Fifteenth International Conference on Interdisciplinary Social Sciences

Abstract

Police culture can be compared to blinders that are worn by horses so that they won’t be distracted by the things happening around them. Culture guides the daily routine activities or behaviour of a group of people, and for culture to be influential in one’s life, one has to believe in it. Culture determines how individuals socialise with one another as an in-group and also with individuals of the out-group. This research uses a survey format to assess the police culture theme of solidarity, isolation and cynicism among South African Police Service officers in nine provinces. Although a survey format is used in a research, it engages in a quasi-experimental pre-test/post-test repeated measures research (longitudinal) design. Although there are differences among South African Police Service police (SAPS) officers, overall there are signs of solidarity, isolation and cynicism among SAPS members. Attitudes of solidarity, isolation and cynicism are present among most police officials and have been present from the start of training and held, maintained or strengthened for the next years of their SAPS careers. This issue is problematic to the society with regards to community-orientated policing since they have to interact with the members of the community. To author’s best knowledge, longitudinal studies of police culture are rare to find, not much has been researched on this topic. However, this paper offers to bridge that gap by providing answers on longitudinal police attitudes towards the public within the police culture themes of isolation and cynicism attitudes.