Shifting gears or slamming the brakes? A review of police behavioural change in a post-apartheid police unit

Since the mid-1990s, the state police agency in South Africa has embarked on programmes to "transform" itself into a service that is suited to a democratic political dispensation in South Africa. This has meant that policing has had to become more tolerant, community-oriented and democratic. This article attempts to appraise this transformation process by looking at the conduct of the Public Order Police (POP), a unit of the South African Police Service (SAPS), in recent years. Observations of the unit and interviews with members of all ranks demonstrate that significant change in police responses toward the public has taken place. However, members of the unit repeat past behaviour despite organizational reform processes. Drawing on the work of Janet Chan and Edgar Schein, resistance to change is explained in terms of deeply held assumptions, attitudes and values.