Abstract:
Law enforcement officers have come under serious scrutiny during the Covid-19 lockdown in
South Africa. This was particularly true during level 5 lockdown when the role of the security
services was to ensure adherence to regulations that curtailed freedom of movement and
association. Cases of human rights violations peppered press reports and there were few
reports of positive police responses. Yet a different picture emerged in Durban where a harm
reduction programme was established for homeless people in moderate to severe withdrawal
from heroin use. Police were involved in planning this medical intervention and played a
critical role in securing the programme and its beneficiaries. This article demonstrates,
through interviews with police and from notes taken during participant observation, how the
police’s view of drug use changed dramatically from being prohibitionist and punitive to being
supportive and seeking bi-directional relations. Interviews with police who were stationed in
the lockdown facilities reveal a humanisation process where for the first time, they were able
to comprehend the life stories of the homeless people who use drugs and where the homeless
were able to configure the complex mandate of the police. The outcome was that police in
Durban who were part of this intervention during the Covid-19 lockdown became advocates
for harm reduction, fully supporting not only substitution therapy but also other harm
reduction services previously viewed as controversial. A new habitus emerged, albeit
temporarily and limited to Durban’s Central Business District, within the police occupational
culture. This was spurred by a dramatically changed structural field in which they operated
during Covid-19 lockdown.
