Police Decision-Making at the Point of Arrest: What We Know, What We Don’t Know

• In Event: Roundtable: Rethinking Pretrial Practice and Building a National Research Agenda for the Front End of the Criminal Justice System

Abstract

Public concern about the abuse of police authority has waxed and waned over the past fifty years, and so too has researchers’ attention to the discretionary decisions of police officers waxed and waned. Much has been learned even without sustained inquiry, but many questions remain, particularly those that relate most directly to the policy levers at the disposal of police executives and their political superiors. Building on the report of the National Research Council’s Committee to Review Research on Police Policies and Practices, I discuss a number of substantive questions on which future research could profitably dwell, and I describe research methods whose application promises to yield answers to those questions.

Author

• Robert E. Worden, University at Albany, SUNY