Louis Theroux: Law And Disorder
Monday at 8.30pm
Louis joins Philadelphia's police department, patrolling an area that has over 400 homicides a year, drug dealers on every corner, and where carrying a gun is part of everyday life.
Louis Theroux: Law And Disorder - Killadelphia
The genial, award-winning presenter signs up for his most dangerous assignment patrolling the crime-ridden streets of Philadelphia with the local law enforcement.
Louis joins Philadelphias police department, patrolling an area that has over 400 homicides a year, drug dealers on every corner and where carrying a gun is part of everyday life.
Embedded within Phillys rapid-response team, Louis feels a palpable sense of adrenalin mixed with frustration as police and gangs take each other on night after night, but theres also camaraderie which develops between the officers despite these hugely stressful situations.
Louis senses a society trying to contain a lawlessness born out of poverty, mistrust and segregation. Over time, he sees a complex picture evolve: yes, there are good guys, bad guys, guns and violence but there is also tenderness and compassion found in the most unexpected of places.
By virtue of what they see day-in, day-out this life inevitably takes its toll on the officers who, paradoxically just like those they are policing, find it very difficult to ever feel safe and to ever completely trust others.
Louis Theroux: Law And Disorder - Johannesburg
Despairing of the capability of the police and the courts to protect them, many have turned to an industry of private security offering protection for a price. Are the sometimes brutal methods of these private police really a solution, or just another part of the problem?
The first stop for Louis is a meeting with William Mayangoni, the local co-ordinator for a security firm known as Mapogo. Based on the outskirts of Diepsloot, one of the squatter camps that rings Johannesburg, William investigates thefts for his mainly white clients. When he catches a suspect, he gives them medicine: the alleged offender is beaten with a leather whip known as a sjambok.
Although his clients seem to support what they see as an African solution to an African problem, Williams methods alienate the people of Diepsloot. Finally, their patience snaps, and William has to call out the real police in order to protect himself from the vicious threat of the mob.
In the centre of Johannesburg, a security company called Bad Boyz works in an area called Hillbrow, notorious for its high crime rate. Louis meets company director Hendrik De Klerk, who explains that much of their activity involves reclaiming and securing buildings that have been taken over or hijacked by criminal gangs who illegally take rent from tenants. Louis watches dramatic evictions unfold, in which the police and security companies arent afraid to use force to kick out the protesting residents, and progress often involves turfing families out onto the streets.
While on patrol, Bad Boyz introduce Louis to an unseen
Johannesburg underworld. Here, he meets the gang boss known only as
The Chairman and is escorted into a hijacked skyscraper to meet
residents who have lived for years without electricity or water. As
he watches Bad Boyz protect their buildings and tenants, Louis
begins to wonder about their readiness to use violence, and
witnesses the compromises that are made to keep order in a violent
city.
