The Role of Supervision in Shaping Officer Discretion

• In Event: Contemporary Issues in Police Organizations

Abstract

Police organizations rarely experience crises for failing to control crime, rather it is failure to control police discretion that most often threatens a department’s legitimacy. Law enforcement practitioners and researchers stress that first-line supervisors, assuming the role coach or mentor, play a pivotal role in developing officers’ judgments so they may exercise their discretion judiciously. However, despite this role prescription, little is known about sergeants’ daily activities or practices, including their role in guiding officer discretion. This study seeks to gain a better understanding as to how sergeants understand and perform this supervisory role as a coach/mentor. Conducting semi-structured interviews of patrol sergeants employed by a municipal police department, we examine how sergeants’ daily activities and practices hold up to those which are theoretically prescribed in police supervision scholarship and conclude with a discussion as to what potential impact this may have on officers’ exercise of discretion during street encounters, including plans for next steps.

Authors

• Danielle Reynolds, University at Albany / Finn Institute for Public Safety

• Sarah J. McLean, The John F. Finn Institute for Public Safety, Inc.

• Robert E. Worden, University at Albany / John F. Finn Institute