NCJ Number
236033
Journal
Justice Quarterly Volume: 28 Issue: 4 Dated: August 2011 Pages: 631-665
Date Published
August 2011
Length
35 pages
Annotation
This study examined factors that influence police discretion.
Abstract
Research on factors that influence police discretion usually focuses on individual or situational characteristics (e.g., an officer or citizen's age, race or gender, or the seriousness of the incident). In contrast, this study examines whether characteristics of places influence police decisions to "upgrade" or "downgrade" their response to incidents. Earlier research is expanded in three ways: first, rather than examining an isolated decision within the series of decisions that make up an incident, a series of chronological decisions within a "decisionmaking pathway" is derived and analyzed. Second, multiple categories of racial and ethnic composition of places and their influence on police decisionmaking pathways are examined. Third, decision pathways of a variety of incidents at small geographic places are compared across an entire jurisdiction. Findings indicate that, even when controlling for the level of violence, places with a greater proportion of Black or wealthy residents significantly influence officers' decisions to downgrade crime classifications and actions taken on incidents reported to the police. (Published Abstract)