ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on select behaviours enacted by officers on and off duty, with a focus on their misdemeanours. It suggests that officers are more respectful of rules and order where these are already established in the affluent city, and actively negate rules and order where they are weak, in the township and rural town. The chapter introduces two themes. First, a job in the South African Police Service (SAPS) serves a primarily instrumental purpose – it is about survival and upward mobility in an opportunity- and wealth-skewed society. Against these aspirations the doing of police work is secondary. Second, coercion in South African life shapes individuals and society. There is a strong sense among South African Police Service (SAPS) officers that without them the country would descend into violent anarchy. Linked to this is a belief that without coercive deterrence, young, usually poor, Black men will inevitably commit crime.
