Ethics and ethos in the South African Police Service: JHB Central

Section 195 (1)(a) of the Constitution of the
Republic of South Africa, 1996 provides that, in
Public Administration, a high standard of
professional ethics must be promoted and
maintained. The South African Police Service's Code
of Conduct (1997) provides that "the police service
should work actively towards preventing any form of
corruption and bringing those quilty of unethical
conduct to justice". The Service Integrity
Framework of the SAPS Strategic Plan Document
(2002/5) provides that "police officers should be
encouraged to resist and expose any form of
unethical conduct and to improve management and
supervision thereof". This means that the
individual police officers should display a high
level of professional ethics in the provision of
safety and security to members of the public.
However, according to the Indepent Complaints
Directorate's Annual Report (2003/4) "there is a
rising levels of unethical conduct amongst
individual police officers nationally".

This dissertation aims to analyse the implementation
of an ethical framework in the SAPS with specific
reference to the Crime Prevention Unit in the JHB
Central Police