Criminal Procedure Bill: A deliberate political tactic to criminalise the poor!

In this article, Real Alternative Party discusses the theoretical framework of the Criminal Procedure and Evidence ( Controlled Investigations) Bill, by attempting to identify its causes and drivers. RAP briefly reviews how the concept of neoliberalism – a political theory guiding politics of Domkrag, has contributed to the founding of the Criminal Procedure and Evidence ( Controlled Investigations) Bill. It elucidates the overall architecture of the institutional maze which contains it, and the deep causes of the shift to the punitive management of poverty.

The Criminal Procedure and Evidence ( Controlled Investigations) Bill has to be seen from the longer histories and wider contexts of the political economy of BDP politics. It requires a sustained analysis of how economy ( poverty, wealth, independence, competition, and so on) and formal and informal politics are also co- produced under BDP system of rule. The Criminal Procedure and Evidence Bill is not aimed at fighting crime, as its supporters insist, or criminalising elites in the opposition, as its critics assert but rather it is about having to further BDP state neoliberal economic policies prioritising capitalist market relations and profit accumulation. For RAP, the Criminal Procedure and Evidence Bill illustrates the wide and complex web of power relations enacted around the criminalisation of poverty, and related ideas and practices. It reveals a close link between the ascendancy of neoliberalism, as ideological project and governmental practice mandating submission to the “free market” and the celebration of “individual responsibility” in all realms, on the one hand, and the deployment of punitive and proactive law- enforcement policies targeting delinquency and the categories trapped in the margins and cracks, on the other hand.

Like the Anglophone nations, the BDP State has strongly consolidated its nature as a neo - liberal market economy, leading to significant downsizing of government and strong pay restraint. Neoliberalism is the hard edge of individualized constructions of risk and responsibility where vulnerability is reconfigured as individual ( and at times family or community) failure, deception, and criminality. As a practical matter, neoliberalism reframes the structural creation of vulnerable individuals and populations ( and the refusal of collective risk and responsibility for the non- wealthy) into a neoliberal vision of responsible and irresponsible ( or simply bad) individuals in competitive markets. This trend is part of broad socio- economic dynamics in contemporary liberal capitalist societies where state and private practices have increasingly come to over- regulate people with severely limited economic resources. BDP as a party that subscribes to neo - liberalism, holds that one of the limitations preventing enhancement and competitiveness of the economy is the inefficiency, unreliability and high costs of public services. To solve these problems in providing public services, the privatisation programme is considered a “strategic component of the economic policy” and it comprises several objectives: a) to reduce the number of state entities; b) to transfer public sector activities to the private sector; c) to sell some companies or assets. The UNDP report ( May 2021), on Inequality in Botswana states that – “As in other developing countries, Botswana is experiencing a process of structural transformation with a premature tertiarization of the economy.”

Paradoxically, faithful compliance with these economic recipes, imposed by international financial bodies such as IMF and World Bank, has made services more expensive, weakened the agricultural, livestock sectors, caused a deterioration of living conditions, increased the inequality gap, accelerated the debt spiral and significantly widened the gap between those who have more and those who have less. Moreover, changing the national economy to tertiarization economic determinant perplexes in that our economy is still wanting in ensuring food security and manufacturing demands as well as related quality labour skills needed for the sectors. The transition to neo- liberalism by BDP has produced a widening gap between rich and poor and sharpened inequality in Botswana. All these measures, have given rise to a strong transfer of purchasing power towards the richer sectors to the detriment of the income of the poorer sectors of the population.

The ( IMF, 2012) report states that “Botswana’s economic model has not always been inclusive, and it has disproportionally benefitted a small portion of the population.” Botswana is, presently, one of the most unequal countries globally with the 9th highest Gini coefficient according to the UNDP report, 2020.