Die houding van Swart en Wit Skoliere jeens die Suid‐Afrikaanse polisie : ‘n oefening in politieke sosialiser‐ingstudies

Abstract

The role played by the police within the South African political process has been somewhat neglected by political scientists and sociologists seeking to analyse the complexities of this deeply divided society. There has moreover been a dearth of empirically‐based probes into the overtly political aspects of the South African Police, while research concerning attitudes held by members of society regarding the police has been non‐existent. This study is an attempt to rectify the situation somewhat, in that we propose to empirically examine the attitude of both Black and White members of society and place it within a political context.

Logistics and convenience limited our survey to Black and White matriculants on the Witwatersrand. Our basic hypotheses that Black matriculants in the Witwatersrand will be negative towards both the police and the political system has been broadly influenced by similar surveys conducted in America (Easton and Dennis, 1969; Rodgers and Taylor, 1971). This hypotheses was surprisingly found to be partially invalid as Black matriculants, while rejecting the political systems values regarded the police rather more positively than expected. Possible reasons for this include (albeit speculatively): the very high crime rate in black areas, a differentiation between the riot squad and uniformed police made by our respondents, a differentiation between certain laws and those who implement them also made by respondents and attempts made by the police after 1976 to improve their image among Blacks. A further, non‐empirical conclusion made from this study is that Black matriculants draw a sophisticated distinction between the legal‐administrative and political‐military functions of the police.