- Title
- A psycho-educational approach towards aggression in the South African Police Service.
- Creator
- Mahapa, Lesiba Alex
- Subject
- Police brutality - South Africa, Aggressiveness - South Africa, Police psychology - South Africa
- Date
- 2012-08-16
- Type
- Mini-Dissertation
- Identifier
- uj:2565
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/10210/6017
- Description
- M.Ed., Our nation was founded on the principle that the individual has infinite dignity and worth. The South African Police Service exists to keep the nation secured and at peace by intensifying correct security measures throughout the country. The only way to ensure police productivity and create police professionalism is through all-inclusive human resource management that will involve all stakeholders in an organisation in decision making. Generally sound labour relations that consist of mutual respect; good faith bargaining and responsible conflict and dispute management mechanisms should prevail in the South African Police Services. It is therefore important to have legislation, policies and directives that should be effectively implemented to motivate and accelerate change in the behaviour of police officials. Glasser mentioned that human behaviour is influenced by the individual himself rather than by external forces but with police officials external influences contribute to a change in behaviour; thus they need support from the management of the South African Police Service. The psychological impact of experiences of aggression by police officials in the South African Police Service is discussed from a psycho-educational perspective. This perspective will encourage Police Inspectors' to deal with their experiences of aggression. The research nature of this study was primarily explorative, and also descriptive. The objective of this study was to explore and describe police officials' experiences of aggression in the South African Police Service. This research was of a qualitative nature. The sampling element was Police inspectors working under the jurisdiction of specific police stations in Gauteng Province. Data gathering methods used in this research were individual interviews and observations. The observation for this study was conducted by the researcher at the community service centre (charge office). A total of eleven interviews were conducted but only six were audiotaped and other participants used an answer sheet in responding to the interview and all of them were transcribed and edited. The participants had to comment on their experiences of aggression in the South African Police Service. These eleven interviews formed the basis of this study to facilitate the attainment of the primary objective, which was to explore and describe the experience of aggression by Police Inspectors in the South African Police Service. The data from these interviews were analysed using an open coding method. An independent coder did an analysis independent from the researcher. A consensus validation discussion was held with the independent coder on the codification of the data. The detailed discussion of results obtained from the interviews and observations were presented in verbatim quotes, descriptive and reflective notes and the illustration of emergent themes and categories. Rigour and adequacy were ensured by data collected and the results obtained from data analysis indicated convergence and saturation. The integration of trustworthiness, that is, credibility, transferability, dependability and confirmability were applied throughout the study. Ethical considerations and consent letters were presented to the participants, including preserving of anonymity, confidentiality and the ethical role of the researcher has adhered to. The research is very important as the experiences of aggression by police officials in the South African Police Service were explored and described. The research results indicated that there is tension among senior officers and junior police officials in the South African Police Service. Junior officials are of the opinion that their seniors ignore them when they are making decisions. The Police Inspectors under study are demoralised and tend to become negative towards the public. It is evident from the results that there is lack of effective communication between senior and junior staff in the South African Police Service. In conclusion, it is evident that aggression really exists in the workplace and officials are affected by such aggression. The guidelines of dealing with aggression in the South African Police Service were described in a psycho-education perspective.
- Contributor
- Prof. C.P.H. Myburgh ; Prof. M. Poggenpoel
- Full Text
- Hits: 1011
- Visitors: 1035
- Downloads: 196
Collections
ETDs
| Thumbnail | File | Description | Size | Format | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| View Details Download | CONTENT1 | PDF Document | 3 MB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download | ||
| View Details Download | MODS | MODS Metadata | 5 KB | XML Document | View Details Download |