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Police Officer Decision-making in Dispute Encounters: Digging Deeper into the ‘Black Box’

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Abstract

In an effort to expand existing knowledge on police decision-making behavior, this research utilized data from a systematic social observation of police (The Project on Policing Neighborhoods) to conduct a qualitative content analysis of the narrative debriefings in dispute encounters. The content analysis revealed six distinct themes related to officer arrest decision-making, including the finding that officers utilize working rules when deciding on a course of action. Further, the influence of the working rules on decision-making behavior is mediated by specific cognitive frameworks. For example, officers typically utilize the working rule “arrest if there is an injury” but this working rule can be nullified if the officer determines that the victim is undeserving. The analysis also revealed that the application of working rules by officers was not uniform across the study, but varied by department in some key ways. For example, in cases where evidence was not strong enough to warrant an arrest, officers in Indianapolis would use the working rule “threaten arrest to ensure future compliance.” Officers in St. Petersburg, however, utilized no working rules related to the threat of arrest.

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Notes

  1. The discovery of discretion is largely attributed to the American Bar Foundation Survey conducted between 1953 and 1957 (Walker, 1992). T.S. Kuhn (1970) argues that all scientific inquiry is guided by a paradigm, which identifies unanswered scientific questions that deserve further inquiry. When a new paradigm is developed, it fuels a scientific revolution that leads to a new agenda for research.

  2. However, the study did not control for the effect of victim preference.

  3. The other studies were the President’s Commission Study (Reiss, 1971), conducted in 1966, the Midwest City Study (Sykes & Brent, 1983), conducted 1969–1973, and the Police Services Study (Ostrom, Parks, & Whitaker, 1978), conducted in 1977.

  4. Debriefings were supposed to occur in the following types of encounters: situations where the citizen was rebellious, or might become rebellious; situations where the officer is making an attempt to persuade the citizen to do or not do something; instances where the citizens asks the officer to do something beyond the normal routine of answering a call; highly ambiguous situations; situations where the officer has to consider alternative options about what to do; situations where the officer is engaging in aspects of COP or POP; and any situation in which the observer was curious as to what was on the officer’s mind during the encounter.

  5. Numerous smaller-scale SSO studies have also been conducted, but only one has occurred since POPN and PCP. In 2002, Alpert & Dunham utilized SSO in Savannah, but it had a narrower focus of inquiry aimed at officer formation of suspicion and the decision to stop.

  6. In most cases, the debriefing for the encounter occurred at the end of the series and encompassed the totality of events.

  7. As this analysis was conducted to complete a dissertation, it was not possible to utilize a second coder. Thus, there was no opportunity to assess the degree of inter-rater reliability.

  8. It is worth noting that the primary purpose of coding the narrative accounts was to support a larger research agenda (specifically, to develop an understanding of process which could be used quantitatively). In most qualitative endeavors it is not necessary to code so many encounters.

  9. It is important to note that some indicators may fall under more than one theme because they have multiple meanings. Qualitative analysis does not always lead to easy categorization and the same is true for the findings from the officer debriefings. In some cases, the same statement may fall into two themes. For example, level of intoxication is an evidentiary consideration and it may also be considered a frustration.

  10. At times, in debriefings, officers described working rules as a general way of doing business, but they did not pertain to the immediate encounter. Officers also occasionally described certain frameworks in debriefings but they did not always lead to a decision (in other words, an officer may hold an opinion about a citizen but it may not affect the course of action taken).

  11. Specific examples referenced in text are identified by the ride and encounter number assigned in original POPN SPSS dataset, prefaced by either IND (for Indianapolis) or STP (for St. Petersburg).

  12. Force continuums are utilized to ensure that any force utilized in a police-citizen encounter is proportional to the resistance seen from the suspect and, further, that any escalation in force occurs in small increments. Jumping the force continuum refers to force that does not adhere to these principles. In a typical force continuum, no resistance is met with no force, passive resistance is met with a command, verbal resistance is met with a threat, defensive resistance is met with restraint and control techniques, and active resistance is met with pain compliance/takedown techniques followed by (if necessary) impact force (Terrill, 2005).

  13. Although another possible interpretation is that this officer might not want to call in social services because she is concerned about the use of scarce public resources, the overall tone of the encounter, and the officer's clear frustration with the inebriated participants, make it clear that it is a decision made more out of personal expediency rather than concern about proper allocation of limited public assets.

  14. Officers in St. Petersburg referenced the influence of disrespect in more cases with juveniles than was mentioned in Indianapolis. That may explain why disrespect did not lead to the same type of action since officers tended to treat juvenile offenders more informally.

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* A previous version of this paper was presented at the 2012 American Society of Criminology meeting in Chicago, IL.

* The author thanks Gene Paoline and anonymous reviewers for comments on an earlier version of this paper.

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  1. Department of Criminal Justice, East Carolina University, 240 Rivers Bldg, Greenville, NC, 27858, USA

    Heidi S. Bonner

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Bonner, H.S. Police Officer Decision-making in Dispute Encounters: Digging Deeper into the ‘Black Box’. Am J Crim Just 40, 493–522 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12103-014-9274-2

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