NCJ Number
75341
Date Published
1978
Length
6 pages
Annotation
Records of 235 traffic accidents in Ohio were examined to determine if all those persons deemed culpable were issued police citations, and if not, whether the decision not to cite was influenced by social characteristics of the law violator or by the accident situation.
Abstract
Previous research on police and traffic law violation has indicated that the decision to cite or arrest a traffic offender is largely a matter of police discretion. Of the 235 accidents examined for this exploratory study, citations were issued in 41.5 percent of the cases. When investigating the variables which could affect issuance of a citation, it was found that gender is a major factor in giving citations; 48.4 percent of the culpable men and only 27.5 percent of the culpable women were cited. Other differences that were related included residence, age, and occupation. Housewives were cited least often of all occupational groups. The four variables associated with the accident, i.e., road conditions, type of crash, causative factors, and whether the vehicles were moved from the crash scene before the officer arrived to investigate, failed to satisfactorily explain the differential treatment afforded certain categories of drivers. No attempt was made to consider the severity of the accident or the quality of interaction between the driver and the investigating officer. The results cannot be considered definitive because of the exploratory nature of the study and the failure to consider these two variables. One table and 17 footnotes are included.