The Influence of Places on Police Decision Pathways: From Call for Service to Arrest
Article Type: Perspectives on policing From: Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies & Management, Volume 35, Issue 1
Cynthia LumJustice Quarterly2011Volume 28pp. 631-665
Prior research has identified contextual factors as being an important determinant in police officer decision making and behavior. The factors affecting the behavior of police officers are thought to stem from two primary sources: contextual and legal cues. Contextual cues include racial or ethnic composition of the neighborhood, socio-economic status of residents and other similar demographic characteristics. Legal cues include such things as offence seriousness and prior criminal record of the offender. The contextual and legal clues are thought to influence the entire spectrum of police behavior from interactions with the public to decisions to take enforcement action.
In this article, Lum expands upon this body of prior research by examining the chain of events starting with the original call for service through the final disposition. The outcome examined by the author is the propensity for officers to either ‘upgrade’ or ‘downgrade’ the severity of the incident between stages. In essence, the author is examining whether contextual or legal factors determine whether police officers escalate the severity of the incident to warrant enforcement action or mitigate their response according to these external cues. Using four databases (original calls for service database, a database listing modifications to the original call for service, a database of recorded incidents, and arrest data) the author examines factors influencing escalation and de-escalation by the officers. Cases were examined to determine where officers changed the original seriousness of the call for service, either in terms of an upgrade (making it more serious) or a downgrade (making it less serious); using a scale of 1 to 4 points in either direction according to the change. The change scores classified are based on the UCR and other legal hierarchies that make certain types of offences more serious than others.
The results indicate there are several factors consistently predicting officers’ preference to downgrade calls for service including areas of:increased wealth, less social disorganization, and higher proportion of African-American residents. Similar effects are seen in change scores for other points in the process as well (e.g. call to incident and incident to arrest). The overall trend suggests communities with higher proportions of racial and ethnic minorities will have events downgraded by patrol officers at all stages in the process with the exception of arrest. The effects are more severe in African-American communities than Hispanic communities; and opposite in Asian communities.
The author suggests it is no longer appropriate to only examine the individual characteristics of police officers, suspects, victims, and witnesses when examining police officer decision making. Future research should examine the ecological context of the encounter between citizens and the police;however, the ecological context should not replace the individual characteristics of the participants. The author states the effects noted are likely the result of an interaction between the individual and contextual factors that will require future qualitative and longitudinal quantitative analysis of the police and citizens alike in order to fully understand police officer decision making.
Jon MaskalyUniversity of South Florida, Tampa, FL, USA
