NCJ Number
208311
Journal
British Journal of Criminology Volume: 44 Issue: 6 Dated: November 2004 Pages: 866-888
Date Published
November 2004
Length
23 pages
Annotation
After reviewing the methodology and findings of four ethnographic studies of police agencies, the author describes her own ethnographic research with the Durban POP (Public Order Police) unit (South Africa).
Abstract
Ethnographic organizational research requires that the researcher become a participant/observer in the culture, policies, and practices of the organization over time in order to assess the dynamics and identify the variables related to organizational change. The author notes that although the popularity of ethnographic research in policing may have decreased, there are a number of significant police ethnographies that have been conducted in the past 15 years. She reviews four of these that have a common thread: Steve Herbert's 1997 study of the Los Angeles Police Department's attempt to control the territory in which it operates; Janet Foster's study (1989) of two inner-London police services; Joan Waldrop's study (1994-99) of the Soweto Flying Squad, which is an emergency-response unit for one of the most violent areas of South Africa; and the study of the New South Wales Police (Australia) by Janet Chan, Chris Devery, and Sally Doran (2003). The author then describes her experiences as a participant/observer in her ethnographic study of the Durban POP unit from March 1998 to February 2002. Her focus was on how and whether one of the apartheid state's most brutal police units had been able to transform itself into a representative, community-oriented, and human-rights-focused policing body. Through her observation, conversations, and interviews, she learned that significant behavioral change had occurred in the unit; however, there were times when they reverted to old and conditioned ways of policing. She attributes this to a deficiency in the cultural knowledge of the police. 49 references