Predisposed police culture attitudes: South African Police Service versus Justice Institute of British Columbia newcomers.

Abstract

This article aims to report on a comparative examination of South African Police Service’ (SAPS) and Justice Institute of British Columbia (JIBC) Police Academy newcomers, for indicators evincing the presence of police culture themes of isolation, solidarity and cynicism. Using a survey format, the research employs a quasi-experimental pre-test (first phase of a larger longitudinal study) design. Although there is significant variance among the South African Police Service (SAPS) and Justice Institute of British Columbia (JIBC) Police Academy newcomers, overall there are indicators of solidarity, isolation and cynicism present among SAPS recruits upon arrival for basic training, however, less so for the JIBC Police Academy recruits, especially in relation to the cynicism theme. The findings suggest that newcomers from both the South African Police Service (SAPS) and Justice Institute of British Columbia (JIBC) Police Academy arrive for basic training with already moderate attitudes in support of police culture themes of solidarity, isolation and cynicism. It is contended that recruits’ views are largely in place upon hiring and that the police occupation attracts people with certain values and attitudes similar to characteristic police culture themes of solidarity, isolation and cynicism. This finding also has theoretical importance in that it provides empirical support for the predispositional school of thought which believes that police officer behaviour can primarily be explained by the personality characteristics (traits), values and attitudes that the individual had prior to being employed by a police organisation. This article reports on a comparison of police culture themes of solidarity, isolation and cynicism attitudes between the South African Police Service’ (SAPS) and Justice Institute of British Columbia (JIBC) Police Academy newcomers at the start of basic training.