Ulinzi Shirikishi: Popular Experiences of Hybrid Security Governance in Tanzania

Abstract

In the context of increasing academic and policy-related attention to 'hybrid' forms of security provision, which combine state and 'non-state' institutions, in Africa and elsewhere, this paper explores the implementation of community-based or 'participatory' policing (ulinzi shirikishi) in Tanzania. Through ulinzi shirikishi citizens are encouraged to form local security committees, organize neighbourhood patrols, and investigate reported crime. In contrast to earlier forms of state-sponsored sungusungu 'vigilantism' in Tanzania, community police are intended to cooperate with the Tanzania Police Force and to adhere to state law. Based on eleven month's fieldwork in three sub-wards of the city of Mwanza, this paper argues that community policing has been fairly effective in improving residents' perceptions of local safety. However, two important concerns emerge that may compromise the sustainability and legitimacy of community policing in the future. Firstly, organizing local policing entails considerable costs for 'communities', which disproportionately disadvantage the relatively poor. Secondly, controlling local service provision can enable individuals to pursue private gains, at the expense of the production of public goods. It is thus important to consider the development of hybridity over time towards models that may look less like community-based policing and more like commercial security provision. INTRODUCTIONThis paper explores an example of 'hybrid' security provision in urban Tanzania, involving the state police, local government, and 'communities'. In accordance with a community policing strategy introduced in 2006, citizens are encouraged to engage in ulinzi shirikishi (participatory or collaborative security) 1 through forming security committees, which organize night patrols, investigate reported crime and resolve disputes. This is not an 1 The term polisi jamii is also used to refer to community policing.2 entirely new approach in Tanzania, but draws on a well-documented history of local policing through sungusungu vigilantism. However, today's community policing diverges from its historical precursor in terms of the extent to which it is intended that police and organized citizens should cooperate in providing local security.This interpretation of community policing appears to represent a good fit with much current thinking regarding desirable forms of policing in Africa and elsewhere in the Global South.In many African contexts, governance might usefully be characterized as hybrid, whereby the state exists alongside a range of 'twilight institutions', which 'are not the state but However, recognition of the analytical utility of hybridity should not be conflated with assumptions about its practical usefulness as a policy template (Mallet 2010). Attempts to engage alternative institutions in security provision raise important empirical questions, regarding who benefits from hybrid arrangements, how any costs are distributed, both across communities and between communities and the stat...

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