Although immigration officials do not carry weapons, they often work closely with armed private security officers, police officers and soldiers.
A large proportion of murals, pieces and works are done without permission and so are still at risk of fines, bribes, beatings by private security and police harassment.
I heard first-hand accounts of violent encounters with armed private security guards, police bearing assault rifles, and aggressive arrests by the hundreds.
Over the coming weeks, they were attacked with boulders and rocks by civilians flanked by armed private security and police officers.
The figures are low for the Wireless festival, where drug confiscations were conducted by private security and police present did not collect data relating to confiscations.
In some cases, the staggering numbers of PSCs' employed have altered significantly the private security to police ratio such as in India where the ratio is estimated to be as high as almost 5 to 1.
A spokesman for the anti-privatisation campaign announced that footage will be released showing that activists were assaulted by private security and police while being arrested.
It's a depressingly familiar narrative, thinking in particular of the 2010 documentary The Pipe - there we saw complete abuse of planning systems (at best, I'll try and stay civil), hiring thugs as private security, political policing, and the destruction of residents' livelihoods.
Participants in Cape Town and Johannesburg remarked on the increased visibility of police, private security at malls, and police volunteers, but not those in Rustenburg.
In the past, geographers have argued for a policing network that mainly consists of the police, private security companies and voluntary policing.
