ABSTRACT
This chapter starts with a discussion about the confidence in the police in contemporary South Africa and links the decrease in public support for the police with cases of police misconduct. It then proceeds with a balanced discussion of examples of police misconduct within the country, based on media accounts, surveys, and formal reports. The chapter then brings forward the rationale for studying police integrity instead of police misconduct and introduces the concept of police integrity. It continues with the exposition of the theory of police integrity, developed by Klockars and Kutnjak Ivković, and the exploration of the four dimensions of the theory (existence and enforcement of the rules; mechanisms of misconduct control; curtailing of the code of silence; influence of the environment at large). The chapter also presents the related methodology and provides a methodological overview of the data used in the book. Finally, the chapter offers a brief overview of the subsequent chapters in this book.
