagined, has long been thought to have substantive and generally adversative consequences on members of the organisations (Burns, 1961; Porter, 1976; Miller et al., 2008).

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They are mostly intended to exercise power and gain access to limited resources, influence decision-making processes and entrench interests within organisational settings (Gotsis & Kortezi, 2010). These politics embody three constitutive elements – influencing behaviours through calculated actions, use of power manoeuvres and non-sanctioned informal activities (Gotsis & Kortezi, 2010). In a politically ridden environment, members demonstrate several illegitimate activities such as coalition building, favouritism-based pay and promotion networks and back-stabbing that are strategically designed to benefit, protect or enhance self-­ interests, often without regard for the welfare of their organisation and co-workers (Ferris et al., 1989; Chang et al., 2009). Particularly, as the coming sections of this chapter will show, the Uganda Police is a politically ridden environment heavily affected by the negative effectives of organisational politics. Customarily, organisational politics flourish in hierarchical, power-based structures or in the absence of amply defined objectives, decision processes and performance standards. It is premised on the desire to gain control over one’s work environment and the need to address organisational exigencies in the absence of organisational support and codified procedures (Gotsis & Kortezi, 2010). Actors blame and attack each other, abuse procedures by bypassing proper superiors, concealing information and engaging in sycophantic behaviour and praise of the powerful others. Moreover, they create and maintain a favourable image through impression management and develop alliances with powerful and influential persons (Andrews & Kacmar, 2001; Gotsis & Kortezi, 2010). The political games damage or distort social interactions in an organisation, and members may hesitate to help or support colleagues in fear of the political consequences. Besides, this environment may force members to avoid active participation in the overall mission of the organisation. Usually, the political games discourage meritocracy and actors access promotions on political considerations (Bozionelos, 2005; Curtis et  al., 2005). Ultimately, organisational politics are often viewed as dysfunctional and as having divisive effects on work environments (Mintzberg, 1983). They impact on critical processes including performance evaluation, resource allocation and managerial decision-making that influence organisational proficiency and productivity (Kacmar & Baron, 1999; Chang et al., 2009).

The Nucleus of the UPF’s Organisational Politics ‘The IGP is the Sun of the police’s “solar system” and the most severe power games rotate around him. He is the centre as well as an active participant in the internal rivalries’, a senior officer at the strategic level offered. As showed in Chap. 1, Gen. Kayihura is widely seen as the person who has transformed the force, including growing its capacity and stature. He is perceived as a trusted ally of the president, which has enabled him to build a force that was previously a fringe institution in the framework of Uganda’s security architecture (Philipps & Kagoro, 2016). The IGP’s achievements attracted him competitors, and it is widely believed that several

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security chiefs continuously schemed for his job including trying to use some police officers to undermine his systems. Within the police, officers tried their best, in many cases applying Machiavellian tactics, to be recognised by the IGP. Several officers revealed that to survive and succeed in the police, one must learn how the game is played. At a strategic level, some directors back-stabbed, maligned and competed to outshine each other in the eyes of the IGP who, of course, was the main determinant of deployments and the de facto distributor of both power and resources within the force as was discussed in Chap. 1. In a competitive positioning game, some ambitious directors tried to catch the eye of the president and situated themselves as the most suitable successors of the IGP. To set themselves apart from their competitors, some directors hired journalists to generate favourable media coverage or even lobby politicians to speak well of them in state house circles. To maintain equilibrium amongst his senior officers, the IGP continuously found strategies to curtail those who try to overtly dominate others. Seeking IGP’s attention, therefore, became a double-edged sword; on one hand it would earn an officer a promotion and recognition, while on the other, it attracted jitters from the IGP himself and obviously other police chiefs. ‘It is a game of math’, one director figuratively put it. Once one was perceived to be closer to the IGP, a war against him/her begun. Close relations with IGP meant power, status, access to resources and ability to dominate others. ‘If perceived to be a blue-eyed officer of the IGP you must learn how to tactfully distribute favours, resources and power even when those to whom you distribute are less or not deserving. You buy your safety, or your glory will be taken away’, a senior officer explained. Several officers had lost favour once they were labelled opposition sympathisers or framed to have extorted money to fail cases or to have tried to undermine the IGP. One such victim was the late AIGP Andrew Felix Kaweesi who had served in several powerful positions. At a graduation ceremony, often referred to as pass out in police circles, held in Jinja (eastern Uganda) in 2016, the IGP publicly told Kaweesi that, ‘When I took you from being Director of Operations to Human Resource Development, they wondered why we had fallen out. Many of those people especially at the headquarters were always whispering to each other asking what you have done. Those people are the usual rumour mongers who feed such information to the journalists. If you fall prey to them that will be your fault’.1 It is clear here that gossip had a political function in the formation of power relations (Vigoda-­ Gadot & Drory, 2006; Van Iterson & Clegg, 2008). It is also evident that intrigues constituted an inextricable part of the police social life. As Elias would argue, no single player can single-handedly control the game’s unfolding and even those who possess superior means are bound to allies and rivals (Elias, 1978). The IGP had enormous powers and authority and could deploy officers at his discretion. However, he was known to fervently construct alliance blocks 1  Joseph Kato, 2016, ‘Kayihura to Kaweesi: Don’t be disgruntled’, The Daily Monitor 02 October. Available on line: http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/National/Kayihura-to-Kaweesi%2D%2DDont-be-disgruntled/688334-2894516-item-00-3t1ny7/index.html [03 October 2016].

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and use an array of officers to spy on his directors and other officers who could potentially undermine him. Moreover, though IGP’s orders are accepted without question in meetings, officers sometime circumvented them. He severally moved around in the wee hours of the night to cross-check if his commanders had effectively deployed, for example. He had to use several strategies to substantiate if his instructions had been implemented across the country.2 Some officers had a tendency of deviating from IGP’s strategic guidance, a senior officer offered. Of course, circumvention of IGP’s directives is only possible implicitly, but in the open officers play safe since the police force is a rigidly command and control institution where it is traditionally considered disrespectful to disagree with supervisors, much less a powerful IGP.  Overt disagreement with the IGP would automatically lead to one being isolated, ridiculed or even dismissed from a ‘wet’ deployment. However, the empirical realities demonstrated that his orders would often be undermined though subtly.

Staying in the Game Following a Policy and Advisory Committee (PAC) meeting in March 2016, I joined into an informal discussion with two directors in the corridors at the second floor of the police headquarters. One of the directors had just presented his ideas which needed approval by PAC. The other officer who had actually not attended the meeting due to other obligations then asked, ‘how many of our allies were in attendance?’ The other responds, ‘it is a pity that you were not there, there was only one ally, and our idea has received a lot of criticisms’. To me the discussion was quite interesting at the same time ambiguous. So, I decided to ask the two to explain what ‘allies’ meant in this context. The two officers explained that in police it is not necessarily the ideas that count but how many allies one can rally to back a viewpoint. The officers further indicated that the alliance boundaries are not fixed; what was an alliance the previous year could be a conflict the following year based on the issue(s) at stake. As seen above, alliance and coalition building is vital in organisational politics insofar as it benefits, protects or enhances self-interests, often without regard for the welfare of the organisation or those outside the coalition (Ferris et al., 1989). Flowing from their observation about the nature of organisations as a social form, Barnett and Finnemore (1999) have argued that organisations frequently develop distinctive internal cultures that can promote dysfunctional behaviour. In Uganda Police, this is illustrated in the processes of budgeting and allocation of funds. This was well explained by a senior officer as follows: Even if your budget is approved at the finance planning meeting and money comes, you may not get it if you do not play good politics. It can be hoarded and given to another

 Interview with Senior Officer P-S4 held on 04/08/2015 in Kampala.

2

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department. So, in most cases one has to keep his eyes open and ears to the ground and also bribe several officers along the finance management chain to have his/her department’s allocation in full and in time. It is mafiaism and without mafia tactics one cannot succeed. I make my requisitions before the quarter releases and immediately I hear police money is released I submit. Once you delay you may get nothing even when your budget was clearly approved.

This looks like corruption and yet it is how the system works, a practical norm as Olivier de Sardan (2009) would have put it. If one looks closely, this informal procedure is part of the game that one must learn to play. Moreover, rivals target each other’s allocation to inflict maximum pain. This behaviour and tactical influence that are core indicators of organisational politics are of course non-sanctioned and covert in disposition (Valle & Witt, 2001; Gotsis & Kortezi, 2010). In this view, decisions are not made after a rational decision process but rather through competitive bargaining and unorthodox tactical processes over turf and budgets that may benefit parts of the organisation at the expense of overall goals (Pfeffer & Salancik, 1974; Barnett & Finnemore, 1999). Police officers and their ‘coalitions’ seek to protect their interests through means that are discreet when compared to existing official norms and bureaucratic procedures. Here, we get back to our interpretation through the lenses of Olivier de Sardan’s concept of practical norms. As is clear official norms have limitations and officers play by what works in practice. Other directors, several interviews revealed, pay juniors of their rivals to sabotage success. ‘Towards presidential elections of 2016, I discovered that some of my subordinates were working in the interests of my rival, falsifying reports that I was a close friend of President Museveni’s opponent Amama Mbabazi3 and that I was also working hard to fail the IGP’, one director intimated. This malaise was since I was considered to be close to the IGP.  My rivals worked hard, including paying civilian informers to disorganise my otherwise good relationship with IGP, the officer added. Cavanagh et  al. (1981) would describe these dirty tricks and back-­ stabbing as Machiavellian techniques. Officers coined the term ‘antennas’ to denote those officers who listened and reported to the higher echelons, especially to the IGP about what is going on behind the scenes. Many officers seemed to hold a shared mentality that some of the information taken about officers’ actions, intensions and deeds was either exaggerated or fabricated.4 However, it should also be emphasised that the IGP was a passionate workaholic and his counter-intelligence in some cases caught the bad guys. Before he took over as IGP, officers had enormous leg room to extort money and abuse their powers to gain ill wealth. It is agreeable that the IGP had closed a few loopholes that

 Amama Mbabazi is a former Prime Minister and ally of President Museveni who in 2015 jumped ship and later contested in the 2016 elections. Many police officers, especially those of a Bakiga ethnic background, were victims of the clash between the two former allies. 4  For instance, most of the officers who undertook the December 2015 to June 2016 Senior Command and Staff Course at the Police College were victims of rumours. It should be understood here that sending officers for further training has been largely used as a means of punishment. 3

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officers exploited to fulfil their selfish needs. Officers hated it that their spaces have been encroached on a senior officer shared. So, it can be said that some officers were not exactly innocent. In police circles, however, even those netted in illegalities felt that antennas were unfair. According to my observation, the police seemed to rarely embrace the ‘we’ factor. It was normally the individual seen as making all the achievements, which brought out the element of overshadowing one another and not an atmosphere of celebrating the success of the entire team. Ideally, when an organisation succeeds everyone is happy, but it is not the same here, it is individualistic; two officers argued in an informal discussion. This was because of how the entire organisation would seem to work in part, by concentrating on praising the individual and not highlighting the common ground, another mid-level officer offered. This meant that individuals strived to outshine each other at the expense of team dynamics. Moreover, success in one police department is taken as bad news in other departments. This organisational character as Hochwarter et al. (2000) have argued culminates in organisational settings that trigger intense levels of uncertainty and limited trust in the systems and amongst colleagues, thus eliciting further intrigue tendencies. It was common to hear officers expressing fears that their rivals harbour intentions of harming them, most notably, by poisoning. One officer insisted that the use of the poisoning tactic is not simply hearsay but existed. It had also sunk deep into the psyche of many officers whom I have talked to or shared a meal with. In fact, one director could not even drink juice ordered in a restaurant, preferring drinks that are clearly bottled and sealed. Another top officer once intimated that he cannot trust his guards because they have been paid to poison him. There is a time this particular officer had a headache and I suggested that the guards should go procure for him medication, but he rejected the idea because he believed they could poison him. However, this seemed to remain at the perceptual level as no officer provided a clear example of when poison was used. Perhaps this can be explained by the fact that higher levels of perceived organisational politics are, of course, indicative of negative psychological states of mind such as job anxiety, lack of trust and stress (Ferris et  al., 1996; Poon, 2003; Vigoda, 2002). Some officers especially at the lower levels of command are convinced that their rivals used witchcraft to fail each other or even cause death. As we saw in the preceding chapter, perceptions of witchcraft do play a role in the policing arena. Though, like in the case of poison, no example of any officer who died because of witchcraft was cited, the fear that it existed was widespread. This fear was notably vivid at rural police stations and surprisingly also pronounced at Kampala’s Central Police Station (CPS), where deployments are perceived to be lucrative and are as such desired by most officers. Witchcraft was also perceived to be helping some officers to protect their positions or dislodge rivals from lucrative positions or even influence the IGP to perpetually favour them. As I got it from a certain corporal, ‘one either needs a godfather, or use intrigue and witchcraft to achieve success in the force’.

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In many cases official structures and systems are not necessarily followed which also provide a fertile ground for intrigues. Officers used informal means to undermine their seniors or even cause them to lose their wet deployments. ‘Blackmail, witch hunt and setting up of colleagues seemed to be the major way of getting rivals out of positions’, a senior officer observed. Officers strategise and pull whatever card, even if wrong or taxing, to make a win. They struggle not to be overshadowed by colleagues and do whatever it takes to ensure they remain in the limelight. ‘You have to remain relevant amidst the storm’, a senior officer reasoned. In April 2015, I was stationed at the police headquarters and I observed an unhealthy competition between a senior officer and his deputy. For a start, the junior overtly disliked the boss and rarely saluted, while the boss through some journalists circulated rumours that the deputy was divulging police secrets to the media. This, of course, was meant to tarnish the image of the deputy and ward off the perceived competition. One day, moreover, the IGP telephoned the deputy bitterly questioning about the allegations. Unaware, some of the journalists that were being used shared text messages and the unscrupulous strategies of the boss with the deputy.5 Journalists played a central role in police’s intrigues; they were used by officers to both glorify themselves and to tarnish their rivals. Other officers moved with the media while executing operations to gain mileage and to sometimes embarrass colleagues on camera. There were horizontal intrigues involving back-stabbing and undermining amongst officers at the same level of command and vertical intrigues that entangle superiors and subordinates, including subordinates refusing to salute and to recognise orders of their superordinates. In some cases, superordinates even hesitated to make legitimate orders if their subordinates were perceived to have connections both within the police and in the political circles. Officers frequently abused procedures and often bypassed their supervisors in their day-to-day operations. It is also common that seniors concealed vital information that would have been important for the career progression of their junior such as available in-house training opportunities. Intrigue was also decisive while executing operations. If juniors wanted to undermine their superiors, they can recklessly use tear gas during demonstrations or aim at a school or hospital, for instance, and then the blame goes to the commander in charge of the operation (Philipps & Kagoro, 2016). Many observers would see a mismanaged operation rather than think of the internal dynamics at play. What they saw was the police recklessly using tear gas and not officers who tried to make their superiors look bad, one RPC explained. One commander once revealed that during the walk-to-work demonstrations in 2011, he saw that one of his juniors was aiming to shoot tear gas canisters into the

 In this particular case, the deputy shared with me all that was going on including the text messages the boss was sending to the journalists. 5

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Netherlands embassy.6 ‘Had I not seen the guy the IGP, the president and the media would have crucified me and of course my job would have been on the line’. Another commander mentioned that while he was commanding an operation during the walk-to-work demonstrations, a sergeant shot at people going for a wedding. He later got to understand that the sergeant was using that so he could have him sacked. In that regard, as Philipps and Kagoro (2016) highlighted, demonstrations not only emerged as an external threat but also triggered uncertainty within the police.

Striving for ‘Wet’ and Strategies to Elude ‘Dry’ Deployments The functioning of the police is based on a regular system of deployment and transfer of officers from one office to another depending not only on the professional competencies but on the job demands and wishes of the supervisors at the particular time. To a large extent, however, deployments were not necessarily based on meritorious grounds but on godfather constellations, alliance formations and of course lobbying. This has in turn stirred mistrust, rivalries and intrigues. Expectedly, there existed stern competition for deployments perceived to be lucrative which heightens organisational politics (Philipps & Kagoro, 2016). Some deployments, as was discussed severally in the preceding chapters, are seen as wet while others are dry depending on two key factors. On one hand, there are offices that receive substantial funding from the police’s resource envelop, and on the other, there are those that provide officers with an opportunity to profit from the public that may want to get favours. Directorates such as Kampala Metropolitan Police, Logistics and Engineering, Criminal Investigations and Traffic were seen as lucrative while those of Special Duties, Welfare and Research, Planning and Development are ‘dry’.7 Of course, a look at budget allocations firmly confirms the perception. For instance, for the budgetary allocations of 2015/2016, the Directorate of Logistics and Engineering received a budget that was 500 times more than that of special duties. This directorate controls vital resources including fuel, the police fleet, estates and procurements. The parliamentary police directorate has also emerged as an influential power bearer and broker within the force. As discussed in Chap. 1, the director sat at parliament and was constantly negotiating with members of parliament (MPs) to present police in good light. This directorate’s main objective, of course, is to provide security to MPs and the parliamentary building. Many officers shared that most directors occupying wet directorates had mastered the game and sometimes spend enormous resources to fight perceived competitors.  Walk-to-work demonstrations were purportedly organised to protest the rising food prices, fuel prices and alarming levels of inflation in Uganda. The demonstrations mostly led by opposition leader Kizza Besigye broke out following President Museveni February 2011 presidential elections victory, which most of the opposition characterised as fraudulent. 7  This perspective is drawn from syndicate 1 and 3 of the SCSC course work assignment. 6

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As showed in Chap. 3, territorial command deployments such as DPC and RPC are also viewed as wet for mid-level officers, if the district and region are strategically located. There are some parts of the country such as Karamoja (north-eastern Uganda) where officers do not wish to work. They are deemed hard to reach and above all dry. Most officers prefer and competed to be deployed in the Kampala Metropolitan or at least in large urban areas such as Mbarara, Jinja, Arua, Mbale and Fort Portal. Interviews revealed that there were some officers, for example, who have used underhand methods, including paying bribes to their colleagues in Human Resource Department to stay at the coveted Central Police Station in Kampala. Other officers malign their competitors, lobby politicians, influential personalities and in police circles to attain wet deployments.8 There are also coveted deployments outside the force such as attachments to organisations like Uganda Revenue Authority, Kampala Capital City Authority, Bank of Uganda and the American Embassy amongst others. These deployments attract better working conditions and hefty allowances, in the context of Uganda Police. Intrigues caused unnecessary and haphazard transfers, in certain cases some officers had been transferred up to four times in a single year.9 Most transfers, it appeared, were done based on intrigues and false reports. Moreover, there existed an extensive patronage system based on godfathers. As scholars have argued, organisational politics discourage meritocracy and actors access promotions through political considerations (Bozionelos, 2005; Curtis et al., 2005). This was manifested during recruitments, deployments and promotions in a way that some people who had godfathers unduly got or held onto the wet deployments. Certainly, this fuelled unfair promotions as some officers got rapidly promoted or even skipped ranks. Whereas the normal practice should be based on standard principles set out in the police standing orders and public service guidelines, it commonly happened that some officers were promoted even without the basic minimum requirements and those with meritorious abilities were left out. This was cited in the February 2016 promotions in which some officers skipped up to two ranks, while others were promoted without recommendations from their departments as procedure demands. This left many officers disgruntled and some launched an appeal to the Inspector General of Government (IGG) to investigate what was largely termed as sham promotions.10 Some directors and other senior officers boycotted the peeping ceremony partly because they felt that their recommendations were not considered. ‘It is no longer useful to be hard working and to be recommended by your directorate, what is important is to have a godfather at police headquarters’, one officer complained.  This perspective is drawn from syndicate 1 and 2 of the SCSC course work assignments.  This perspective is drawn from syndicate 1 of the SCSC course work assignment. 10  This particular is under investigations see Fredrick Musisi, 2016, ‘IGG to investigate police promotions’, The Daily Monitor 11 February. Available at http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/ National/IGG-to-investigate-police-promotions/688334-3071308-r3yt4t/index.html [01 March 2017]. 8 9

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Many officers shared that the system was unfair and unjust and with no clear mechanism of assessing performance, which affected their morale and ability to effectively execute their stated institutional goals. Officers spent considerable time and energy thinking of what their rivals are planning and/or strategising on how to keep or get a wet posting. Organisational politics scholars would argue here that perceptions of intrigue are fuelled by conditions such as uncertainty about organisational decisions, ambiguity about expectations, procedures, or roles, and competition for scarce resources (Ferris et al., 1989, 2002; Kacmar & Baron, 1999; Parker et al., 1995). The wet-dry deployment constellations correspondingly influenced the status of officers in terms of material possession and the money in the bank. This is evident in the differences between private parties officers organised, the vehicles they drove and homes they owned. Some officers joined the force with high expectations and ambitions to acquire quick wealth. The wet deployments were also influenced by tribal dynamics in the force. This has seen officers especially those from western Uganda getting favourable deployments.11 This was largely because western Uganda is also overrepresented at the strategic level and in government in general. Some officers viewed the system as malfunctional, providing a fertile ground for politically and unfairly distributed promotions and rewards, including resource allocations. This perceived unfairness led to the widespread of what Denise Rousseau (1989) would call officers’ violation of psychological contract, thus inducing distrust towards supervisors and the system in general.12 Here we see that intrigue is negatively experienced as a perpetual threat to officers’ careers and engendering feelings of inequity and injustice. This is consistent with the scholarly perspective that perceptions of organisational intrigues trigger lower levels of job satisfaction, diminishing employee attitudes towards work, loyalty, stress as well as higher levels of job tensions (Ferris et al., 1989, 2002; Cropanzano et al., 1997; Kacmar & Baron, 1999; Randall et al., 1999; Hochwarter et al., 2000; Vigoda, 2001; Miller et al., 2008). As should be clear from this chapter, the Ugandan police is permeated with intrigues, rivalries and in what has been described as the dark side of organisational behaviour. Power as a reality of organisational life (Dahl, 1957; Zald, 1970; Zalesnik, 1970) played a central role in the organisational politics of the Uganda Police. Police officers built coalitions and often used Machiavellian techniques as manipulation, dirty tricks and back-stabbing to be recognised by the IGP and to gain promotion, access resources and to procure wet deployments. Intrigues were fuelled by conditions such as uncertainty about organisational decisions, ambiguity about expectations, procedures, or roles, and competition for scarce resources (Ferris et al., 1989, 2002; Kacmar & Baron, 1999; Parker et al., 1995). Organisational politics have had some consequences on officers and police performance in general.

 This perspective is drawn from syndicate 1, 2 and 3 of the SCSC course work assignments.  Organisational scholar Rousseau (1989) describes psychological contract as the mutual beliefs and informal obligations between an employer and an employee. 11 12

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The analysis in this chapter has shed more light on how the police actually works on a day-to-day basis, what influences promotions and deployments, the distribution of resources as well as what informs officers’ decision-making processes in the field. While the chapter has concentrated on the internal dynamics, it has inferred that intrigues go beyond the boundaries of the police force and that journalists, politicians, civilians and state house play a role. As Barnett and Finnemore (1999) have argued, external environment presses upon and shapes the internal characteristics of organisations; cultural contestation within an organisation frequently originates from and remains linked to contradictions in the larger environment. If one analysed other public institutions in Uganda, there is a high likelihood of finding similar characteristics as in the police. With all this in the background, one might ask what really holds the force together? The force, one might argue, has different ways of working, and despite the intrigues, it has achieved some profound results as we have seen in the preceding chapters. It is important to note that the formal legal logic functions side by side with the informalities and intrigues. Though intrigues have had a huge negative effect on the running of the force, it does not mean that nothing is being achieved, in fact, quite the opposite. The police force has made giant strides. It has grown both in numbers, funding, facilities, stature and capabilities as was discussed in Chap. 1. In a way, one might say that the intrigue also helps them to achieve some results. Through all the competition and scheming, some of the force’s members get things done, which they might not have done in the absence of intrigue. In fact, some officers intimated that rivalries and intrigues helped them to keep alert and to perform better in fear of victimisation. As one senior officer put it, ‘intrigue brings in an element and spirit of hard work… everyone knows if he or she does not meet the aspirations of the institution, he can be replaced immediately’. Perhaps this is the positive dimension of organisational politics as theorised by several scholars (Wexley & Yukl, 1984; Wynn, 1985; Johnson & Johnson, 1987; Kurchner-Hawkins & Miller, 2006; Baron, 1991; Gotsis & Kortezi, 2010).

Conclusion

The Ugandan police is a product of a colonial legacy, and like other bureaucracies in the rest of Africa, it developed as part of the despotism and violence of colonial rule. The force was established in 1906 as part of the British colonial project primarily to facilitate domination and extraction. Throughout the colonial period, the force was largely alienated from the public. Following Uganda’s independence in 1962, the post-independence governments assumed full responsibility for the police though the institution did not shed off its colonial legacy and continued to operate with a limited sociopolitical connection to the wider society it was meant to order. Successive post-colonial regimes have continually instrumentalised the same police for political ends. The force remained second fiddle to the military until 2001 when President Museveni started appointing military generals in the position of Inspector General of Police (IGP). In this book, I have provided a multifaceted picture of the police force unveiling how the institution is organised, how it works on a day-to-day basis and how it relates to the society around it, simultaneously being shaped by it and affecting it. One of the defining factors for this work was my easy access to the police spheres as both an ethnographer and a consultant. This access enabled me to cultivate social relationships with a multitude of police officers at all levels of command. In the course of this research, many officers seemed to have ceased viewing me as a researcher but as a colleague. Police work is mostly executed in privacy between police officers and concerned parties to a particular issue. Deep access was therefore critical in order to comprehend and deconstruct police practices and the logic behind these practices. The long-term ethnographic immersion enabled me to paint a detailed picture of the organisational politics that play out within the force. An ethnographic approach enabled me to view police officers as human beings and members of the Ugandan society who move throughout their day from their official tasks, such as investigating criminal cases, to non-official tasks, such as driving their children to school or accompanying a family member to hospital. The © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 J. Kagoro, Inside an African Police Force, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-14992-4

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context within which police officers work is not divorced from their social settings. After all, some scholars have argued that bureaucracies are embedded within a cultural, political and economic context and are not closed off from society (Warner & Low, 1947; Baba, 2009). For a comprehensive study of the police, one needs to be inside the institution while at the same time sustaining intense contact with individual police officers, not only on duty but also in their lifeworlds beyond the confines of the institutional framework. Police work demands time and patience to be better understood. Sustained observation is of importance, for instance, to capture investigations, which are often conducted over several weeks, if not years, and a variety of other operations which are carefully planned involving a lot of background dynamics before being executed. My research shows that policing is far more complex than it first appears. It is shaped by a multitude of contexts. Often officers do not follow a clear set of principles or approaches as each case is shaped by unique circumstances ranging from time, place, officers involved or even the status of the actors that are party to a particular case. Police practices in Uganda, therefore, are ambivalent and sometimes vary from one policing jurisdiction to another, commander to commander, person to person and from scenario to scenario as I have shown throughout this book. This book has drawn on two analytical frameworks: Lipsky’s (1980) ‘street-level bureaucracy’ and the idea of ‘practical norms’ that have been advanced by several scholars, notably Olivier de Sardan (2009, 2015). These two concepts have facilitated a better understanding of how the police works, what officers do in the field and how they interpret and implement policies as written in the legal mandates and institutional agendas. Indeed, what police officers learn in training and what official documents instruct them to do is often different from what they (are required to) do on the streets. When on duty, officers take everything that they learned and apply this knowledge together with the relevant guidelines to a particular situation, often needing to operate within limited time frames and without full information. I exposed how some of the official knowledge and guidelines are far removed from the practical realities on the ground. Police officers must respond to a multiplicity of community and individuals’ conflicts, fear of crime, crime victimisation and security needs and have hitherto developed an assortment of practical norms to cope with the problem of doing their job. The gap between the formal policies and what officers do in practices partly arises from the fact that rules can never be specific enough to account for the myriad contexts. Rules, some scholars have argued, can produce negative results thus encouraging the proliferation of other practices that can be deemed acceptable though illegitimate (Hoag, 2011; McKay, 2012; Sandvik, 2011). I agree that some rules can produce negative results. I have provided several examples such as in traffic police where compensations of victims by the offenders outside the legal framework work much better than court processes. Olivier de Sardan (2009, 2015) and other concurring anthropologists have been concerned with the question of whether the practices of bureaucrats follow the stated policies of the bureaucracy and, if not, why that is so. To answer this question,

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anthropologists have called for an examination of the everyday practices of state functionaries. Central to the question regarding discrepancy between policies and practices is the concept of discretion that bureaucrats, including police officers, possess while interpreting how and when to apply rules (Bear & Mathur, 2015; Bierschenk & Olivier de Sardan, 2014; Blundo & Olivier de Sardan, 2008; Gupta & Ferguson, 2002; Heyman, 1995, 2004; Trouillot, 2003a, b). Following after Olivier de Sardan (2015), I have demonstrated that the gap between official rules and actual behaviour is not a space where norms are entirely forgotten or missing but where substitute norms that he defines as practical norms are in play. The substitute norms in Ugandan police that have emerged are not taught but are implicitly learned or embodied in the practices of police officers. Empirical evidence I present in this book demonstrates that there are six predominant facets of the Ugandan police. The first facet is that the force plays a central role in the Ugandan political arena. It is preoccupied with political policing, which I have defined to mean two things: on the one hand, police engaging in political partisanship, and on the other, the surveillance of the opposition. Political policing, however, is neither new nor limited to Uganda; it has manifested throughout history in different degrees, far and beyond. The police’s active involvement towards the perpetuation of a particular regime or order or ideological persuasion has been common in world history. A number of scholars have argued that policing is a political action and can thus only be understood as a political process (Reiner, 1992; Hills, 2007; Platt & Cooper, 1974). The police enforce decisions taken by the political authorities and thus most of their work is inevitably political in character. Therefore, political policing is a common phenomenon and what I have brought to the fore in this book is not necessarily the phenomenon itself but the specific patterns through which it manifests and its intensity in the case of Uganda. I have argued that the Ugandan police has systematically become one of the major pillars in sustaining both President Museveni and his National Resistance Movement (NRM) party in power. The legal framework gives the president overwhelming powers over the affairs of the police. The president appoints the Minister of Internal Affairs, members of the police authority, the IGP and his deputy and all the directors at the strategic level. The law allows the president to fire or replace any of the appointees including the minister and the IGP without giving any reasons and there is no provision for recourse. Since 2005, when President Museveni appointed his long-time confidant Gen. Kayihura as IGP, the force systematically grew in stature and coercive capacity and is more explicitly engaged in political policing. General Kayihura’s appointment closed the ideological gap that existed between the police and the ruling party, thus facilitating the force’s exponential growth in size, strength, visibility and its extensive reach in the wider society. From 2005 to 2018, the police budget grew from a mere 75 billion Uganda shillings (US$ 20.3  million) to over 500  billion Uganda shillings (US$137  million). Even though Uganda’s economy was growing at an average rate of 5% per annum, police’s budget grew by over 300% in the first 10 years of Gen. Kayihura’s reign.

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The police strength in terms of numbers has also grown from 13,000 to over 50,000 officers in the same period. There is police presence even in areas such as northern Uganda and north-eastern Uganda where police duties had essentially been performed by the military due to armed insurgencies. A practical norm has emerged that police commanders are implicitly aware that defending the ruling party is their ultimate duty, especially when political stakes are high, such as during elections. Political activities including political demonstration and riots provide a platform through which police officers can accumulate symbolic capital and possibilities for promotions. I have shown that the unofficial political use of the Ugandan police in combating the opposition, a political enemy within, has a much longer history and goes as far back as the colonial era. However, I argue that the police’s explicit roles in political policing have intensified since 2005 and are now routinised. One of the most difficult challenges commanders grapple with throughout their tenure of service is not only how to establish but also how to maintain good relations with any influential politician in their jurisdiction. Commanders endeavour to create a lasting impression whenever they get in contact with a minister, an MP, a district chairperson or any other person of high standing. The possibility of people in such positions being personally known to the IGP or even the president is high. As a matter of fact, my findings show that such encounters are exploited to maximum advantage. There are two ways to look at this. On the one hand, officers fear being at loggerheads with persons of status because this could result in their own decline, especially if such persons would give negative reports about them. While on the other, commanders are very much aware that the same persons if treated well can create better prospects for them. The perception and judgement that people of status hold about a commander can so easily result in either one of the two extreme outcomes; a promotion or the maintenance of a wet deployment or, alternatively, a transfer to a dry deployment. Faced with the ever-present possibility of fortunes going one way or another, the astute commander tirelessly ensures that he/she does not collide with leading cadres of the ruling party. Where need be, the officer might even subordinate general policies and guidelines of police work to political patronage to appease the politician. While engaged in political policing, however, commanders cunningly use ambiguities in the legal framework. The official policies in this matter are not completely forsaken. The second prevent facet of the Ugandan police is that the majority of its officers, save for a few at strategic level, in human resource administration and finance, are street-level bureaucrats and in essence policymakers. Similarly, my findings confirm observations made by several scholars that discretion is not just incidental but an essential and unavoidable aspect of police work (Goldstein, 1960; LaFave, 1965; Davis, 1969; Tieger, 1971; Rumbaut & Bittner, 1979; Livingston, 1997; Mastrofski, 2004). Consequently, police officers in Uganda are usually free either to invoke or not invoke the law and often usurp the powers of judiciary when they decide not to invoke the law when the conditions for invoking it were met. This usurpation of the powers of the judiciary is prevalent among officers in the CID, the traffic police and territorial commanders in Uganda.

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Like it is in other police forces around the globe, the Ugandan police also has limited capacity to constrain or to ensure that its officers follow the official norms to the latter. The majority of officers exercise their discretion in the field, often applying practical norms in line with a multiplicity of contexts. Drawing on Lipsky (1981) and others (such as Blau, 1955; Scherz, 2011; Guyer, 2005; Satzewich, 2015), I have demonstrated that the discretion of what police officers possess is not a betrayal of the universal rule but rather a necessary feature of bureaucratic practice. Discretion is not necessarily in a zero-sum relationship with rules, and if officers in Uganda followed all the rules, limited practical results would be achieved. The two concepts of street-level bureaucracy and practical norms I have applied in this work are vivid when one closely interacts with police officers in criminal investigations, traffic police or with territorial commanders. The features that define the majority of police officers in Uganda are akin to Lipsky’s general description of street-level bureaucrats that are mostly low-level public servants who labour under huge caseloads, ambiguous agency goals and inadequate resources. When combined with extensive discretionary authority and the requirement to interpret policy on a case-by-case basis, the difference between the official UPF and the Uganda government policy in theory and what officers do in practice is substantial. Detectives in the CID, for instance, have enormous powers including those to arrest, issue bonds, search, institute criminal proceedings, seize and retain property. Detectives apply their discretionary powers in a context and often navigate through their spheres to enhance their professional careers, to solve societal problems and those of their neighbours and their kith and kin and more often make personal money. Detectives are perpetually engaged in negotiations most of which outside the official channels; they often use a file at the police to reach out to suspects and negotiate a solution, which in some cases leads to the ‘killing’ of the official version of an ongoing case. Evidence presented in this book suggests that many Ugandan citizens tend to prefer unofficial channels of resolving their problems. People go to the police but still find ways to connive with individual police officers to find solutions that do not necessarily follow the law. Often, this involves exchange of money for ‘services’ rendered. I have demonstrated that police officers ironically revert to the official channels using the possibility of revoking official norms as their bargaining chip. This is clear evidence that both practical norms and official norms work side by side. For instance, experienced detectives create two files, the official and the unofficial ‘pocket file’, resorting to the former in case the situation turns in favour of the citizen. So, detectives try to look as official as possible in order to remain in good books, which is a prerequisite to retain a wet deployment within the directorate of CID. Sometimes detectives are engaged in unofficial negotiations with both parties in a specific case, in most instances, each party is separately made to believe that it has the upper hand. The detective then finds the solution that suits him/her most. Often, the best options are connected to the financial benefit accrued. As I highlighted in this work, many criminal cases have been quashed by the court based on technicalities of not following the official norms.

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Equally, traffic police officers wield considerable discretion in the day-to-day implementation of traffic regulations. Traffic police officers are usually on the street, directing traffic under the scotching sun and heavy rain, from morning till late evening. Typical of street-level bureaucrats, the officers embody enormous discretionary powers freely choosing who to punish and who to absolve. At junctions, officers freely choose which lane to let through and which one to halt, often but not always, following the traffic logic. The majority of traffic officers act as ‘judges’ and often resolve cases arbitrarily. My research reveals that proximity to the wider public plays a profound role in the influence dynamics of police officers. The more an officer relates with the people in the course of solving their problems, the more of a de facto policymaker he or she becomes. This of course comes with more influence for the officer. The majority of officers prefer assignments that put them in direct contact with the people or prototype street-level bureaucrats. Contact with the public is a source of both influence and personal benefits, often in financial terms. I have demonstrated that officers deployed in the CID and traffic directorates are perceived by their peers to wield more influence. In police circles, these two departments are referred to as ‘wet deployments’ (lucrative deployments). Some deployments such as guard duties may increase officers’ proximity to the people but do not necessarily come with influence because the officers exercise little discretion in performing their tasks. They are providing a general service and not directly solving specific problems of individuals. The third feature that defines policing in Uganda is informal negotiations. For instance, forwarding traffic cases to the courts of law as the official norm prescribes is very rare. A strongly embedded practical norm involving negotiated compensation takes precedent. Generally, a driver that has caused an accident due to reckless driving will easily get off the hook if he quickly acknowledges and agrees to compensate the victim or their family. It is common for drivers or owners of motor vehicles that cause accidents to pay hospital bills of a wounded victim and, in the case of fatal accidents, funeral expenses. In other instances, a victim may receive a financial package to enable him/her to cover the living expenses in the period while undergoing treatment. In these cases, traffic police officers act as middlemen, a clear indicator that the officers are unofficially policymakers. In the context of Uganda, this practical norm seems to work better and often is the most preferred option. Informal negotiations are prevalent between traffic police officers and public transport drivers including boda boda riders (motorcyle taxis). Generally, when a car is stopped, the first thing that drivers think of is how much the officer will take. During drink-driving operations, drivers intensely negotiate with traffic officers especially after their blood alcohol content (BAC) has been confirmed to be above accepted limit. Informal negotiations are also common in other criminal cases such as defilement, rape, theft and the like. In such cases compensations are also negotiated. Some of the negotiations are ‘semi-formal’, done with a tacit approval within the police structures, sometimes ordered by bosses in order to find a workable solution

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between conflicting parties. It is also common that people negotiate about police bond. This might be about the amount of money that illicitly goes to the detective working on the case, but the negotiations can also be purely based on a persuasive language of the client. Most negotiations are completely informal, especially when only a single officer or a few conniving officers are in the know. My results show that informal negotiations are a deep-rooted practical norm that embodies the Ugandan policing sphere. Fourth, the Ugandan police is a socially embedded institution and its role and day-to-day practices can only be understood in the context of the society that surrounds it. I have showed how police officers require discretion to execute their mandate or follow the stated institutional policies. In line of their duty, Ugandan police officers are required to fit their actions in a myriad of contexts, which vary from case to case, often demanding tactical imprecision. Here, the officers navigate between competing demands ranging from their personal beliefs and interest, those of the police establishment, those of the public and those of their kith and kin. Particularly, they balance between bureaucratic formal logics and practical norms, often finding ways to tactically integrate the two. Police officers face unique challenges that can only be understood in the context of their surroundings. For instance, when new police officers take over command of a district or region upon arrival, often a myriad of people including motor vehicle dealers, politicians, land dealers, owners of public transport buses, money lenders/ loan sharks, businessmen, fish dealers and smugglers approach one after the other offering money as a welcome gift to the newly assigned commander. These ‘gifts’ are offered as a courtesy rooted in African tradition of welcoming newcomers with dignity. The commanders must balance between not being put in ‘peoples’ pocket’ but also not start their duties confronting those who matter. If they carelessly take the money, there is a danger of being used in illegal schemes, and if one refuses the money those offering take offense and will do everything possible to fail them. Many of those offering gifts have extensive networks in all circles that matter. These dynamics are both ‘lucrative’ and ‘stressful’ to commanders, who are sometimes blackmailed if they try to stand on the side of the law. Hammering out a middle ground in such circumstances has emerged as one of the most vivid practical norms. I dedicated a chapter to presenting the unique social contexts that police interfaces within rural areas. In some rural settings, for instance, elders and clan mechanisms do facilitate police in resolving a variety of conflicts though in many cases also conflict with what police are doing. It is common that the population employs these mechanisms in an attempt to resolve criminal cases such as rape, defilement and murder. In some instances, people use both systems, reporting a case at the police, but at the same time employing the cultural mechanisms. Often, that causes confusion and complexity in criminal proceedings. The localised and cultural-­ specific dispute resolution mechanisms are embedded in the culture and customs of communities, which makes it tricky when the police attempt to apply their bureaucratic logics.

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However, many police officers also inherently believe in the traditional system and some confess it solves conflicts faster and more effective than their own institution. It is clear that though the officers are trained in conventional law enforcement mechanisms, some have less faith in them given the contexts they work in. It should be noted here that the traditional justice systems are characterised by features such as viewing any problem as that of the whole community or group; they put emphasis on reconciliation rather than police procedures. In customary conflict resolution processes, the rules of evidence and procedure are flexible, penalties are restorative, the decisions are confirmed through rituals aiming at reintegration and of course there is no legal representation. Moreover, recognised arbitrators are community members appointed based on their status or lineage, and in conflicts that arise, there seems to be a high degree of public participation. To local people, customary law might be more credible than the state judicial processes, rendering police operations difficult. Besides the customary conflict resolution mechanisms, some unique practical crime management strategies outside the official norms have emerged at some rural police stations. Police officers order for the photographing of suspects carrying or standing next to items they are suspected of having stolen. These pictures are then displayed on the walls of the station, especially at the counter where anyone coming in can easily see. One can clearly observe pictures of suspects carrying pigs, goats, batches of banana, chickens and bicycles, a quite humiliating scene. In some cases, the suspects are made to sit on top of a slaughtered cow. The images stay on display for several years even when there is no record of the case in any court of law. The decision on whose picture to display is entirely in the hands of an individual officer in charge of a particular station. Though this practice is outside the official policy, it effectively performs several functions. One, it demonstrates that the police is doing something by shaming perpetrators of crime, especially theft. The strategy acts as a deterrence measure since the ‘thieves’ fear being stigmatised by their community. As I showed in several sections of this book, people in Uganda prefer to see quick action being taken by police. The display of the picture, therefore, acts as a measure to pacify tempters of community members who prefer quick action against social ills in their society. In the absence of sophisticated fingerprint technology, the crime albums help officers to quickly identify repeated offenders. This practical norm works efficiently in contexts where everybody knows everybody. In a large cosmopolitan city like Kampala, the same would achieve limited impact and perhaps bring about complex legal issues for the police. Though rural policing dynamics in Uganda have some unique features, they share a lot of similar traits with rural policing elsewhere, including the western world. Studies on rural crimes and policing in the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia illustrate that characteristics of policing in rural areas seem to be similar regardless of country or region (Dingwall & Moody, 1999; Barclay et al., 2004; Hogg & Carrington, 2006; Weisheit et al., 2006; Donnermeyer, 2007). In general, rural policing is characterised by inadequate resources, limited staff, less reliance on written policies and the need to deal with significant numbers of

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agricultural crimes, while police officers are isolated from their colleagues in urban areas, and officers tend to have stronger social ties with the communities they serve (Barclay et  al., 2004; Weisheit et  al., 2006; Donnermeyer, 2007; Dingwall & Moody, 1999). Fifth, I found that Ugandan police officers perform all sorts of services in addition to enforcement of law and order. The force is heavily involved in mediation and negotiations. In fact, results presented here tally with literature, which suggests that the peacekeeping role makes up the bulk of police work and thus routine criminal law enforcement is the work of only a minority of police officers, while the greater majority are on a day-to-day basis minimally involved in activities leading to arrests and prosecutions (Banton, 1964; Niederhoffer, 1967; Rumbaut & Bittner, 1979). As agents of order and control and as symbols of authority, police handle the intoxicated, the mentally disturbed, the criminal, the diseased and the dead; are called to intervene in conflict situations covering the full range of human problems; and meet the public mostly in their stressful circumstances. This not being unique to Uganda as observations made by Westley (1970) regarding police forces in the United States and elsewhere show. Though ambiguous, one of the de facto roles of commanders in Uganda is to help arbitrate between conflicting groups and individuals within their areas of jurisdiction. For instance, DPCs and RPCs are routinely involved in finding solutions to conflicts ranging from land wrangles, mothers seeking child support from negligent fathers, estranged couples seeking redress, citizens conflicting over unpaid loans, tenants/landlords seeking help regarding rent, witchcraft accusations, to breakdown in services such as electricity, water supply and bad roads. The majority of these conflicts are outside police’s official mandate, but a practical norm has emerged that officers have to provide explanations or try to solve such problems that embattle society. Not all officers interpret or implement official policies in similar ways. Variations do exist even among officers of the same rank or comparable deployments, and often a single officer may make dissimilar decisions on cases that are more or less similar. I found that variations in decision-making largely depend on the individual officer’s character, self-perception, the stakes at play and the perceived connections the same officer possesses within the higher echelons of both the police and larger political circles. There are officers who execute informal operations or take informal actions on behalf of their patrons occupying higher offices in the police hierarchy. Some officers are laid-back or procrastinate on important issues, while others are always looking for something to do, finding work for themselves and thus creating a greater sphere of influence. Sixth, the inner logic of the police establishment matters. While the Uganda Police is a state institution constitutionally charged with keeping law and order and protecting life and property, it is also a lifeworld populated with actual buildings, specific objects and officers with anxieties and dreams. What we see in the Ugandan police is what other anthropologists have found in other bureaucracies: it is heterogeneous rather than monolithic, riven with conflict and instability, and staffed by people who vary by more than simply their hierarchical position (Bierschenk &

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Olivier de Sardan, 2014; Blundo, 2014; Mosse, 2005; Li, 2009; Warner & Low, 1976). My findings confirm that the Uganda Police, like many other organisations far and beyond, is perforated with internal rivalry and intrigue or what other organisational politics scholars refer to as the dark side of organisational behaviour (Conner, 2006; Cropanzano et al., 1995; Ferris et al., 1989; Kacmar & Baron, 1999; Kacmar et  al., 1999; Vigoda, 2002; Vigoda-Gadot & Kapun, 2005; Vigoda-Gadot et  al., 2003; Gotsis & Kortezi, 2010). Tjosvold and Johnson (1983) aptly put it that institutions including the police cannot operate without conflict and colleagues in an institution cannot interact without conflict. My observations of the Uganda Police are in tandem with Bonifacio (1991) who concluded that several police forces across the globe are riddled with intense networks of loyalty and comradeship, which are mixed with strong feelings of anger and a kind of ‘every man for himself’ struggle for advancement. Loyalty combined with suspicion makes officers depend on their peers, and at the same time they are predisposed to seeing them as dangerous. Many officers at different levels in the Ugandan police are afraid of becoming victims of blackmail while others are constantly and actively engaged in power games. I observed that most intrigue stems from competition for wet deployments, and though these are officially premised on professional competencies and job demands, meritocracy is often superseded by godfather constellations, alliance formations and lobbying. This is the first ethnographic study of the Ugandan police and certainly strengthens the literature on the police studies. What I revealed about policing in Uganda will provide a springboard for further research on policing in other African countries and policing more generally. The findings can be used as the basis to light the path to our better understanding of how police forces work and the factors that shape the policing arena. Though results cannot be considered a definitive blueprint for police forces, it reflects several helpful themes that are present elsewhere.

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Index

A Administrative, command and operational structures, xxv, 1–20 Agricultural crimes, 112, 116, 117, 151 Arbitration, 48, 54, 55 Arresting before investigations, 78, 86 Astronomical growth of the Ugandan police, xxv B Blackmailing, 58, 130, 138, 149, 152 Breathalyser, xxvi, 20, 104, 105, 108 C Colonial origins of the Ugandan police, 1 Commanders’ relations with people of status, 48, 59, 98 Competition for wet deployments, 152 Cost sharing of investigations, 68, 83–84, 87 Crime album, 112, 125–127, 150 Crime preventer scheme, 22, 37, 42–46 Crime rates in harvest period, 116–118 Criminal infiltration, 85–87 Criminal investigations, xv, xvi, xxv, 2, 7, 47, 67–87, 139, 147 D District Police Commander (DPC), xxi, xxv, 5, 9, 14, 33, 35, 39, 40, 47–54, 56–59, 61,

64, 76, 77, 81, 95, 104, 112, 113, 115, 117, 124, 140, 151 Drink-driving operations, xxiv, xxv, 90, 103–107, 148 G General Kale Kayihura, xxii, 1, 4–8, 10–18, 22, 26–29, 38, 39, 46, 48, 50, 54, 70, 76, 93, 103, 113, 130, 133, 134, 145 I Identification of suspects by secret ballot, 112, 115, 125–127 Intrigue in the police, 66, 129, 134, 138, 141, 142 K Kawunyemu, 90, 104–109 L Legal mandate, 4–6, 61, 144 N Negotiating traffic offenses, xxv, 18, 97 O Organisational politics, xii, xxvi, 129–137, 139–143

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 J. Kagoro, Inside an African Police Force, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-14992-4

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164 P Pocket files, 68, 74, 76, 79–82, 87, 147 Police character during elections, 29–32, 35–36, 44 Police-client negotiations, xii, xv Police commanders, xxi, xxv, 35–38, 40, 41, 43, 44, 47–66, 146 Police counter, xxiv, 68, 71–72, 106, 112 Police stations, xv, xvi, xx, xxi, xxiv, xxvi, 2, 11, 13, 18, 19, 41, 45, 46, 52, 61, 62, 64, 65, 71, 72, 75, 76, 79, 83, 84, 87, 90–92, 97, 98, 103, 105, 107, 111, 112, 114–116, 118, 120, 123–126, 137, 150 Political demonstrations, 28, 29, 44, 146 Political opposition, 69 Political policing, vii, xii, xxv, 21–46, 56, 69, 70, 145, 146 Post-colonial disorder, 4 Practical norms, xiii, xvi, xvii, xxv, xxvi, 67–87, 90, 96–98, 101, 104, 109, 127, 136, 144–151 Presidential convoy, 29, 90, 102–103 President Yoweri Museveni, xxiii, 4, 5, 9, 14, 16, 22, 25–27, 29, 33, 38–41, 43, 50, 85, 94, 103, 136, 139, 143, 145 R Regime security, 21, 22, 26, 31, 87 Regional Police Commander (RPC), xxiv, xxv, 5, 9, 14, 35, 39, 40, 47–59, 61, 62, 64, 66, 76, 81, 95, 98, 104, 112, 115–117, 121, 127, 138, 140, 151 Rural policing, xxvi, 112–114, 118, 127, 150

Index S Soft power strategies, 36–39, 46 Station Dairy (SD), 52, 71, 72, 79, 86, 96, 113, 116 Strategies to avoid dry assignments, 130 Street-level bureaucracy, xiii–xvi, 90, 109, 144, 147 T Territorial commanders, xxvi, 9, 10, 14, 47–50, 146, 147 The Long one, 90, 102–103 The National Resistance Movement (NRM), vii, xii, xxv, 3, 4, 10–12, 15–17, 21, 22, 25–29, 32, 33, 35–44, 46, 50, 62–64, 70, 145 Traffic police, xv, xxi, xxv, xxvi, 18, 89–109, 144, 146–148 U Uganda Police Force (UPF), viii, xi, xii, xv, xviii–xx, xxiii–xxv, xxvii, 1, 4–11, 13, 14, 16–21, 43, 47, 67, 69, 70, 75, 77, 78, 80–83, 87, 89–92, 97, 112, 130, 133–135, 147 W Wet deployment, 10, 30, 35, 39, 41, 42, 45, 47, 59, 81, 92, 96, 109, 130, 138, 140, 141, 146–148 Witchcraft beliefs in policing, 120