The Merilyn Show
What does it really mean to lead your world in an age of collapse, awakening, and reinvention? Merilyn speaks with entrepreneurs, thinkers, creatives and changemakers who are dismantling the old rules of business, success, power and self.
These aren’t celebrity interviews.
These are legacy conversations.
For those creating what doesn’t yet exist.
Hosted by Merilyn Wilson Beretta, founder of the Tall Poppy Society, Lead Your World and WowArchetypes.
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The Merilyn Show
330. Criminalising Care | Prof India Thusi
What happens when a legal scholar rides shotgun with police—and builds trust with sex workers—on the streets of Johannesburg?
Professor India Thusi spent nearly two years embedded in both worlds. The result? A radical inside look at how policing really works—and why the criminalisation of sex work does more harm than good.
In this episode, she shares the story of being detained during her research, the power dynamics it exposed, and what her journey from Yonkers to Johannesburg taught her about justice, race, and reform.
If you care about policing, power, or what it means to build safety in society—this conversation will shift something in you.
Contact India online here
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Website: merilyn.com
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Hello there and welcome to the show. Today I'm talking with a very tall poppy, india Thusi. India is a professor of law at the Indiana University. She's a lecturer and her research examines social hierarchies related to policing, race, gender and sexual behavior. Honestly, releasing this episode now, with what's going on in the world, is incredibly timely. Welcome to the show, india, thank you. Thanks for having me. There's human rights issues all over the world, and especially in your home country of the USA. So why South Africa? Why have you based much of your research there?
Speaker 2:I first came to South Africa while I was a student and I was interested in South Africa because there was this firm commitment to embracing human rights after apartheid. The constitution is viewed as being very progressive. I was a law student interested in human rights issues and so I became really interested in South Africa and doing research there and I went back and so I did research that really focused on the policing institution and some of the challenges of reforming a police institution that was really the enforcement arm of apartheid into an institution that would now exist in this human rights framework. That would now exist in this human rights framework.
Speaker 1:When did you know that this kind of work was your thing, your wow, the thing that lit you up, the cause that you wanted to pursue? What's the story there?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I knew I wanted to be a lawyer when I was pretty young and then, like everyone in my family was disappointed. I didn't want to be like a doctor that's kind of like what they would push people to try and do but I just wanted to be a lawyer and I think maybe is just a commitment to fairness and, you know, having that, even as a young person, kind of thinking in that sort of way. But it was something that you know stayed with me. Even in high school I did like the mock trial team and I interned for my city court. I grew up in Yonkers, new York, and so I interned for the court there and through college you know I knew I was interested in doing like civil rights type of work and so you know I guess it's just something that's stayed with me.
Speaker 2:How I ended up doing my particular type of work actually is it's been, I guess, an unexpected journey in some ways, and so you know I do research.
Speaker 2:I've done research on the policing of sex workers, so it's not a topic I thought I'd ever do research on.
Speaker 2:Part of what got me interested in policing is just seeing some inequities in the criminal system and thinking about ways to address them and how you can bring a human rights understanding to address these issues, police as a way of looking at the criminal system.
Speaker 2:But as I was doing my research and I had just moved to South Africa, I actually clerked for the constitutional court, which is like their Supreme Court or their highest court in South Africa, and I was doing the research and I started to hear these stories about, you know, sex workers who were having these really violent encounters with the police, and I decided to investigate it a little bit further, and I noticed there wasn't much research that was focused on policing and police as an institution that looked at sex work or really anything that had an impact specific to mostly women or that were that focused on gender, and so I thought it would be an interesting place to look at these different, you know, ideas around.
Speaker 2:You know what it means to be a police officer who is, you know, policing women who you know maybe don't fit into some of the norms in dominant society. What are some of the tensions there? And then, in this country, where police have this affirmative duty to respect everyone's human rights and it's in the Constitution and the Constitutional Court has, you know, found that what like? What does the policing actually look like? And so it just presented all these really interesting and unique issues that I didn't find was really being discussed.
Speaker 1:Do the police love you or hate you?
Speaker 2:was really being discussed. Do the police love you or hate you? I don't know At this point. You know I wouldn't be shocked if you know some hated me.
Speaker 2:But you know, as I was doing my research, I did have to find a way to build relationship with police officers.
Speaker 2:So the way that I did my research is, you know, I'm an anthropologist, so I'm a lawyer and I'm also an anthropologist, and you know, one of the main ways that anthropologists do research is by doing fields work and engaging in what we call participant observation, where you're participating in what's happening in the scene but you're mostly like really observing over time what's happening in a particular place. And so I was working with both police and sex workers over the course of close to two years, observing like their interactions, observing police as they were going on patrols, and so during that process I had to develop relationships. I had a regular police officer partner who I became pretty close with. Now, how they would interpret my findings or what their thoughts are about it, like after the fact I'm not entirely certain. But you know these are just human beings. You know people who recognize some of the limitations of what they're doing and that there's room for things to be really changed.
Speaker 1:You wrote a book called Policing Bodies. What was the motivation behind that? What drove you and what's that passion that's gripped you through doing that book?
Speaker 2:The book is really telling the story of policing in Johannesburg and the policing of sex work, but it has insights that are really relevant as we're at this moment where, in a lot of countries and a lot of cities and societies, people are thinking about what is the appropriate role for police. We know that there are these risks of having violent encounters, and so what should the relationship be with police, particularly when they're dealing with more vulnerable communities or more marginalized groups? And so you know what this book does it's looking at how the policing of sex work occurs in Johannesburg, and I was able to get access to both the police officers. So police are doing the work. It took about a year just to get that research approval and, you know, go in the patrol car with them, sit with them as they're in the police station, get their perspective on it, as well as do research with sex workers and their perspective of the policing. And so I did interviews, I did participant observation, which meant, you know, I'd often go on these 12 hour patrols and I would see officers as they're policing sex work, because I chose locations that had sex work hotspots. But I also saw them as they were pulling people over. There were high speed chases. There were a lot of other things, things that were occurring as they were just engaging in ordinary policing, and so that ends up being, you know, part of what I observed as well.
Speaker 2:And you know, with the sex workers, you know I observed them while they were working and there were some that I, you know, developed some relationships with, where you know we would go out socially, you know, and other times when they weren't actually actively working, and just speak about some of their challenges, speak about their family backgrounds, and you know what brought them into this and what their experiences have been. And so you know, from doing this, you know research. I wrote this book that provides, you know, these different perspectives from groups that are often thought of as being in opposition with each other, and you know, in direct conflict, and just provide this account of. You know how the policing of sex work occurs and what are some of the insights that we can take from it that apply broadly as we examine the role of policing. And you know I also, you know, look at questions about. You know feminism too, because there have been a lot of feminist arguments about.
Speaker 2:you know whether prostitution should be legal or not, and you know some of this has been described, as you know, some of the like old sex wars that occurred within feminism. And you know, what I was trying to do here is like do some grounded research, like really look at how it was occurring and look to see what would be more beneficial for sex workers, like what would actually improve people's lives, not necessarily to take like a political stance, because I think you know, before I started really engaging in this project and writing the book, I didn't have a particular standpoint on it. I was pretty agnostic about the whole thing.
Speaker 1:What's been the reception of the book and who reads it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's been really great, you know it's been. It's been interesting because it's been a pretty broad audience. So it's people who have been focused on like gender type of issues, like feminists, or people who are like actively engaged in that debate. I've gotten people who are just focused on like policing issues, some people who are just what I would consider consider to be like activists focused on like racial justice and scholars in that area, and then and then, just like I've been on some you know I was like on the gist recently just like some other kind of audiences that I wouldn't necessarily expect to have shown some interest.
Speaker 2:So it's, it's been good. It's been good, you know, just meeting a lot of different people and just, you know, hearing like why people are interested, because it's been different things. Sometimes it's, you know, they know someone who was a sex worker and they were just curious to you know, hear an account of it. Sometimes it's just, you know, they think, you know, maybe they're a person who's generally conservative and they're also a libertarian and they want to learn. You know, like what are some of the arguments against more criminalization or against more, you know, government interventions? And then sometimes there's like super progressive people who think that you know, we should just support everyone and you know, and the like, and so it's actually been pretty diverse in terms of the people I've been able to speak to about the book.
Speaker 1:You're operating in a world that has got that sexism and you're stepping out as a leader in this space. How has that journey been for you? I mean, you've got that very clever research hat on, almost, so you probably see that you open doors that others in an activist role probably don't. But what have you seen? What any stories you can tell? Or how do you feel when I call you a leader in this space?
Speaker 2:I guess I hadn't really thought of myself in that way, but I think that it's true, it's. You know, I tried to be really deliberate with the research and have all these footnotes, but you know, maybe some of it is known that you know, without it, the history and as well as contemporary things that are occurring, as well as theory, and so you know, just providing that support and making sure that you know I was being pretty thorough and what I was doing was really important for me and I think you know, kind of lays the foundation for other work that I'll be doing right and where I might not, you know, use as many footnotes but still have that work already out there and you know, be able to establish myself as an expert already because I've written this book.
Speaker 1:So what's next, India? What's the movement you want to create? What's the revolution that you're creating? Come on, you can't tell me. There's something in this, not something in that. I mean, look at your hair, which we're going to talk about. There's a rebel in you. Tell us what movement are you creating, what change are you going to create in the next, say, five years?
Speaker 2:I would want for the decriminalisation of sex work to be taken more seriously, become more of a topic of discussion. More of a topic of discussion public discourse is for people to really consider the harms that criminalization brings to sex workers is counterproductive. You know, there's so much police resources expended on it, people end up getting arrested and then released and arrested and released, and this is the case in South Africa, it's the case in the US, it's the case in Australia, it's the case like pretty much you know most places where you have this cycle, where you know criminalization of sex workers has just not been effective. It just hasn't met the goals that are stated. That is intended to me and so for me, I think that would be a really important thing that I'd like to see and I think it could be done with an active movement, with organizing.
Speaker 2:I think it could be done where this is taken, like seriously and we're moving toward a decriminalization, use police, like you know, what I observed, which was interesting, was that even for innocent encounters because you're dealing with you know officer who's been trained to, you know kill, that is armed small encounters can very quickly escalate right, and so you can create the situations where violence can occur where you actually didn't even need an officer to be present to begin with. So, really, just reexamining the ways that we use the police, in a lot of communities in the US, especially in South Africa, you have it where the police end up, for example, not being trained and being able to identify if someone's having like a mental health crisis or something, and then end up like killing someone where maybe a different professional would have taken a different approach right, and so really, you know, pushing that forward in terms of you know how we're using police in society is something else you know. I'd also, you know, like to see.
Speaker 1:Because in some quarters and it's it's so big, you know, with the death of George Floyd, and you know, the things that go on police are sometimes seen as the enemy and to be feared, aren't they?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, I think like for some communities, they've experienced so much police violence or negative interactions that when they see the police, they don't see someone who's there to bring them safety. They've seen someone who's there, might have experienced similar things or are re-experiencing. You know what they saw last week? Right, we didn't have the video for that. Maybe the person had died, they were just severely injured, right. But, like you know, when you have that, it becomes part of the fabric of that community, and so the way that they experience policing is not just as a public good, it ends up being a source of violence so the work that you're doing is phenomenal, like if it can make a change in the way society perceives police, the way police systems work.
Speaker 1:look, I just encourage you to just go for the moon. It's exciting what you're doing and it's fascinating, absolutely fascinating, and, can I say, brave. You're very brave in what you do. Do you feel sometimes a little bit scared in what you do? Have you had any experiences that go? Oh my gosh, that was close yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there have been times where it's you know, things have felt where when I've been nervous or afraid. There's there's this one moment as I was doing my research and I speak a bit about it in the book. So I was doing research with the police and sex workers. At this point I had already formed close relationships with sex workers and close relationships with the police. However, a different police department had come into the community, like they didn't ordinary police this area. But it came into that area and they had just rounded up a bunch of people, didn't arrest them, or they said they weren't arrested but wouldn't let them go. And some of the sex workers called me and I went there and when I went there I asked them you know what was going on. It was pretty close to where I lived because I lived in the community. And when I spoke to after I finished speaking to the sex workers to see what was happening, I went to leave and the officers wouldn't let me go and so they just kind of blocked me in that area and I asked I was like am I arrested? And they're like no, but we'll put handcuffs on you. I was like, oh, my goodness, so it was. Yeah, that was such a close call, you know.
Speaker 2:I ended up finding a way to kind of like sneak out. But you know, I just knew I definitely did not want to be arrested and it was definitely a moment that you know kind of illustrated for me. You know, there is some danger when you, when you're doing this research, and especially when you're forming really close relationships with people and who are, you know, participating in your research, because you know, the lines between me being a researcher versus a friend started to blur at times. So you know the fact that they're calling me it was like two in the morning and I just, you know, kind of pop up and go like if it were, you know, just one of my friends. I'm going to like help out with something and you know you created a bit of a dangerous situation for me.
Speaker 1:What has been the most difficult part of writing your book and doing the work that you do? What? What's the? What do you find hard?
Speaker 2:The interesting thing for me. But what I find difficult is making sure like staying motivated to really like share the research and, you know, go out there and like work toward that world I want to work toward in a concrete way, because for me it's easy for me to kind of like go into the books, into the research or even into the field and just think about my next project and jump to the next thing and jump to the next thing. And for me it's really also thinking about, like you know, the, the, the market, marketing strategy and like really making sure that I'm prioritizing that just as much as I'm prioritizing like the substance, because it can be easy, especially for professors, um, to just think about like the research part and then like just, you know, leave the book in the shelf somewhere, and I'm really trying not to do that what's your next book going to be about?
Speaker 2:I think my next book actually might be a memoir about growing up in Yonkers, new York, and really just focus on, like, my high school years. And you know, yonkers is pretty interesting because I didn't know at the time but the school that I school district I went to actually what has was categorized as being racially segregated and they had this desegregation order that was being monitored during that time, and so you know, there I experienced a lot of the effects of that without realizing it while I was at school and so just kind of re-examining and also tracking like what was happening with that case at the same time I think would be like a fun project for me to do.
Speaker 1:How did you escape that? As sane as?
Speaker 2:How did you escape that? As sane and as together as you are, or hasn? In some ways, I feel like it's made me just kind of appreciate certain things better and just have to be competent in ways that maybe other just doing whatever needs to be done to get to where I need to get to at every step and just trying to like exude, you know, confidence and competence which is, you know, been important and in some ways, you know, those experiences have actually been beneficial to me, because I know, you know, I think sometimes people walk away from certain challenges or, you know, aren't willing to take certain risks, challenges, or, you know, aren't willing to, you know, take certain risks and for me I am, I'm not afraid of them because I feel like I've seen worse or I've been through worse.
Speaker 1:Who has influenced you to be who you are, dead or alive? Who or who do you admire?
Speaker 2:You know I don't often say this, but I think you know my mom has actually been quite an inspiration for me just in terms of always being confident and you know, going through all my different crazy phases and being supportive despite them and other people I admire I think you know Catherine Dunham is this was this anthropologist and dancer and I guess I just really admired her ability to like bring both of her interests into the research and work that she was doing. And you know she developed this. You know dance style, the denim technique, and you know I've always been interested in dance as well, and so she was someone who really inspired me. Like you don't have to just fit into one box, you can be different things and their ways to kind of merge your different interests, and so she's been an inspiration for me as well.
Speaker 1:India. It's been so good chatting with you and getting to know you. I find your work fascinating and, as I said before, I think you're very brave and I think I truly hope the best for you that you really break down walls and smash through more ceilings, so yay. But I want you to project yourself into the future now, and I've been asking this question at the end of my recent series and I want to ask it of you at the end of your life, what could I show off about you? What would be the greatest honor? What? What would you love your life to have ever achieved? What would make you smile?
Speaker 2:I guess I like to think that I help form different communities of people who are interested in making this world better. Um, you know, whether it's through different workshops, conferences, just bringing people together, my friends and you know just being having a good, fantastic life and just working together to try to make this world a little bit better, that's, that's, I think, what I'd like.
Speaker 1:It's brilliant, and if there's one thing that you could change about the world in your lifetime, what would it be?
Speaker 2:There would be no racial injustice. Wouldn't that be great? That would be even more society let's hope we see it in our lifetime. And no sexism too. Oh, wouldn't that be no sexism. Thank you, I've really been enjoying the conversation.
Speaker 1:Thank you so have I and thank you for your time. All the best in johannesburg and I can't wait you should be. I can't wait to look out and see you in the news someday. A lot more, I really do believe. A bigger platform for you and all the best. I admire you and I honour you for the work you're doing in the world. Thank you, thank you so much Thank you.