Amanda Dissel

Amanda Dissel has a BA and LLB degree from the University of the Witwatersrand. She practiced law as an attorney from 1991 to 1994. She joined the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation (CSVR) in 1994 where she was Manager of the Criminal Justice Programme for 15 years. During this period she was involved in research, policy-based advocacy and direct interventions related to policing, imprisonment and rehabilitation of offenders, torture prevention, restorative justice, child justice and crime prevention. While at CSVR she was part of a team that compiled a series of research papers on the violent nature of crime that was commissioned by the Justice, Crime Prevention and Security Cluster of government. Since leaving the CSVR in 2009, Ms Dissel worked as an independent consultant on a range of projects. In regard to policing, her work has included research in several southern African countries including Lesotho, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. She was involved in drafting indicators for the implementation of the Code of Conduct for the Southern African Regional Chiefs of Police Cooperation Organisation (SARPCCO) and in compiling an assessment of policing against these standards. She has also been involved in research on gender based violence and policing in the Southern African Region for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC); and for the Open Society Initiative of Southern Africa conducted a scoping study on the nexus between the criminal justice system and mental and intellectual disability in Zambia.  Her work has also looked at safety and security concerns facing lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex individuals (LGBTI). On prison-related issues, she recently completed a research report on staffing numbers in the Correctional Services for Sonke Gender Justice. From August 2012 to October 2014, Ms Dissel served as Secretary to the Commission of Inquiry into allegations of police inefficiency and a breakdown in relations between the police and community in Khayelitsha. Amanda Dissel was the delegate in South Africa for the Geneva-based Association for the Prevention of Torture (APT) from 2009 to April 2015. In May 2015, Ms Dissel joined the Western Cape Department of Community Safety as the Director of Policy and Research.