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IPID was established in 2012 as an improved version of the Independent Complaints Directorate (ICD) after the ICD had proved to be ineffective. The IPID institution has only two offices in KwaZulu-Natal, one in Durban and the other in Empangeni. Table 4.1 above provides a summary of the main characteristics of the area of KwaZulu-Natal province.
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interview guide (Appendix C) based on the objectives and research questions. This guide proved to be effective in eliciting the required information on different issues pertaining to police torture and assault. Most importantly, the semi-structured interview guide enabled the interviewer to be flexible in terms of the order in which the topics were considered, and letting the participants develop ideas and speak more widely on the issues under study (Denscombe, 1998). A total of ten (n=10) IPID investigating officers purposely designated were thus engaged in these in-depth interviews. The suggestions by Hennink et al. (2011:109) were followed, and thus the researcher:
used a semi-structure interview guide to prompt responses for data collection;
established rapport between the interviewer and the interviewee in each interview;
asked questions in an open, empathetic manner;
motivated the interviewees to tell their perspective stories, and probed for deeper insight when necessary.
Rapport building between the interviewer and interviewee was achieved through the use of a gatekeeper who introduced the researcher to participants that were available on that specific day for interviews. Through small talk about academic work, research and current issues, the researcher managed to build rapport with each interviewee. However, the interaction between the interviewer and each interviewee differed in some ways due to differences in their backgrounds; for example, for one participants rapport was built through a discussion about the researcher’s academic progress, while others had also been students at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. In this way the researcher was able to establish links and build rapport. The opening questions of the interview guide also helped to establish and maintain rapport between herself and the interviewee.
The use of a semi-structured interview guide facilitated the probing as a way to increase understanding of meaningful realities. Hennink et al. (2011:111) state that “a key characteristic of qualitative data collection is to use key issues that are identified in one interview to refine questions and topic probes in a following interview”. This was done by writing notes on the interview guide as a reminder to add a certain probing question for the next interviewee.
However, this did not change the interview guide but rather augmented it, as the small changes that were made such as refining a certain question and adding a probe did not deviate from the focus on the study objectives and research questions. Probing proved to be a useful technique to gain further clarity, depth and detail information from the participants (Hennink et al., 2011)
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and elicited detailed information about their thoughts and behaviour (Boyce & Neale, 2006).
For probing to be effective and serve as a motivating tool to make participants share their perspectives, the researcher transcribed each interview when it was completed with the aim of identifying key issues pertaining to certain questions and to make inferences that could be used in the next interview. The interviews were also voice-recorded for accuracy of the transcriptions and to avoid memory loss of certain details that might not have been captured in writing and that might impact the findings.
4.7.1.1 Administration of interviews
The Deputy Director of the KwaZulu-Natal IPID institute was reached and this official’s help was asked and obtained telephonically. The researcher was introduced to the participants by the Deputy Director at the initial meeting that was held. During the meeting, the researcher briefly informed the participants about the topic and the objectives of the study. After having made the appointments with each of the available participants, the following procedures were followed:
a) The researcher informed the participants about the purpose of the study. Patton (2002:407) suggests that the researcher should communicate to participants that the information is important, which was done by giving them a brief overview of the objectives of the study, with particular reference to section 28(1)(f) of their IPID mandate.
b) The participants were then well-versed regarding the voluntary nature of their participation and they were made aware of the confidentiality of their responses as well as that the information was required for research purposes and would be used for that only.
c) Prior to the commencement of each interview, which took place in their respective offices, each participant was given a consent form to read and to ask for clarify where she/he did not understand. The participants willingly agreed to participate and each signed the voluntary consent form. The participants were asked in writing if they were willing to be recorded or not. This made them aware that they were not coerced into being recorded.
d) After signing the informed consent form and indicating whether they could be recorded or not, the researcher began with the interview, emphasizing again that the focus would
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be on section 28(1)(f) and on torture and assault cases only. During the interview session, the researcher paid attention to Carpecken’s (1996) advise and considered the following when conducting interviews:
Generate content about an event from an insider;
Check the honesty, the certainty and the exact meaning of the subject’s reply in a face-to-face interview;
Access a person’s definitions and understanding of concepts and processes that are of interest to the researcher;
Analyse both verbal and non-verbal responses;
Give immediate clarity if the interviewee was uncertain in his or her reply;
Ask follow-up questions to provide detailed and/or specific answers; and
Tap into beliefs, values, worldviews and the like on the part of the interviewee.
e) Upon completion of the interview session with each participant, there was a debriefing session in which the researcher rectified any possible misperceptions that might have arisen during the interview session and also discussed their feelings about the project.