ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the relationship between the actions of the South African Police Service (SAPS) and police legitimacy during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021. Select aspects of the ‘trust-diminishing’ police behaviours framework devised by Goldsmith (2005) were used to analyse the SAPS’s approach to policing during the COVID-19 pandemic. The analysis demonstrates that South African communities, especially in poorer areas, regularly experienced indifference, low levels of police professionalism and incompetence from the police. Moreover, trust in the police, and subsequently police legitimacy, was also undermined by the National Coronavirus Command Council’s requirement that the police enforce several unpopular regulations, especially the prohibition on the sale of tobacco products and alcohol. Police legitimacy was further diminished by pervasive corruption within the SAPS and militarised approaches to police work which resulted in numerous incidents of excessive use of force by police officials.
