Policing Criminality and Insurgency in Africa

Book excerpt: Policing Criminality and Insurgency in Africa: Perspectives on the Changing Wave of Law Enforcement provides critical insights into the trends and patterns of crime and insurgency in contemporary African society. In Africa criminals and insurgents are becoming more resourceful, smart, and connected, as criminal syndicates are increasingly deploying modern technologies to commit crimes in ways and manners that are profoundly daring, and on a transnational and global scale. Meanwhile, the capacity of local, state, and security forces to stem the tide of crimes and insurgencies is decimated by dwindling resources on the part of the state due to official corruption, down-sizing of public institutions and a fierce competition for resources between security and other developmental agencies. In this volume, the contributors, who are expert academics in policing and security in Africa as well as security practitioners, provide detailed explanations of the new wave of crime, characterized by cyber insecurity, terror financing, the proliferation of small arms and light weapons, and transnational networking among criminal syndicates. The volume forensically explores how these complex waves and emerging trends of criminality and insurgency impact on the socio-economic and political development of Africa. Editors, Usman A. Tar and Dawud Muhammad Dawud highlight how these factors affect and shape policing and law enforcement in an era of “smart crimes” and insurgency within the continent.