Working the Street: Police Discretion and the Dilemmas of Reform

• NCJ Number: 117970
• Author(s): M K Brown
• Date Published: 1988
• Length: 374 pages
• Sale Source: Russell Sage Foundation
• Publication Type: Survey
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

Based on surveys of officers in three California police departments, this study examines factors in police street-level decisions.

Abstract

After developing the logic of a theoretical framework for the analysis of administrative discretion as applied to the police, this study uses the framework to develop a preliminary assessment of the impact of police professionalism on discretion. In exploring the nature of a patrol officer's relationship to the community in which he/she works and to the department, the study discusses the implications of the separation between police and community that is a consequence of professionalism. A theoretical model of the structure and impact of bureaucratic controls on patrol officers is developed and evaluated on the basis of data collected from the three departments. The analysis of police discretion describes how patrol officers use their discretion in crime fighting and in handling minor violations and disturbances. This is followed by an examination of the implications of patrol officer's beliefs for the exercise of discretion as well as the impact of administrative controls on discretion. In assessing four models of police reform that bear on the exercise of police discretion at the street level, the study focuses on the bureaucratization of police work under the guise of professionalism and how this has affected police discretion. Chapter notes, 270-item bibliography.