ABSTRACT
This chapter illustrates how officers' personal identities are shaped by the social performances prescribed by, and emerging in response to, the South African Police Service (SAPS) organisational culture, and how this shapes their work. It focuses on organisational deceptions, and how social performances contribute to officers' own suspicion and mistrust of the public, and of each other. The chapter suggests that, like most police agencies, the SAPS is an organisation heavily invested in the production of a fiction to justify its existence and give legitimacy to its actions. This fiction is that it is a rational, effective, evidence-based, and rule-bound organisation made up of well-trained officers engaged in common-sense activities that make South Africa safe. Police are the creators and defenders of fictions, and the manufacturers of culture and identity. In the absence of the good shift, the SAPS is a team of actors working together to present a fictional front.
