Chapter 10Qualitative Interviewing1© 2018 C

Chapter 10:
Qualitative
Interviewing
1
© 2018 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.
Learning Objectives
• Recognize when to use qualitative
interviewing as a data-gathering tool
• Understand that there are multiple meanings
or constructions about reality
• Know the advantages and disadvantages of
semi-structured versus unstructured
interviews
• Understand the use of focus groups or
interviewing a group of people
simultaneously
2

Learning Objectives, cont.
• Be able to describe how to approach and
interact with participants
• Learn how to record or log data
• Understand ways to analyze and interpret
qualitative data
• Recognize how to enhance the quality of
information gathered
3
Introduction
• A qualitative interview is an interaction between
an interviewer and a respondent where the
interviewer has a general plan of inquiry,
including topics to be covered
• The interviewer might not have a specific set of
questions to be asked in a particular order
• Can be thought of as a purposeful conversation
• Allows researchers to study more complex
processes or the “hows” involving human
perspective

4
Qualitative Interviewing
• Qualitative interviews can be the sole way
of gathering data in criminal justice studies
• Allows the research to understand the
subjects’ perspectives
• Can gather firsthand accounts of their
impressions and their lived experiences
• Can also be used to understand how
people feel about their roles and identities
5
Key Features of Qualitative Interviewing
• Richness of human experience
• Approach to learning
• Critical realist perspective
– Your stance about the nature of reality (ontology)
– The nature of knowledge
6

Kinds of Qualitative Interviews
• Interview schedule: The structure of the interview
that may have predetermined questions or topical
areas to be discussed
• The interview schedule will influence how in-
depth and interactive your interviews should be
7
Structured and Semi-Structured Interviews
• A structured interview schedule consists of
predetermined questions and answer sets
• Structured interviews create standardized
responses so respondents are given the same
stimulus, allowing for responses to be compared
• Semi-structured interview has standardized
questions but allows the interviewer to explore
themes that emerge during the interview
• Researcher can probe for additional information
8

Unstructured Interviews
• Unstructured interviews are the most open style
of interviewing
• Provides the most breadth, depth, and natural
interaction with participants
• Two main approaches: conversations and
interview guide
– Conversations is an informal “chat” where conversation flows
organically
– Interview guide includes a list of topical areas that you want
to
cover in the conversation
9
Focus Group Interviews
• 6–12 people brought together to engage in
guided group discussion of some topic
• Focus groups can be used to generate
hypotheses, or combined with other types of

data gathering such as participant observation
• Can show how opinions are produced,
expressed, and exchanged in everyday life
• Can be either natural groups or artificial groups
– Natural groups have an existing connection
– Artificial groups are made up of individuals selected
according to
some criteria and are brought together for research purposes
10
Discussion Question 1
Would you attend a focus group if asked?
Why or why not?
11
What if you interviewed a focus group?
Would you choose conversation or
interview guiding? Why?
12

Designing Qualitative Interview Questions
• Interview questions can assume different forms
• The branch approach involves having a main topic
with branching questions
• The river-and-channel approach involves many
streams of questioning that lead into the main
channel, with some streams diverging
• Must also decide what order to tell the story
– A diachronic delivery of material starts at the beginning and
progresses chronologically
– A synchronic framework does not depend on time
13
Interview Schedule
• Best to create an outline of more categories of
information you want to obtain before you start writing
• You can create categories and nested sets of topical
areas.
• How a question is worded can affect the response

• Be sure the questions encompass the overall subject,
there is a good flow between questions, the order
makes sense, and the language is appropriate
• Avoid double-barreled questions, complex questions,
difficult language, and affective words
14
Probes
• Prompt participants to elaborate on responses
by filling in more detail and depth
• It is important to have built-in prompts in case
you have quiet respondents
• You can use an attention probe (e.g., lean in),
a continuation probe (e.g., nod), clarification
probe (e.g., ask the respondent to clarify), or
follow-up questions
15
Gaining Access to Participants
• Establish your role: determine if you are an insider or

outsider
• To gain access to a formal organization, you will need
identify yourself as a researcher and make a formal
request and receive formal approval
• Best to use a four-step process: sponsor, letter, phone
call, and meeting
• To gain access to information subcultures, researchers
can gain access using a sponsor or hang out where
subjects hang out
• Compensation might be necessary to encourage
participation
16
What if you were searching for study
subjects? Are there any groups you would
be interested in studying that would claim
you as an insider?
17
Conducting Qualitative Interviews

• Qualitative interviews can be in-person, on the phone,
online, or through a survey
• Face-to-face are most common
• Reflexivity refers to your subjectivity and the meaning you
give to information
• It is important to remain critically conscious of your
reflexivity when conducting qualitative interviews
• During interviews, you will need to develop a rapport with
respondents
• This can be done through informal conversations or finding
something you and the respondent have in common
18
Conducting Qualitative Interviews, cont.
• Might need to conduct several conversations with the
respondents
• Active interviewing is a social exchange that allows for
natural conversation and spontaneity
• The respondents’ answers determine the subsequent
questions
• During an interactive interview, you are purposefully
interactive

• The researcher must put on a social performance where
he or she must be the actor, director, and choreographer
19
Conducting Focus Group Interviews
• Must decide whether to have a natural or artificial
group, what the physical arrangement of the
group should be, and the appropriate length of
the interview
• Need to be aware of groupthink and dominant
group members
• If you are gathering data on a sensitive topic, you
must realize that participants can be upset by
having to share such information and that you
cannot ensure confidentiality
20
Recording Data
• After recording information, researchers must transcribe
the dialogue verbatim
• After returning from interviews, you must write up field

notes no later than the morning after
• Memoing involves writing about your research process
and is important to recognize subjectivity
• Operational, coding, and analytic are three types of
memos
• Operational memos are steps that you took in the
research process
– Coding memos allow you to document how you coded data
– Analytic memos provide ways to explore relationships in the
data.
21
Data Analysis and Making Claims
• Data is managed through tables, charts, and other
visual displays
• Data reduction involves putting aside information
that seems irrelevant
• Thinking units can also be used to sort stories
• Lofland and Lofland (1995) suggests the following
thinking units: meanings, practices, episodes,
encounters, roles, relationships, groups,
organizations, settlements, social worlds, and
lifestyles

22
Identifying Codes and Themes
• Coding assigns meaning to data
• Process of organizing raw data into categories
• Open coding involves exploring all possible
meanings before assigning conceptual definitions
• Microanalysis involves going deeper into the data
and challenging your original frame of reference
• The next step is to form categories and assign data
to these categories
• Data will have higher-level themes and lower-level
categories
23
Quality and Rigor
• To enhance the quality of qualitative
analysis, researchers should have an
established audit trail

• An important check is to look for negative
cases that contradict the emerging
themes
• Also perform member checks where
other researchers read the descriptions
and verify the accuracy of the work
24
p.228
C H A P T E RC H A P T E R 1010
© iStockphoto.com/Ivan Bajic
Media Library
CHAPTER 10 Media Library
V I D E O L I N KV I D E O L I N K
Buffalo Police to mandate ethics
training
P O L I C I N G I N P R AC T I C E V I D E OP O L I C I N
G I N P R AC T I C E V I D E O
What is your department’s experi-
ence with the use of discretion and
DISCRETION AND
ETHICS IN POLICING

media relations? Is there specific
training for working with the
media?
AU T H O R V I D E OAU T H O R V I D E O
In law enforcement, how important
is it for supervisors and others to
instill core values?
How does the blue wall of silence
play a role in law enforcement and
society?
Discretion
Ethical Considerations
Ethical Theories
Racial profiling
W E B L I N KW E B L I N K
Ethics and Integrity
AU D I O L I N KAU D I O L I N K
Despite Laws and Lawsuits, Quota-
Based Policing Lingers
S AG E J O U R N A L A RT I C L ES AG E J O U R N A L
A RT I C L E
Measuring Police Attitudes Toward

Discretion
Whistle-blowing and the Code of
Silence in Police Agencies
CHAPTER LEARNING
D
OBJECTIVES:
1. Define police discretion and the
factors that influence it
2. Assess factors that can affect the use
of discretion by police
3. Define the term ethics and discuss its
importance in the field of policing
4. Identify and describe various
organizational strategies that can be
used to mitigate unethical police
conduct
p.229
ue to the multiple roles the police
are expected to perform, along with
the myriad of external and internal
influences that tend to shape police policy
and public expectations, the right measure
of discretionary authority by the police is

essential. Fulfilling the police mission in a
competent and responsible manner
requires a sustained organizational and
individual commitment to underlying
ethics, accountability, and professionalism.
If the police are to be perceived as
professionals, they must exercise
discretion wisely and ethically and remain
accountable to the public they are sworn
to serve.
Professional ethics outline the moral
obligation to act in ways that are proper to
accomplish professional goals. For police
officers, ethical conduct is especially
important because of the authority
granted to them and because of the
difficulty of overseeing the daily behavior
of police officers on the street. The public
must be able to trust the police to act as if
someone were watching, when most of the
time, there may be no witnesses.
Author Video
In law enforcement, how important is
it for supervisors and others to instill
core values?
CLICK TO SHOW
Figure 10.1 highlights a recent poll that
elicited responses regarding community
members’ confidence in their police
officers. As will be discussed in greater
detail in Chapter 12, there is often a
discrepancy in confidence based on race.

It is appropriate to consider discretion and
ethics together, because they are closely
interrelated. Discretion is a necessary and
desirable part of policing and involves
selecting among several possible courses
of action. Reducing the number of
unethical options is a continuing pursuit of
attentive police administrators. Wise
exercise of discretion by police officers
demands ethical choices. Further, whether
the police make wise choices or foolish
ones, they are accountable to the public
for their actions. Chapter 11 covers the
consequences of unethical police behavior
and accountability for it.
■ POLICE DISCRETION
To perform their role competently and
effectively, the police must regularly
exercise their discretionary authority, and
they must do so ethically and responsibly,
if public trust is to be established and
maintained. Police discretion can be
defined simply as “the exercise of
individual choice or judgment concerning
possible courses of action.”1 Discretion
amounts to the perceived ability to choose
when, how, and in what order to complete
assigned work.2 Efforts to define

discretion are important. “If discretion is to
be spoken of as a real and variable aspect
of policing that is believed to influence
police behavior, then it needs to be defined
in such a way that it lends it to direct
observation and to quantification.”3
Figure 10.1 ■ Community Members’ Confidence
in Their Police Officers
p.230
© iStockphoto.com/belterz
Featured in the photo is a controversial
practice referred to as roadblocks or
checkpoints to conduct random safety
checks on motorists. Many question if
these checkpoints are really random in
nature.
Discretion is a normal, desirable, and
unavoidable part of policing that exists at
all levels and departments within a police
agency and at all levels of policing. It is
important that the police are not robotic
but have a sense of autonomy, exercise

common sense, and interpret the law.
There is a great deal of complexity
associated with the discretionary decision-
making process:
Whether to enforce the full letter of
the law, to simply advise a citizen, or
to choose a middle ground, street-
level officers must incorporate all of
the tools of their trade and select the
plan of action most appropriate or
reasonable on a case-by-case basis.
Though there are many factors to
consider regarding officer discretion,
personal biases, prejudices, and values
are not to be employed in this
decision-making process.4
Discretion is required, because the code of
criminal law—as well as departmental
policies—is often expressed in
intentionally imprecise terms that make
interpretation a necessity. In addition,
police resources are limited; the police
cannot be everywhere at once. Policing,
like many other occupations, consists of a
number of specializations, and not all
departments have the specialized
personnel to investigate all types of crime
or provide all types of services. Finally, the
police are well aware that the other
components of the criminal justice
network also have limited capacities (e.g.,
court time, jail cells).

SAGE Journal Article
Measuring Police Attitudes To-
ward Discretion
CLICK TO SHOW
Although police officers are not in the
strictest sense judges or jurors, they must
and do perform the functions of both on
certain occasions. That is, they must decide
the facts in any given encounter, interpret
the law with respect to the encounter, and
decide how best to bring the encounter to
a successful conclusion. They also consider
extenuating and mitigating factors.
p.231
“The extent to which police officers are
encouraged to exercise discretion varies
from department to department, from
shift to shift, and among divisions within
the same department, but the exercise of
discretion is routine in all police agencies.”5
This is true because of the very nature of
policing and because, in most cities, the
police simply cannot enforce all the laws all
of the time or perform all of the services
demanded at the same time.
Thus, both law enforcement and policing
are selective processes in which some laws

are enforced and some services are
provided most of the time, while others are
not. The determination of which, and
when, services are provided rests to some
extent with police administrators, the
general public, prosecutors, judges, and
other politicians, but police officers do not
typically operate under immediate, direct
supervision. Therefore, they are relatively
free to determine their own actions at any
given time.
Factors That Influence Discretion
Police officer decisions are typically
influenced by factors such as the situation,
setting, and suspect; departmental policy
and culture; the law; victims and public
safety; and financial and political
expectations. Further, the education,
training, and length of service of the officer
and the wishes of the complainant have
been shown to affect officer decisions.6
The Situation, Setting, and Suspect
Every situation is in some measure unique,
and officers must use their personal
judgment about the people involved and
the context of the situation; a person’s age,
gender, appearance, mental and emotional
state, and economic status are important
details that figure into the equation. The
officer must calculate these characteristics

in light of a host of other things.
However, an officer who decides to render
service or enforce the law based solely on
the gender, race, or physical appearance of
the citizen involved is exercising discretion
inappropriately. Agencies can discourage
such behavior; proper training can teach
why such decisions are unacceptable.
An officer must quickly figure into his or
her decision of how to handle a situation
by also considering the severity of the
offense and the potential for harm,
whether there is a clear victim and how
vulnerable that person might be, especially
to future harm. For example, an officer may
decide to follow through on an arrest in a
domestic violence situation if a family
member is clearly at risk, or if the
complaint is not the first one. If an officer
has trouble determining who is at fault in
the situation, all parties may end up under
arrest to ensure the safety of everyone
involved.
Departmental Policy and Culture
For some decisions, there is a range of
behaviors that the department may
acknowledge and permit. Department
practice may allow that a driver who is
exceeding the speed limit by three or four
miles per hour should not be subject to
citation. Leadership may establish a
tolerance limit of five miles per hour and

instruct officers that those driving over the
speed limit, but within the tolerance, need
not be cited. Or (as is true in most cases),
the decision of whether or not to cite the
driver may depend completely on the
officer’s discretion. Although officers can
still cite a driver for driving two or three
miles per hour over the speed limit, they
know that it is permissible to ignore or
warn those who are only marginally
speeding.7
Author Video
How does the blue wall of silence
play a role in law enforcement and
society?
CLICK TO SHOW
Officers exercise discretion in performing
their duties, as they must do. The agency’s
leadership and supervision, as well as
organizational norms and culture, can lead
them to ignore rules and policies; exercise
restraint and tolerance and give a person a
second chance; choose to refer an
individual for treatment or services
instead of arrest; resort to threats, “street
justice,” or force; regard tasks not related
to enforcement as less than “real” police
work; and add another arrest charge to
help facilitate an individual’s punishment.

p.232
Chapter 8 discussed the police subculture
and some of its problematic ideas—for
example, that people are not to be trusted
to follow the law or that people do not like
the cops—and officers have to control and
demand respect from the public.
Depending on the agency, the subculture
might reinforce the idea of being lenient
with people who have never been in
trouble, or it might support the idea that
flaws in the criminal justice system justify
making decisions about innocence and
guilt outside the courtroom. According to
the culture of some agencies, preventing
crime and enforcing the law depend largely
on deterrence, and severe consequences
are more likely to achieve deterrence.
The Law
Of course, officers must know and follow
the law. But there is a great deal of gray
area in the law, often quite deliberately,
and in these situations, discretion plays a
critical role. In an effort to curb intimate
partner violence, for instance, some states
passed laws that require an arrest in many
of these instances, thereby removing or
significantly limiting police discretion.8
There are advantages and disadvantages
to limiting police discretion. One

advantage is greater consistency in terms
of how and when police officers enforce a
given statute. Among the disadvantages to
removing discretion is that the law
effectively might have a “new-widening”
effect; the police may be constrained to
make an arrest when it is not really
necessary.
Political and Economic Pressure
The police are also subject to political
pressure to respond to high-profile or hot-
button issues, and to ease up or crack
down on protestors, drunk drivers,
celebrities with drug problems, or
undocumented immigrants, to name just a
few issues. Officers answer to supervisors,
and department leaders have to answer to
mayors, commissioners, and lawmakers.
CompStat and other performance
measures can and do lead to pressure to
meet political and department
expectations for citations, which can
translate into significant revenue for the
jurisdiction.
The Challenge of Discretion
Clearly, the exercise of discretion is
necessary for effective policing, but it is
not neat or easy, and problems arise. The
consequences of the police using

discretionary authority unethically or
otherwise improperly can have
devastating outcomes. These
consequences include poor morale, civil
liability issues, tragic and unnecessary loss
of life, and public mistrust of the police.
Author Video
Discretion
CLICK TO SHOW
Maintaining ethical standards within the
field of policing is important for reasons
that may seem obvious. First and foremost,
the police are public servants—agents of
the government sworn to uphold the laws
of the land. As such, they must be role
models, on and off the job. When police
officers engage in unethical or illegal
behavior, it shakes the trust and
confidence of the public they serve.
Perhaps even more devastating, when the
bond between the public and police is
compromised or severed, the ideals of the
entire criminal justice network may be
called into question. As stated by Federal
Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director
Robert Mueller, “Public corruption is the
betrayal of the public’s sacred trust. It
erodes public confidence and undermines
the strength of our democracy. Unchecked,
it threatens our government and our way
of life.”9 More specifically, another high-
ranking official from the FBI stated, “The
oath taken by the men and women of law

enforcement to uphold the law is not an
idle one. Corruption cases involving a
police officer erode the public trust and
thereby complicate and impede the efforts
being made by the law enforcement
community at all levels.”10
p.233
Quotas
Quotas—one type of biased enforce-
© iStockphoto.com/ftwitty
Establishing performance standards can
have the unintended consequence of
promoting biased enforcement because
officers under pressure to meet monthly
targets for ticketing may turn to
inappropriate profiling to find sources for
tickets.
ment—are arbitrary and fixed numbers of
citations or stops (or some other measure
of activity) that officers are required to
meet on a periodic basis. Quotas are

unethical and often illegal, because they
pressure officers into making decisions to
meet the quota requirement rather than
what the situation should dictate. Quotas
undermine healthy discretion.
Audio Link
Despite Laws and Lawsuits, Quota-
Based Policing Lingers
CLICK TO SHOW
Most administrators would deny that
there are quotas in their agencies, being
fully aware of the controversy about
quotas. Rather, they may point to
performance standards, which tend to
identify acceptable ticket and arrest
activity of department members, using
measures such as averages and medians.
Regardless of the language, officer
performance evaluations are often based
in part on an officer’s number of tickets
and arrests. In response, some officers may
engage in unethical behaviors such as
biased enforcement practices in
attempting to meet agency expectations.
One former New York Police Department
(NYPD) officer turned whistle-blower
about the department’s quota system,
which the department routinely denies.
Adhyl Polanco secretly recorded
conversations at the Bronx precinct where
he worked and later filed suit against the
NYPD. The justification for quotas might
be that it is a way to ensure productivity
from officers, and such numbers are easy

to calculate and compare. However, Laurie
Robinson, co-chairwoman of President
Obama’s Task Force on 21st Century
Policing, concluded that numbers-based
policing sends the wrong message to the
public. “If citizens believe that tickets are
being issued or arrests are being made for
reasons other than the goal of law
enforcement, which is about public safety,”
says Robinson, “then their trust in the
legitimacy of the system is really eroded.”
The problem can be made worse when
officers receive pressure from city officials
or police administrators to write more
citations as a source of revenue. “That,
according to the Justice Department, is
exactly what happened in Ferguson,
Missouri [where] the largely white police
there wrote huge numbers of tickets for
the city’s black residents, collecting
millions of dollars in fines every year.”11
p.234
1 0 . 11 0 . 1
Connie Koski, Professor and Former
Police Officer
The Relationship Between Police
Subculture, Misconduct, and Ethics

When we think of police ethics and
police corruption, we often think of
personal gain such as the acceptance
of gratuities, officers taking bribes or
dealing drugs, or stealing items from
crime scenes. What happens when
officers take advantage of their
power to achieve positive policing
outcomes? This noble cause
corruption is either unethical or
illegal behavior, but the motive is
pursuit of a benefit to society.
Noble cause corruption represents a
form of behavior that is both complex
and difficult to study because, at first
glance, officers who engage in such
behaviors are passionate about
protecting the public, a duty they
were sworn to uphold.
The pressure is great on today’s
police officers from administrators,
politicians, and the public to “do
something about crime,” but
bolstering the insularity of the police
subculture—the “thin blue line”—
threatens the delicate bond of trust
and legitimacy between the police
and those they are sworn to protect.
I worked with a group of five officers
who were the pride of my
department; they were often used as
example of what constitutes “good
police work” by many of our top

administrators. These officers
consistently made the most arrests
and were particularly devoted to
ridding the city of guns, drugs, and
the dealers who distributed them and
were particularly skilled at cultivating
the information necessary to locate
these perpetrators and illegal items.
During my time on patrol, however, I
often encountered people on the
street (both criminals and
noncriminals) who informed me that
these officers regularly used “drop
guns” and “drop bags”—evidence
allegedly planted by the officers in
question—to make their arrests.
Additionally, many of my coworkers
admitted to having heard these same
accusations, and, although no one
would ever admit to having seen the
behavior firsthand, many of my fellow
officers believed these accusations to
be true.
One day, I finally got up the nerve to
ask one of the officers directly if he
participated in such activities. I could
tell by his facial expressions and body
language that he was being evasive.
He asked, “What difference would it
make if I did?” He justified his position
by stating that all of the officers in the
department knew that this person or

that person was a drug dealer who
would be caught eventually.
Therefore, why might the occasional
act of “dropping a bag of dope” on a
foot chase ultimately matter in the
long run, so long as the dealer was off
the streets? I recall being perplexed
by this answer and feeling conflicted
about this approach to policing. I
could certainly agree that getting
drugs, guns, and their dealers off the
streets was a very positive thing.
Ethically, however, I was strongly
opposed to the methods and told my
fellow officer so. He simply
responded that I was naïve and I
needed to get some more “TOJ” (time
on the job) to understand the value of
this approach to fighting crime.
Although there was never enough
evidence to substantiate any of the
claims against my former coworkers, I
often wondered how many residents
in my jurisdiction had been affected
by such practices. In many ways, I
could tell that these behaviors
directly and indirectly fed the long-
standing mistrust of the police in the
minority neighborhoods.
■ ETHICS AND POLICE CONDUCT
Perhaps the most important guide for
officers as they make their decisions is

ethics. Although there are many different
bases for the study of ethics, for the
purposes of this text, ethics is “the study
of right and wrong, duty, responsibility, and
personal character. . . . [We] should regard
all of these concepts . . . as having an
implicit modifier—‘moral’—attached to
them. Ethics is concerned with moral duty,
what is morally right and wrong.”12 Ethical
conduct involves “doing the right thing in
the right way at the right time for the right
reasons.”13 Although ethical issues have
always existed in policing, the introduction
of community-oriented policing is an
example of an organizational
transformation that relates to ethical
decision making on the part of officers.
This focus assists the police in forming a
partnership with the community and
increasing accountability to the public.
“Because of concerns about the types of
information being collected by law
enforcement and how that information is
retained in records, concerns have been
expressed that law enforcement may
violate citizens’ rights in the quest for
terrorists.”14 A greater need for more and
different types of information has fostered
the advancement of intelligence-led
policing, which goes a step further than

community-oriented policing. (See Chap-
ter 7.)
p.235
Web Link
Ethics and Integrity
CLICK TO SHOW
Ethics has become an increasingly
important topic in discussions of police
discretion. Many behaviors that were once
permitted are no longer tolerated by the
public. The behavior of police officers in
today’s society must be beyond reproach.
Police agencies should emphasize ethics in
their recruitment, selection, hiring, and
promoting practices to ensure the agency
employs and rewards individuals of
excellent character. “Rewarding ethical
behavior is the key to message sending for
police executives and middle managers.
The logical response to unethical behavior
is the appropriate use of general orders,
policies, and procedures to discipline
officers for unethical behaviors and
noncompliance.”15 Former president
Theodore Roosevelt stated, “No man can
lead a public career really worth leading,
no man can act with rugged independence
in serious crises, nor strike at great abuses,
nor afford to make powerful and
unscrupulous foes, if he is himself

vulnerable to his private character.”16
Ethics in Police Education
It is imperative that the criminal justice
curriculum in colleges and universities
incorporate and emphasize the study of
ethics. The same is true of basic and
advanced law enforcement training
programs. Ethics should be emphasized
continually, and act as a thread that runs
through all facets of police hiring, training,
and continuing education.
Research on police ethics in education that
compares criminal justice students and
active police officers indicates a
concerning level of tolerance for unethical
behavior in both groups, albeit in different
areas. Student respondents were nearly
twice as likely as their police officer
counterparts to respond ethically when
dealing with a scenario about an off-duty
police officer stopped for driving while
intoxicated, theft by a police officer at the
scene of a burglary, the use of excessive
force by coworkers, witnessing
supervisory misconduct, and stopping an
off-duty police officer for a serious traffic
offense.17
Author Video

Ethical Considerations
CLICK TO SHOW
However, student respondents reported a
willingness to perjure themselves to keep
themselves or coworkers out of trouble or
to ensure the conviction of someone they
knew to be guilty. Far fewer police officers
and other professionals reported a
willingness to perjure themselves for the
same reasons.18
To help change the cultural aversion to
reporting wrongdoings of officers by other
officers, criminal justice educators must
understand, emphasize, and teach ethics at
every opportunity. Also, police officials
should require ongoing in-service training
in ethical decision making for their officers.
Psychological testing and applicant
background investigations can focus more
on eliminating applicants who have
demonstrated unethical behavior. All of
these measures may ultimately prove to be
ineffective, however, if the police
subculture continues to reinforce
nonfeasance as an indicator of group
loyalty, which is deeply embedded in the
tradition.
Officers are called on to recognize the
moral dilemma in each situation, decide
what to do within ethical boundaries, act
with integrity, and follow through

consistently. Peer pressure and lax
administration are just two of the forces
that can thwart good intentions. The 2003
National Business Ethics Survey found that
approximately 40% of those surveyed
would not report misconduct if they
observed it because of fear of reprisal from
management.19
p.236
1 0 . 11 0 . 1
Undercover policing is a common
practice that usually involves a
variety of forms of deception. For
example, “the police have introduced
drugs in prison, undertaken
assignments from Latin American
drug cartels to launder money,
established fencing businesses that
paid cash for stolen goods and for
‘referrals,’ printed counterfeit bills,
and committed perjury.” These
otherwise criminal activities are
excused for undercover cops; their
“authorized criminality” allows them,
for example, to maintain a fictitious
identity to gather evidence in
building a case against a known
offender, for example.

Although undercover operations may
sometimes seek merely to observe
criminal behavior (surveillance
operations) or to prevent crime from
occurring (preventative operations),
many operations encourage crime
commission or consider it a necessity
in carrying out a plan (facilitative
operations), either through
emboldening suspects—short of
entrapment—or by weakening
potential victims.22
1. Should police be authorized to
violate the law to carry out
activities that are ultimately
meant to enforce the law? Be
specific.
2. Should undercover policing
apply to certain types of crimes
and not others? Who should
decide which crimes? Explain.
Suggestions for addressing these
questions can be found on the
Student Study Site:
e d g e . s a g e p u b . c o m /c ox p o l i c i n g 3 ee d g e . s a
g e p u b . c o m /c ox p o l i c i n g 3 e
Source: “Breaking the law to enforce it:
Undercover police participation in
crime,” by Elizabeth E. Joh, 2009.

Stanford Law Review, 62(1), 1. Re-
trieved July 2012 from www.stan-
fordlawreview.org/print/arti-
cle/breaking-law-enforce-it-under-
cover-police-participation-crime.
Research has demonstrated that ethics
education can assist officers in better
navigating moral challenges by increasing
ethical awareness and moral reasoning—
two critical aspects of ethical decision
making.20
To be effective at changing bad behavior or
maintaining good behavior, ethics
education must go beyond lectures and
must engage officers in challenging
dialogue and active tests of reasoning
skills.
To maintain high standards, departments
must incorporate discussions of ethics into
daily operations, stimulating those
discussions through a variety of means
including video clips, current events, and
hypothetical scenarios.21
Evaluating Police Ethics

The vast majority of criminal justice
students indicate that they would not turn
in a classmate who lied, cheated, or stole.23
A significant proportion of police officers
indicated that, when they became police
officers, they would not turn in a fellow
police officer who lied, cheated, or stole.24
Where does the message that it is
acceptable to let others do these things
without taking action originate? How has
doing the right thing become the wrong
thing to do?
In 1972, the Knapp Commission
discovered that the majority of New York
City police officers did not aggressively
seek out opportunities to engage in
unethical conduct, but may have engaged
in minor acts of corruption, such as
accepting gratuities.25 The commission
referred to these officers as “grass
eaters.” They generally chose not to get
involved in unethical conduct; however,
they also refused to turn in fellow officers
who did—and thus, in effect, condoned
unethical acts. This reluctance to report
wrongdoing is generally referred to as
nonfeasance in the professional

literature.26 Do trainers and leaders
somehow teach police recruits and
tenured officers to condone unethical
conduct? Unfortunately, the answer may
be yes. And it may be more entrenched
than is apparent. (See also Chapter 11.)
p.237
Although parents usually teach children
not to lie, steal, or cheat, many also teach
them not to get involved when others lie,
steal, or cheat. “It’s not your business—stay
out of it!” “Don’t get involved!” “You just
worry about yourself, not about other
people.” This and similar advice may indeed
lead youth to become grass eaters who
simply turn away from lying, cheating, and
stealing. They learn very early that
“ratting” on another individual is
unacceptable behavior in many settings,
which is perhaps as detrimental as being
directly involved in unethical conduct. Of
course, the police subculture often builds
on this consideration. Loyalty to the group
(other officers) is held out as a virtue, even
when it means engaging in seemingly
minor unethical conduct (covering, making
excuses, telling “white lies”) to protect
unethical individuals. Yet, police officers
are required by the Code of Conduct as
well as by federal law (Civil Action for
Deprivation of Rights, 1871) not to
condone such behavior. According to the
International Association of Chiefs of

Police (IACP), a number of factors
negatively influence police ethics:
Author Video
Ethical Theories
CLICK TO SHOW
• Changing moral standards of
contemporary society
• Americans “lacking a moral
consensus”
• Increasing number of individuals who
reject responsibility for their own
actions
• High degree of frustration
experienced by today’s police officers
• Misinformed or conflicting
perceptions of the role of police and
conflicting expectations about what is
or should be expected from the police
• Law enforcement agencies that fail to
clearly draw the legal, ethical, and
moral lines in the form of clear
policies and procedures, training,
supervision, and discipline27
In some cases, policy issues reflect the

values of administrators who are not
adequately committed to ethical conduct.
After researching thousands of
incidents of serious misconduct, the
single most damaging category of
misconduct in law enforcement is
administrators intentionally ignoring
obvious ethical problems. There is
nothing as negative as a chief, sheriff,
director or superintendent knowing
his department has ethical problems
and intentionally looking the other
way, trying to make it to retirement.28
In some instances, administrators model
unethical conduct on a regular basis,
allowing officers to rationalize that their
own misconduct is no worse. Placing all the
blame for unethical conduct on
administrators, however, may encourage
individual officers who engage in such
conduct to attempt to escape
responsibility for their actions.
In a study that examined frontline
supervisors’ perceptions of police integrity,
the supervisors reported reluctance to act
on the misconduct of their subordinates
because of the perceived unethical
practices of high-ranking supervisors in
their organization. The researchers posed
the following question: “[T]hough
supervisors may believe in the need for

reform, will they act on those beliefs when
they do not believe their own supervisors
are legitimately committed to
improvement?”29 Realistically, the answer
is probably no.
Certainly, the majority of police officers
perform their duties honestly, ethically,
and professionally. Still, the officers who
engage in inappropriate behavior tarnish
the reputation of everyone in policing and
place the field in the challenging position
of having to constantly convince the public
that acts of police malfeasance are not
widespread. Far too often, those who do
the right thing by telling the truth and
exposing corruption and brutality are the
victims of attacks from within their ranks.
p.238
1 0 . 11 0 . 1
Police officers in Wales are held to
high professional standards. Officers
have been dismissed or resigned for
crimes, including “supplying drugs,
possessing indecent images of
children and drunk-driving.” However,
many other officers who committed
offenses, including “violence, traffic
offenses and animal cruelty,” were not
dismissed. Many argue that every

incident or offense must be judged on
the merits of the case. This often
involves shifting the burden to the
officer to prove why he or she should
not be dismissed.
The Home Office believes “public
confidence in the police is crucial in a
system that rests on the principle of
policing by consent.” Michael Levi, a
professor of criminology, argues that
the “figures indicate that police
officers were less likely to commit
crimes than the general population.
The general statistics are that one in
three males can expect to be
convicted of something over their
lifetime.”
1. Police agencies invest
considerable money and
resources in identifying, hiring,
and training law enforcement
officers. Should law
enforcement officers be
dismissed any time an officer
violates the law, regardless of
the type of offense? Or should
different offenses be treated
differently?
2. Considering the importance of
public trust, what measure can
a police agency take to regain
the public trust in the event an

officer is disciplined or
dismissed for criminal activity?
Source: “12 of 32 police in Wales kept
jobs after breaking the law, figures
show,” by Kevin Leonard, 2012. BBC
News. Retrieved September 2012
from www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-
wales-16508670.
Biased Enforcement and Racial
Profiling
Racial profiling occurs when an officer
considers race as part of a decision to take,
or not to take, law enforcement action.
Legally, an officer can only consider race as
part of a specific, reliable suspect
description tied to a particular crime.
Considering a person’s race as a basis for
action is unacceptable and grounds for
disciplinary action.
© iStockphoto.com/Rich Leg
Empirical evidence has documented the
existence of biased enforcement during

routine traffic stops. Black and Hispanic
drivers are both ticketed and searched at
higher rates than Whites.
The action is still racial profiling, even if the
officer does not base his or her decision
“solely on race,” but considers it as one
factor among many. For example, if an
officer takes into account a person’s race
when deciding whom to stop and cite for
speeding, it is racial profiling even if the
driver is actually violating the law. In this
case, the officer has a perfectly legitimate
reason to stop and cite, but the fact that he
considered race as one of many factors
makes the stop illegal. That is very
different, however, from a case where a
person’s race is part of a reliable
description tied to a crime—for example, “a
male Hispanic wearing a red and blue
sweater.” In that case, the officer can
consider race.
p.239
Author Video
Racial profiling
CLICK TO SHOW
Though it is impossible to know how many,
certainly there are police officers who
continue to engage in such practices.
Indeed, some well-publicized police

practices are criticized as overt profiling.
New York City’s “stop and frisk” program is
one such practice. Even if the proportion of
officers involved in such practices is small,
all officers should be aware that racial
profiling is grounds for disciplinary action.
Harassment of individuals short of taking
official action also is unacceptable. (See
Chapter 12.)
Police are sworn to uphold the “rule of
law” in the protection of individual
rights, while dutifully enforcing traffic
and criminal laws for the protection of
the public at large. . . . It is essential
that law enforcement administrators
take every necessary action to ensure
zero tolerance regarding enforcement
actions that are discriminatory
against any segment of the
population.30
■ LEADERSHIP AND IMPROVING
DECISION MAKING
Every police department must establish a
clear code of ethical conduct that is based
on a set of core values and a mission
statement and then go beyond that. Chiefs
and supervisors must lead by example,
demonstrating that the code applies to
everyone in the organization and that

everyone is accountable for it.
Because the police department is a public
service agency, honesty and accountability
to the public are particularly important. It
is extremely valuable to recognize and
communicate the importance of discretion
at all levels in policing. In reality, it is
impossible to treat everyone exactly the
same. A necessary first step in dealing with
discretion is to recognize its existence and
importance. Only then can departments
address the proper and improper
applications of discretion, be more
transparent with the public, and improve
on effective training.
Video Link
Buffalo Police to mandate ethics
training
CLICK TO SHOW
Although it may not be possible to arrive at
a comprehensive set of guidelines for the
exercise of police discretion, it is clearly
possible to improve on current guidelines.
Clarifying guidelines for discretion will
assist officers themselves in behaving
according to professional standards. It will
also assist the community in
understanding police actions. The most
effective officers grasp the social and
historical context in which they operate.
Leaders set the tone for the entire

organization; therefore, without a strong
commitment to ethical decision making by
the chief executive officer and his or her
entire command staff, instances of
unethical or illegal practices are sure to
follow.
Leaders can and must affect the
ethical climate in their organizations.
Subordinates learn from observing
the behaviors of their superiors and
the consequences of those behaviors.
If leaders are rewarded for ethical
behavior and punished for unethical
behavior, their subordinates will learn
to emulate the ethical behavior.
Nothing any leader can say will have a
more powerful effect than what he or
she does.31
Police agencies must have clear policies
and practices. Only then will officers and
community members know what is
expected. Police leaders must address
unethical conduct or other breeches of
public trust in the most open, honest, and
transparent ways possible. Any reluctance
to respond will almost certainly arouse
suspicion of wrongdoing and acts as a
barrier to the trust and confidence of the
public in the police that are essential if the

police are to operate effectively.32
p.240
Figure 10.2 ■ Ethics and Honesty Ranking by
Profession
Source: http://www.gallup.-
com/poll/1654/honesty-ethics-
professions.aspx
When authority, power, and discretion
are granted to public
officials . . . rational people presume
that they will not use more than they
need for their legitimate purposes,
because rational people would never
grant more authority or discretion to
abridge liberty or use force than they
believed necessary. The presumption
is not of guilt but of official respect for
restraint. Citizens expect public
officials to justify their use of
authority or power when questions
arise.33
In a 2014 Gallup poll on honesty/ethics in
professions, 48% of respondents rated
police honesty and ethical standards as
high or very high. Figure 10.2 shows how
police officers are ranked in comparison to
other professions.

One approach that may be more effective
in guiding officer discretion involves the
use of incentives to promote voluntary
compliance with policies. Such incentives
include officer participation in policy
formulation, establishment of specialized
units to deal with specific tasks, positive
disciplinary practices aimed at correcting
the problem behavior without humiliating
the officer involved, and more and better
training on discretion in a variety of
different situations.34
p.241
Another departmental approach is to
regularly discuss discretion, ethics, and
decision making, weaving such discussions
into the organizational culture. Rather
than waiting for a critical incident to occur,
supervisors and managers should engage
their officers with scenarios and case
studies, taking the opportunity to
communicate important agency values,
clarify law and policy, and challenge
officers to think critically. By making it
acceptable to talk about ethics, police
agencies can better prepare their officers
to face the inevitable difficult choices
required of law enforcement officers.
However, by discussing common dilemmas

before they occur, officers will be better
prepared to make the right decisions,
rather than to rely solely on individual
judgment. In the same way that officers
continually train for tactical situations,
they should continually train for ethical
decisions as well.
Departments must also create systems
and foster a culture that rewards ethical
behavior. Administrators send key
messages by taking allegations of
misconduct seriously, protecting
confidentiality, and counteracting
retaliation for whistle blowing.
SAGE Journal Article
Whistle-blowing and the Code of
Silence in Police Agencies
CLICK TO SHOW
It is also important that leaders realize that
informal leaders in a police organization
also impact police officer attitudes and
behaviors. Police leaders must be prepared
to immediately confront ethical violations
and punish immoral behavior.35 Law
enforcement executives who are
committed to ethical behavior can
encourage it as follows:
1. Incorporate the ideals of ethics and
integrity into their organization’s
mission statement

2. Make ethical decision making part of
the organization’s formal functions
3. Emphasize ethical behavior as part of
the agency’s organizational
philosophy
4. Implement zero-tolerance policies
for unethical behavior or decision
making36
Police administrators can also mandate the
study of ethical decision making during
training and press training directors to
stress this activity at the recruit level. In
addition, training directors should revisit
their curriculum designs and ensure that
trainers are experienced educators who
understand and emphasize the importance
of ethical considerations and discretionary
activities. All policies governing individual
and collective police behavior should be
consistent with the ideals of justice and
morality.
Administrators must build safeguards into
department policy that anticipate and
address any tendency toward taking
shortcuts or other predictable secondary
leanings toward the unethical. Leaders
must communicate that they support
ethical practice.

Media Relations
As discussed in Chapter 6, the media, both
print and broadcast, have the
technological ability to transmit news
stories throughout the world in a matter of
seconds. For a variety of reasons, police–
media relations in this country have been
problematic. Many police officials—line
and staff personnel alike—tend to shun
media representatives whenever possible,
withholding information on newsworthy
events even when disclosing information
could not possibly harm anyone or
compromise a criminal investigation. In
such cases, the media rely instead on
questionable sources for information,
which frequently results in inaccuracies in
the story. Transparency with respect to
police operations—for example, when such
transparency does not jeopardize ongoing
investigations—even if it involves
disclosing unethical conduct or poor
discretionary choices on the part of the
police, may result in more balanced
coverage and more focus on the positive
contributions of the police.
Policing in Practice Video
What is your department’s experience
with the use of discretion and media
relations? Is there specific training for
working with the media?
CLICK TO SHOW
The conventional wisdom about the most

effective way of dealing with the media
appears to be changing. Forward-thinking
departments are viewing the media as a
tool and a partner rather than an
adversary from whom they must conceal
as much of the truth as possible. Police
chiefs are learning from past mistakes and
recognizing that clear and effective
communication to the public through the
media is a necessity in today’s world. They
are finding that their integrity and their
reputation are key assets in public
relations.
p.242
Police departments, like this one in
Dallas, use Twitter to inform citizens
about crime and traffic enforcement
locations, but also to build community
relations.
Progressive administrators are seeking
training in media and public relations.
Specialists dedicate themselves to
coaching and educating police
administrators on interviews, how to
respond to reporters in a crisis situation,
and defining the conversation and the
issues. Trainers advocate for a proactive

attitude, stressing the need for the police
to “face tough issues head-on and speak-
out when news coverage is skewed or
inaccurate. . . . Law enforcement has been a
victim too long. It’s time to stand up and
fight back when people make false
allegations about [a] department.”37
Police departments are increasingly using
social media as a tool to counter false
information, define the version of events
as official, and build public relations and
community. (See Chapter 6.)
Intolerance of Malfeasance
Although the next chapter will discuss
police misconduct in detail, the discussion
of ethics inevitably comes around to how
leaders must react to breaches of ethics.
Rather than focus on zero-tolerance arrest
policies, some police administrators
adopted zero-tolerance policies
concerning inappropriate conduct by
department members. As previously
asserted, the vast majority of our nation’s
police officers perform their duties
ethically, professionally, and competently.
Those officers who engage in unethical or
criminal activities and the departments
that allow it damage the reputation of the
entire field of policing. Most honest,
hardworking officers know who the
problem officers are, as do the command
staff. The snag here is often the reluctance

of officers who believe their own ethics are
sound to report the wrongdoings of their
colleagues. A National Institute of Justice
(NIJ) study designed to promote integrity
in the police profession focused on the
following issues for agency staff:
p.243
• Do they know the rules?
• How much individual and
organizational support is there for
those rules?
• Are staff familiar with disciplinary
actions associated with violations of
rules and policies?
• Do staff view disciplinary measures
as fair?
• How willing are staff to report
misconduct?38
As stated in the executive summary of the
report, “An agency’s culture of integrity, as
defined by clearly understood and
implemented policies and rules, may be
more important in shaping the ethics of
police officers than hiring the ‘right’
people.”39

The data also indicated that officers
quickly learn how various acts of
misconduct will be treated by observing
their organization’s ability to identify
unethical conduct and discipline errant
officers. “If unwritten policy conflicts with
written policy, the resulting confusion
undermines an agency’s overall integrity-
enhancing efforts.”40 The report also
offered recommendations for encouraging
officers to come forward to report acts of
misconduct by their coworkers. They
included the following:
1. Making it clear that officers and
supervisors who do not report
misconduct will be disciplined
2. Terminating any department
member caught lying during an
internal investigation
3. Issuing rewards, in anonymous
fashion, to officers who do report
misconduct
4. Allowing for anonymous or
confidential reporting
5. Regularly rotating supervisors and
officers among shifts, districts or
precincts, and other units of
assignment (which keeps officers

from becoming too comfortable)41
10.110.1
A Shreveport, Louisiana, police officer
was terminated from the department
for malfeasance. The termination was
based on an incident in 2010. The
officer was “assisting in a prisoner
transport at the Shreveport City Jail.
As the officer reportedly searched
the suspect, a police supervisor
reported seeing the officer remove an
item from the suspect’s pocket and
hand it to a female standing nearby.”
The female was detained, and the
10
investigation revealed the item
removed from the prisoner’s pocket
was a small, plastic bag of suspected
marijuana. The officer was arrested
for malfeasance in office and
obstruction of justice. He was
subsequently placed on
administrative leave until time of
termination.
1. Could there have been a
legitimate propose for passing
the contents of an arrestee’s
pockets to a bystander?

2. How should the department
inform the staff of the outcome
of an investigation into
malfeasance? Be specific.
3. What privacy issues might
there be for an officer who is
under investigation?
Source: “Shreveport police officer fired
for malfeasance,” by KSLA News 12,
2011. Retrieved June 2012 from
http://www.ksla.com.
p.244
CHAPTER SUMMARY
The use of discretion by police
is a necessity in the world of
policing. The exercise of this broad
power is not always underscored by
responsible and ethical decision
making, and the police subculture has
a tremendous influence on the use of
discretion.
Discriminatory law enforcement
practices erode the public trust, which
creates strained police community
relations and a dangerous societal

divide. One of the most significant
such issues is racial profiling, or the
targeting of minorities and other
certain classes by police for no other
reason than race, ethnicity, or perhaps
social class. This has weakened the
trust between the public and the
police, particularly among minority
populations.
This was not the only cost as Congress
and state legislatures in the nation
created laws that require mandatory
data collection by police agencies
regarding police encounters with
citizens pertaining to detention,
search and seizure, and arrests or
other legal sanctions. The economic
cost for the implementation of these
new policies came at great expense to
individual agencies.
Ethics in policing is extremely
important. Unethical conduct by
police ranges from violations of
department rules and regulations to
more serious issues such as unlawful
searches and seizures, the use of
excessive force, covering up for the
malfeasance of fellow officers, and
abuse of authority or criminal
misconduct.

Police officers must be held to a
higher ethical standard than most
other citizens because of the oath
they take when they enter the field of
policing. Honesty, integrity,
responsibility, accountability, and
professionalism (on and off duty) are
the underlying tenets of that oath.
When officers breach their fiduciary
responsibilities, the consequences can
be damaging to the individual officers,
their respective agencies, and the
communities they serve. A loss of faith
or trust by those communities is a
serious consequence that is difficult
to remedy and helps further degrade
public safety.
There are many reasons why unethical
practices by some police officers
continue, and chief among them are
the negative influences of the police
subculture, lack of strict
accountability on the part of all police
officers, ineffective supervisory
practices, and weak or ineffective
leadership structures.
Review key terms with
eFlashcards.
Discretion, ethics, accountability, and
professionalism are dynamically
interrelated and must be addressed in
a coordinated way.

Ethical practice practice is a requisite
for professional status, and if the field
of policing is to progress further along
the path to professionalization, all
parties concerned must commit
themselves to achieving this end.
Whether the police are able to attain
this end depends, in large part, on the
responsible and accountable exercise
of discretionary authority.
KEY TERMS
■ Police discretion 229
■ Biased enforcement 233
■ Quotas 233
■ Ethics 234
■ Knapp Commission 236
■ Grass eaters 236
Test your understanding of
chapter content. Take the
practice quiz.
■ Code of conduct 236
■ Nonfeasance 237

■ Police ethics 237
■ Racial profiling 238
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. What are some of the more
important ethical issues in
policing? Should police recruits be
taught ethics?
2. What is police discretion? How
extensive is its use?
3. Why is the police subculture
important in understanding
discretion?
4. What are some possible negative
consequences of the exercise of
discretion? What are some
positive consequences?
5. What factors besides the police
subculture affect the exercise of
police discretion?
6. Can we eliminate the exercise of
police discretion? Should we
eliminate it? How might we gain
better control over it?
p.245
7. Discuss racial profiling as an

example of poor discretionary
decision making.
8. Discuss the evolution of the police
code of ethics or conduct. Why
are ethics especially important for
the police?
9. List and discuss strategies that
may be undertaken to improve the
current state of ethical decision
making.
INTERNET EXERCISES
1. Using the key words
“international police
accountability,” locate and discuss
information concerning attempts
to establish police accountability
in at least one foreign country.
2. Use the Internet to locate the
code of ethics or code of conduct
for a police agency in your area.
How does this code compare to
the code established by the
International Association of
Chiefs of Police? In your opinion, is
the code enforceable?
3. On the Internet, locate
information concerning racial
profiling or bias.

STUDENT STUDY SITE
e d g e . s a g e p u b . c o m /c ox p o l i -e d g e . s a g e p u
b . c o m /c ox p o l i -
c i n g 3 ec i n g 3 e
S h a r p e n yo u r s k i l l s w i t hS h a r p e n yo u r s k i l
l s w i t h
S AG E e d g e !S AG E e d g e !
SAGE edge for Students
provides a personalized
approach to help you
accomplish your coursework
goals in an easy-to-use learning
environment. You’ll find action
plans, mobile-friendly
eFlashcards, and quizzes as
well as videos, web resources,
and links to SAGE journal
articles to support and expand
on the concepts presented in
this chapter.
p.166
8 Police Discretion
and Its Control
Michael Matthews–Police Images/Alamy Stock Photo

Media Library
CHAPTER 8 Media Library
P R E M I U M V I D E OP R E M I U M V I D E O
S AG E N E W S C L I PS AG E N E W S C L I P
Missouri – Ferguson Response
New Jersey – Newark Police De-
partment
C A R E E R V I D E OC A R E E R V I D E O
A Police Department’s Experience
with the Use of Discretion and Me-
dia Relations
Division Chief
O P E N AC C E S S V I D E OO P E N AC C E S S V I D E
O
‘Ferguson Effect’? Chicago Police Re
lease Video of Beaten Officer Who
Didn’t Pull Weapon
LAPD Outfits Every Officer with Bo
dy Cameras
AU D I OAU D I O
Police in Other Communities are Co
nsumed by Ferguson

Police Departments Issuing Body C
ameras Discover Drawbacks
W E BW E B
Police Officers’ Decision Making an
d Discretion: Forming Suspicion and
Making a Stop
The Ferguson Effect
J O U R N A LJ O U R N A L
Officer Perceptions of Body-Worn
Cameras Before and After De-
ployment: A Study of Three De-
partments
Public Perceptions of the Justifia-
bility of Police Shootings: The Role
of Body Cameras in a Pre- and Post-
Ferguson Experiment
p.167
Objectives
After reading this chapter you will be able
to:
• Discuss the meaning of police
discretion, why it is necessary, and why
it needs to be controlled

• Identify the factors that have been
shown by research studies to strongly
and consistently influence the decisions
of officers
• Propose how discretion may best be
controlled
• Discuss the limitations of
organizational rules and policies in
controlling the discretion of officers
• Describe the limitations of trying to
control police discretion by enhancing
the professional judgment of officers
• Explain how body-worn cameras might
serve to control the discretion of
officers
• Discuss the importance of ethical
conduct in policing and the limitations
of ethics training in police departments
today
• Evaluate how departmental values can
affect the use of police discretion
Fact or Fiction
To assess your knowledge of police
discretion prior to reading this chapter,
identify each of the following statements
as fact or fiction. (See page 190 at the end

of this chapter for answers.)
1. Police discretion is problematic and
efforts should be made to eliminate it.
2. Police discretion and selective
enforcement of the law are
completely different things.
3. A bad decision results in a bad
outcome and/or is a decision that was
made poorly.
4. The research is clear: If an officer has
a college education, that officer is
much more likely to make good
decisions.
5. Most studies show that race has an
impact on officers’ arrest decisions.
6. Organizational culture has a major
impact on officers’ decisions and
behaviors.
P
7. Policies of police organizations are
often vague, thus officers are still
required to use discretion.
8. Body-worn cameras can eliminate
police discretion.

9. Ethics training seminars have been
shown to be effective in controlling
officers’ discretion.
10. For ethics to have any chance to
impact the integrity of a police
department, the department first
needs to specify the values by which
its members should operate.
erhaps no issue relating to the
police has received as much
attention as discretion. This chapter
discusses the importance and necessity of
police discretion, the factors that may
influence the discretionary decisions of
officers, and how and why discretion
should be controlled, focusing in particular
on the role of departmental policy and
ethical standards of conduct.
Discretion De!ned
Discretion exists when a person makes
decisions based on his or her own
judgment. In contrast, when a person is
following directions, that person is not
making discretionary decisions; he or she
is just following a prescribed course of
action. Police officers seldom have specific
directions to follow when doing their work.
Rather, they are required to use their
judgment to figure things out on a constant
basis, even when it comes to law

enforcement situations. The police are not
expected to enforce every single infraction
of the law. Using their discretion officers
decide what laws will be enforced, on what
occasions those laws will be enforced,
against whom they will be enforced, and
how they will be enforced. In essence,
when police officers use discretion, they
selectively enforce the law.
p.168
Police Spotlight: Ethics,
Policy, and Discretion
“The values and ethics of the agency
will guide officers in their decision-
making process; they cannot simply
rely on rules and policy to act in
encounters with the public. Good
policing is more than just complying
with the law. Sometimes actions are
perfectly permitted by policy, but
that does not always mean an officer
should take those actions.”1
S o u r c e :S o u r c e : President’s Task Force on 21st
Century Policing. 2015. Final Report of the
President’s Task Force on 21st Century
Policing. Washington, D.C.: Office of

Community Oriented Policing Services.
OPEN ACCESS VIDEO
‘Ferguson Effect’? Chicago Police
Release Video of Beaten Officer
Who Didn’t Pull Weapon
CLICK TO SHOW
DISCRETION ABOUT WHAT?
Common circumstances in which patrol
officers must use discretion include the
following:
• Deciding whether or not to make a
traffic stop and whether to warn or cite
the motorist
• Deciding whether or not to stop and
question a suspicious subject on the
sidewalk
• Deciding where to patrol
• Deciding whether or not to pursue a
fleeing suspect
• Deciding whether or not to make an
arrest, particularly for a minor offense
• Deciding whether or not to use force
against a resisting subject and how
much and what kind of force to use
Patrol officers are not the only ones who

use discretion on the job. Detectives use
©iStockphoto.com/kali9
PHOTO 8.1 Police officers frequently use
discretion when performing their work; this
need can arise in routine situations, such as
traffic stops, and in extraordinary
circumstances, such as incidents that may
involve the use of force.
discretion in the following situations:
• Deciding what actions should be taken
in a criminal investigation
• Deciding how much time and effort
should be spent investigating a
particular crime
• Deciding whether or not to seek a
warrant to conduct a search
• Deciding whether to interrogate a
possible suspect in the case and what
tactics to use in the interrogation
Police supervisors and administrators use
discretion in the following circumstances:
• Deciding who should be hired as a
police officer
p.169

• Deciding whether or not to discipline or
terminate a poorly performing police
officer or other employee
• Deciding whether or not to create or
revise policies of the department
• Deciding what priorities to give to legal
infractions
• Deciding how the departmental budget
should be allocated
The Anatomy of a Decision
Before going any further, let’s be clear
about what constitutes a decision. A
decision is when a person chooses a
particular option based on consideration of
the information available. Without options
there cannot be a decision. Without the
consideration of information, the selection
of an option is just random, like a coin flip.
Decision making is a mental process, and
the result of the decision is an action or a
behavior. For example, you can choose to
either attend class or not. This is a
cognitive decision. You are likely to base
this decision on information of various
types and from different sources. If your
decision is to attend class, then you engage
in the behavior of actually going to class
(see Figure 8.1).

Rightfully so or not, a good or bad decision
is often determined by its outcome; bad
decisions have bad outcomes, good
decisions have good outcomes. However,
seldom is the outcome of a decision known
at the time the decision is made, although a
particular result might be reasonably
expected. Therefore, it is only after a
decision is made that a person can tell with
certainty if it was good or bad. For
example, skipping class may turn out to be
a bad decision because you missed a
surprise quiz. A good or bad decision may
also be determined by how that decision
was made, especially what information
was considered when making it. For
example, your decision to skip class could
be considered a bad one because you did
not consider the professor’s attendance
policy or that you might be having a quiz.
FIGURE FIGURE 8.18.1 The Anatomy of a
Decision
p.170
POTENTIAL PROBLEMS WITH
POLICE DISCRETION
To develop an understanding of police
discretionary decision making, it is
important to appreciate its significance
and potential problems. There are many
issues to consider—seven to be exact. First,

police discretion is an important issue
because it can affect citizens in extremely
significant ways. For example, when a
police officer makes a decision, a citizen
might get a ticket or be arrested. An arrest
may have extraordinary effects on a
person’s life—on his or her employment,
marriage, or child custody, to name a few.
In some circumstances police discretion
can mean life or death for a citizen. As
discussed in Chapter 1, the police are
inherently controversial. Fundamentally,
this is because of the critical discretionary
decisions officers have the authority to
make. The decisions officers make are
usually to the benefit of some and the
detriment of others.
CAREER VIDEO
A Police Department’s Experience
with the Use of Discretion and Me
dia Relations
Second, whenever a decision is made by a
police officer, it could turn out to have a
bad outcome and therefore be judged a
bad decision. Police officers make
decisions all day long. And, as noted above,
bad outcomes in policing can be
devastating for citizens and officers. For
example, say a police officer decides not to
make an arrest when a husband and wife
are arguing, and later the husband kills the
wife. Or an officer decides not to stop a
jaywalker, and later that pedestrian is

struck and killed by a car. In some cases an
officer uses justifiable force, but bad
outcomes result (Exhibit 8.1). These
decisions may have had justifiable reasons
and been properly made, but they could
still result in bad outcomes. This is in spite
of the fact that sometimes the outcomes
are beyond the control of officers.
Third, police officers may make bad
decisions because of the way the decision
was made, or because of the information
that was considered when making the
decision. A bad decision may be made due
to lack of training, because the officer did
not understand departmental policy, or
simply as a result of an error in judgment.
For example, a police officer could
misinterpret a threat posed by a subject
and use more force than necessary. In such
a case, the bad decision might not be
malicious in nature. Without malicious
intent the action might not be considered
criminal, but that does not necessarily
make the decision any less bad in terms of
the harm done. A bad decision could also
be made with malicious intent. A police
officer may deliberately treat people with
certain characteristics more harshly than
others. It would be naïve to ignore this
possibility. The fact is some people are
racist and/or sexist, and unfortunately
these individuals may find their way into

the police occupation. When officers’
decisions are based on these biases, it
constitutes a major problem.
Fourth, good decisions made by officers
are sometimes incorrectly interpreted by
citizens as being improper, biased, or just
plain bad. For example, if you get stopped
and ticketed for speeding, you may believe
you received the ticket because you are
black or white, young or old, male or
female, etc. In actuality you received the
ticket simply because the officer saw you
speeding and it is his or her job to enforce
speeding laws. Or maybe you did receive
the ticket because you are black or white,
young or old, male or female. Sometimes it
is difficult to determine the reason for an
officer’s decision and whether it was
properly made or based on ill-will. If
citizens are treated unfairly—or even just
perceive unfair treatment—it can have
negative effects on police-citizen relations
and on the community more generally. This
important issue is discussed in more detail
in Chapter 13.
p.171
Exhibit 8.1
The Ferguson Effect, Discretion, and
Crime
In 2014 a white officer from the
Ferguson (Missouri) Police

Department, Darren Wilson, shot
AP Photo/St. Louis Post-Dispatch, J.B. Forb
es
PHOTO 8.2 Some of the
destruction caused by rioters in the
aftermath of the fatal police shooting
of Michael Brown in Ferguson,
Missouri. Claims about the so-called
Ferguson effect are not supported by
research on the issue.
and killed an unarmed eighteen-
year-old African American man
named Michael Brown. The
questionable circumstances of the
shooting led to major disturbances
and rioting in Ferguson and other
U.S. cities. The incident gave birth to
the Black Lives Matter movement
and the slogan “Hands up, don’t
shoot.” After an extensive
investigation, a grand jury decided
not to indict Officer Wilson on
criminal charges, and more rioting
occurred in the city. A later federal
investigation of the incident
concluded that Officer Wilson acted
in self-defense and he was again
cleared of wrongdoing. Months after
the incident, Wilson resigned from

the Ferguson police force, and a new
chief of police was appointed to the
department. Lawsuits against the
officer and the police department
have been filed. Police officers in
Ferguson and other cities have been
attacked, shot, and killed in
retaliation. President Barack Obama
commissioned a task force to study
policing2 (see Police Spotlight
feature), and loud calls for police
reform, greater transparency, and
the increased use of body-worn
cameras continue to this day.
It has been argued that the public
outcry over Ferguson and similar
incidents has caused police officers
to enforce the law less frequently—
to essentially avoid those situations
where force may need to be used. It
has also been suggested that this
lower level of law enforcement has
led to an increase in crime and
criminal behavior. This reasoning has
been referred to as the Ferguson ef
fect. To date, however, there is no
solid research evidence that either
of these arguments is valid on an
ongoing, widespread, or large-scale
basis.
Fifth, many decisions of patrol officers

occur in low-visibility situations, or
those in which not many people can
actually see what decisions were made. In
many situations it is only the affected
citizen(s) who sees the decisions of the
responding officer or officers. Supervisors
may not even see these decisions.
Research has shown that in half of all
encounters with citizens, only one officer
was present,3 and many of these
encounters occurred in private places. This
can create challenges when trying to
control police discretion. Of course, an
important exception to the low visibility of
police discretion is when officer actions
(decisions) are on video and made available
for citizens to see.
Sixth, most often officers’ decisions are
made on the spot without the benefit of
time to collect information or to consider
all the options available and all the
potential consequences of the decision.
This can contribute to bad decisions being
made. Most police discretionary decisions
need to be made immediately, not later in
the day or next week. The speeding car, the
dog that is about to attack, and the subject
pointing the gun all need to be stopped
now. Time spent collecting information
and carefully considering that information
prior to making a decision is a luxury
seldom afforded to police officers. To the
extent that patrol officers’ decisions are

subjected to review and analysis, it is
usually only after the decision has already
been made.
p.172
Finally, while police managers and
executives also have discretion, their
discretion is quite different than that used
by patrol officers. The decisions of police
executives are more likely to affect citizens
in indirect sorts of ways, and those
decisions are often subject to review and
analysis prior to being made. In this sense,
from the perspective of citizens, the
decisions of police executives may be less
problematic than those of officers; they
may still be controversial and concerning,
but not to the same extent as the decisions
made by officers on the streets.
THE NECESSITY OF DISCRETION
Given the potential difficulties associated
with police discretion, you might think the
best solution is to eliminate it. However,
this is not possible for several reasons.
Discretion is necessary because of limited
resources. Because of time and money
constraints, police officers have to pick and
choose the situations in which they
enforce the law. For example, the
jaywalker has to be ignored so the speeder
can be ticketed. Or the speeder may have
to be ignored so the drunk driver can be

arrested. The burglary investigation has to
be set aside so the homicide can be
investigated. Even in situations where
discretionary decisions can be automated
through technology, this issue is still
present. For example, in instances where
the police use automated traffic
enforcement cameras to detect and cite
motor vehicle violations, there are still
limited resources for the deployment of
those cameras. The cameras simply cannot
be installed everywhere.
Discretion is also necessary because we
believe that the police should be flexible
when enforcing the law: All people should
be treated equally, and yet an individual’s
circumstances and motivations may
reasonably be considered when making
decisions. For example, most of us would
probably agree that the physician who is
speeding to the hospital to save someone’s
life should probably be treated differently
than the teenager who is speeding to
impress his friends. The mentally ill
offender should probably be treated
differently than other offenders. If there
was no discretion, everyone would be
treated the same at all times. Discretion
allows the police to provide appropriate
responses to different people in different
circumstances.

Finally, police officers are required to make
so many complex decisions that it would be
impossible to program every one of those
decisions with specific instructions. It is
not practical to think that the best decision
Bob Daemmrich/Alamy Stock Photo
PHOTO 8.3 Police discretion means the
police selectively enforce the law. Discretion
is necessary because of limited police
resources and the complexity of many police
tasks. In addition, individuals may require
different treatment by the police given their
circumstances.
in every possible situation could be
dictated with specific rules. Further, even if
certain discretionary decisions could be
eliminated, other decisions would then be
created. For example, as noted earlier, with
automated traffic enforcement cameras
some discretion is eliminated, such as the
decision of which motorists should be
stopped and cited, but other decisions are
created, such as determining where the
cameras should be placed and what types
of traffic infractions should be cited. It is
clear that the elimination of police
discretion is not practical, feasible, or even
possible.
p.173

Factors That In"uence the
Discretion of Police Of!cers
The difference between a good and bad
decision depends at least partly on the
factors (or information) that form the basis
of the decision. In particular, selective
enforcement of the law (i.e., police
discretion) is not a problem as long as all
groups of people have equal protection
under the law, and from the law, as
guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment
to the U.S. Constitution. Considerable
research has examined the factors that
influence police decisions, and many
conflicting findings have been the result.
Part of the reason for the conflict is the
studies were conducted at different times
and in different places. Not all police
departments operate in the same manner
and have the same priorities and policies,
and not all communities are the same in
terms of their size and demographic
composition. Therefore, conflicting
research findings should not be surprising.
Also, there is likely a complex interplay
among many of the identified factors. One
might expect certain factors to have an
impact on officers’ decisions in some
situations but not others. Listed below are
the major groups of factors that have been
considered when trying to explain police
decision making.
WEB
Police Officers’ Decision Making a

nd Discretion: Forming Suspicion
and Making a Stop
CLICK TO SHOW
• Officer characteristics
• Situational factors, which include:
○ Suspect characteristics
○ Victim characteristics
○ Offense characteristics
○ Neighborhood characteristics
• Organizational factors, which include:
○ Organizational culture
○ Training and supervision
○ Standard operating policies (SOPs)
• Legal factors
• Community and political factors
Figure 8.2 illustrates the groups of factors
that may influence the decisions of police
officers.
OFFICER CHARACTERISTICS
Officer characteristics include sex, race,
ethnicity, age, length of service,
educational level, and attitudes. One might
reasonably expect the characteristics of
officers to make a difference in the
decisions they make; however, perhaps
surprisingly, research has generally shown

officers’ characteristics have minimal
effects on their discretionary decisions.4
When exceptions to this are noted, they
generally have to do with the sex and age
of officers: Female officers tend to make
fewer arrests and use force (or different
types of force) less often5 than male
officers, and younger officers tend to make
more arrests than older officers. One
study found female officers were less likely
to make arrests in the presence of fellow
officers but more likely to make arrests
when being observed by supervisors.6
Although there are many good arguments
in support of college education for police
officers, research has produced
inconsistent findings regarding the effects
of higher education on officer decision
making and behavior.7 (See Research
Spotlight feature.) Characteristics such as
experience on the job and gender may
affect the attitudes of officers;8 however,
attitudes seldom influence officers’
decision-making behaviors.9 This may be
due to difficulties in accurately measuring
officers’ attitudes (and behaviors, for that

matter) and/or that other factors (e.g.,
policies, expectations of coworkers) are
more important and override the influence
of officer attitudes. Interestingly, though,
research has shown that officers bring
certain styles or role orientations to their
job. These styles are at least somewhat
based on officers’ characteristics and
personalities.10
p.174
FIGURE FIGURE 8.28.2 Factors That May
Influence Police
Discretion
RACE AND OTHER SUSPECT
CHARACTERISTICS
Do police officers consider the
demographic characteristics of suspects
when making decisions about them?
Particularly relevant here is the potential
influence of a suspect’s race, gender, age,
and ethnicity on arrest decisions. A 2014
meta-analysis of forty-two studies
examining these variables concluded that
WEB
The Ferguson Effect
CLICK TO SHOW
black individuals, males, and Hispanic

individuals are significantly more
likely to be arrested. For race and
gender (not ethnicity) this effect
persists regardless of whether or not
a study accounts for the seriousness
of the offense, the amount of
evidence, whether a suspect was
under the influence of drugs or
alcohol, whether the suspect used a
weapon, the demeanor of the
suspect, and/or whether the suspect
committed a crime in front of the
officer during the encounter. . . . These
findings are relatively consistent
regardless of when and where the
study takes place.14
AUDIO
Police in Other Communities are
Consumed by Ferguson
CLICK TO SHOW
p.175
RESEARCH SPOTLIGHT
The Effects of HigherThe Effects of Higher
Education on PoliceEducation on Police
BehaviorBehavior
A recent study examined the
relationship between the educational
level of officers and three outcomes:
propensity to arrest, to search, and to

use force.11 The data used in the
analyses were collected as part of a
larger study on police-citizen
interactions in Indianapolis, Indiana,
and St. Petersburg, Florida, known as
the Project on Policing
Neighborhoods (POPN). Researchers
rode with officers on patrol and
analyzed 3,356 encounters between
officers and suspects. The
researchers were interested in those
encounters in which arrests were
made, searches were conducted, or
force was used by officers.
Information on officers’ education
and other characteristics was
obtained from interviews with the
officers. The study found that (1)
officer education had no influence on
the probability of an arrest occurring
in an encounter, (2) the educational
level of the officer did not affect the
likelihood of a search being
conducted in an encounter, and (3)
officers with some college or a four-
year degree were less likely to use
force compared to officers without
college educations. However, the
authors concluded that the study was
“not capable of providing a
satisfactory answer as to how and
why education may or may not
A Question to Consider 8.1

Police Behavior and Higher
Education
The study highlighted in the Research
Spotlight13 found the educational level
of an officer did not affect the officer’s
likelihood of making arrests or
conducting searches, but it did affect the
likelihood of the officer using force on
citizens. Why do you think this is the
case? What other behaviors or decisions
do you think officer educational level
might reasonably affect? Why?
matter.”12
However, the analyses showed that the
race of the suspect was not a significant
predictor of whether or not the suspect
was arrested in domestic violence
situations: Black and white suspects were
equally likely to be arrested in these
situations. This finding is interesting
because the decision options for officers in
domestic violence incidents are limited;
often officers are required to make an
arrest.
Another study, published in 2011, took a
similar approach and analyzed forty
research reports that examined the effects
of suspect race on the probability of arrest.
The study also showed “with strong

consistency that minority suspects are
more likely to be arrested than white
suspects.”15 Indeed, most, but not all,
studies of this issue have found evidence of
increased enforcement against blacks.16
This has led to, among other things, use of
the phrase “driving while black” to describe
the racial profiling of African American
motorists. To be clear, however, these
patterns of decision making do not
necessarily mean police officers are racist
or sexist; the reason for these patterns
could not be specified by the research. In
addition, even if racism or sexism do
account for these findings, that of course
does not mean all officers are so biased.
The issue of suspect race and police use of
force is discussed in detail in Chapter 11.
Another suspect characteristic that has
consistently been shown to influence
police decision making is the demeanor of
the suspect; in particular, the degree of
respect shown to the officer by the
suspect. Informally, suspect demeanor is
understood among police officers to be an
important issue in how they treat suspects.
In fact, some police officers have spoken of
“POPO” (“pissing off a police officer”) or
“disturbing the police” (instead of
“disturbing the peace”) as a factor to
consider in arrest decisions. Police officers
observed and interviewed by Professor

John Van Maanen identified some citizens
Mike Simons/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
PHOTO 8.4 Most studies show minority
suspects are more likely to be arrested than
white suspects even when the seriousness of
the offense, the amount of evidence, and
as “assholes”—people who argue or do not
cooperate with the police.17 Research
shows suspects who are defiant,
uncooperative, rude, or disrespectful are
much more likely to be arrested by the
police or to have force used upon them
regardless of other factors,18 except for
mental disorders.19 Research has also
shown black subjects are more likely to be
viewed by white and black officers as
disrespectful, noncompliant, and/or
resistant.20 The influence of respect on
police decisions is not limited only to
suspects but also to citizens more
generally: Police officers are more likely to
comply with citizen requests if citizens are
respectful of the police.21
p.176

other factors are taken into account.
VICTIM CHARACTERISTICS
When victim characteristics have an effect
on police decision making, it is generally in
certain situations or with certain types of
crimes. In particular, when victims do not
cooperate with the police, when they do
not wish the police to continue an
investigation, or when they do not want to
pursue charges against the offender, the
police are less likely to continue an
investigation22 or make an arrest.23 An
important exception to this is the more
serious the crime, the more likely the
police are to take action regardless of
victim wishes. This is also the case with
domestic violence incidents. In addition,
victim credibility or believability may have
an effect on police decision making,
although this may have more to do with
the victim’s account of the crime than his
or her characteristics. In essence, if there
are questions about the truthfulness or
credibility of a victim, the police are less
likely to pursue an investigation.24
OFFENSE CHARACTERISTICS
The seriousness of the crime is a major
factor in the decision making of officers.
Regardless of any other factors, the more
serious the crime, the more likely the

police are to make an arrest.25 However, it
should be understood that seriousness is a
relative concept. What is a serious offense
in one city may not be so serious in
another. Seriousness is typically defined in
terms of injury or the potential for injury to
the victim, the amount of property loss
associated with the crime, or more
generally the amount of harm that results
(or may result) from the offense. In many
instances the seriousness of the offense
can outweigh all other factors. For
example, while being polite and respectful
to a police officer during a traffic stop for
an illegal lane change may get you a
warning, being polite and respectful when
stopped for going thirty miles an hour over
the speed limit will probably still yield a
ticket. The seriousness of the offense
outweighs respect in the decision-making
process.
The amount of evidence associated with
the offense is also a major factor in the
decision making of officers.26 With
stronger evidence that an offense actually
occurred and a particular person
committed that offense comes a greater
likelihood of an arrest or other formal
action, such as the issuance of a citation.
This logic makes sense; evidence is needed

to establish probable cause, and probable
cause is necessary for an arrest to be
made.
NEIGHBORHOOD CHARACTERISTICS
The neighborhood area, or beat, in which
officers work has also been shown to
influence the actions of officers. Arrests,
uses of force, traffic stops, traffic citations,
and SQFs are all more likely to occur in
low-income neighborhoods compared to
higher-income areas.27 Some offenses
viewed as normal or not particularly
serious in some areas are less likely to get
police attention than those same offenses
might in other areas.28 For example, the
police may ignore the presence of
panhandlers in some areas of a city but not
others.
SAGE NEWS CLIP
Missouri – Ferguson Respons
e
p.177
ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE
Many studies have found the culture of the
police organization (and occupation) has a
substantial impact on the decision-making

©iStockphoto.com/Nuli_k
PHOTO 8.5 Police discretion and the
actions of officers may vary based on
neighborhood characteristics.
behavior of officers,29 but some officers
adhere to, and are part of, this culture
more than others.30 The organizational c
ulture refers to the “accepted practices,
rules, and principles of conduct that are
situationally applied.”31 It consists of a
network of shared norms, values,
attitudes, and expectations. These factors
can determine everything from what is
considered a good joke to the value of
various police tasks. The violation of these
unwritten rules carries informal and
unofficial sanctions, such as being the
subject of ridicule or receiving timely
backup when requested. The culture of a
police organization—or any agency, for
that matter—cannot be learned from a
book; it is learned through experiencing
the organization and the work of its
members.
Several excellent and influential studies
have attempted to document the culture of
the police.32 For instance, Elizabeth Reuss-
Ianni developed a list of cultural “rules”

that govern police officers’ conduct, based
on research she conducted in the New
York City Police Department. These rules
include the following:
• Watch out for your partner first and
then the rest of the guys working the
shift.
• Don’t give up on another cop.
• Show balls (courage).
• Be aggressive when you have to, but
don’t be too eager.
• Don’t get involved in anything in
another guy’s sector (beat area).
• Hold up your end of the work.
• If you get caught off base (being
somewhere where you are not
supposed to be), don’t implicate anyone
else.
• Make sure other officers (but not
supervisors or administrators) know if
another cop is dangerous or crazy.
• Don’t trust a new guy until you have
checked him out.
• Don’t tell anybody more than they have
to know—it could be bad for you and it
could be bad for them.

• Don’t talk too much or too little.
• Protect your ass.
• Don’t make waves.
• Don’t give supervisors too much
activity.
• Know your bosses.
• Don’t do the bosses’ work for them.
• Don’t trust bosses to look out for your
interests.33
p.178
Other scholars have focused on the critical
role of danger and suspicion in the police
culture.34 It has been argued that these
factors may affect the personality of police
officers or the way they think and behave
more generally.35 The potential for danger
is always present in police work; it is a
defining feature of the job. Suspicion then
becomes a survival skill for officers—a way
of recognizing danger. Suspicion keeps
police officers focused on detecting danger
before it is too late. According to Jerome

Skolnick, police officers come to identify sy
mbolic assailants (people who may pose a
danger) to help manage the potential for
danger, and they do so with limited
information. For example, when an officer
sees a subject holding the waistband of his
pants, the officer expects this means the
subject is armed. Or the officer believes
that the teenagers loitering at a bus stop
are not there to get on a bus but to rob
someone or sell drugs.
Suspicion may also manifest itself in
another way: Police officers tend to
become suspicious of the motives and
intentions of citizens. Given how
controversial the police can be and the
unique work demands of the occupation,
officers learn their actions and
responsibilities can easily be
misunderstood by citizens. This
encourages officers not to share details of
their work, such as the methods used to try
to control crime. The police have been
known to develop an “us versus them”
mentality and a so-called code of silence.
When this code keeps officers from
reporting on the misconduct of other
officers, it becomes a barrier to the ethical
operation of police departments and has
serious implications for the control of
police corruption. When it prevents police
departments from sharing information
with the community or seeking community
input, it can create more distrust and

misunderstanding on the part of
community members. These issues are
discussed further in Chapter 12.
TRAINING, SUPERVISION, AND
STANDARD OPERATING
PROCEDURES (SOPs)
Effective management of police officers’
discretion requires that officers are
accountable to the official policies and
procedures of the organization, which are
also known as standard operating proce
dures (SOPs). Policies and formal rules of
police departments are supported by
training and enforced by supervision, and
violation of rules should lead to formal
sanctions. Not surprisingly, then, many
studies have shown police officer
discretion is influenced by official
departmental policies. For example,
research has shown the implementation of
a more restrictive shooting policy can
reduce firearm discharges,36 a restrictive
high-speed pursuit policy can reduce the
frequency of pursuits,37 officers who work
in agencies with more restrictive use of
force policies use force less often than
officers who work in agencies with more
permissive policies,38 and mandatory

arrest policies can lead to more domestic
violence arrests.39
LEGAL FACTORS
The law shapes what the police do and how
they do it. As we discuss in Chapter 9,
there are many legal rules that govern how
the police can conduct their duties. For
example, the famous U.S. Supreme Court
decision in Miranda v. Arizona (1966)
requires police officers to inform suspects
of their Miranda rights when in custody
and prior to questioning. Terry v. Ohio
(1968) allows the police to stop and frisk
subjects only when an officer has
reasonable suspicion a subject is engaged
in illegal conduct. Arizona v. Gant (2009)
allows the police to search an arrested
individual’s vehicle only if the individual
could access the vehicle at the time of the
search or if it is reasonable to expect the
vehicle contains evidence of the offense.
Perhaps the best example of how the law
can affect police behavior is the Court’s
decision in Tennessee v. Garner (1985).
This decision prohibits police use of deadly
force against fleeing suspects, including
felons, unless there is probable cause to
believe the suspect poses a significant
threat to officers or others. After this
decision was incorporated into police
department policy, it was found that
shootings of fleeing suspects in Memphis,

Tennessee, were reduced to zero.40
p.179
COMMUNITY AND POLITICAL
FACTORS
One of the primary reasons why every city
has its own police department is so citizens
can have more direct input into how their
department operates. Citizens elect
community leaders; community leaders
appoint police officials. Thus, police
leaders and departments should ideally be
more responsive to the needs and
priorities of citizens. This can lead to police
departments being more lenient with the
enforcement of some offenses than others.
Some police departments are most
oriented toward service, some toward
order maintenance, and some toward law
enforcement. The orientation of the police
should relate directly to the priorities and
desires of community members. In this way
community and political factors can
influence the discretionary decisions of
officers. Although this may seem
reasonable, there is little research that has
actually linked particular decisions of
officers with community and political
factors.41

How Is Police Discretion
Best Controlled?
As discussed earlier, it is not realistic or
desirable to eliminate police discretion.
Many of the decisions of police officers are
very complex, there are too few resources
to enforce all the laws all the time, and it is
considered desirable for officers to be
flexible in their decision making because
what is appropriate treatment for one
person may not be for another. Each of
these factors makes the elimination of
discretion not practical. Yet because of the
potential to base decisions on
unwarranted factors (e.g., subject race or
gender) or to otherwise make bad
decisions, there is a need to guide and
control police discretion.
SAGE NEWS CLIP
New Jersey – Newark Police D
epartment
To understand the need to control police
discretion is one thing; to actually do it is
another. This has been a management
challenge since police departments were
first created and the first officers walked
their beats. We will now discuss the latest
thinking on how best to control the
discretion of officers. These methods are
not an absolute solution, but they
represent the most effective options
available today. They include (1) the

implementation of organizational rules and
policy (SOPs), combined with training and
effective supervision; (2) the enhancement
of officers’ professional judgment through
personnel selection; (3) providing
transparency in police operations; and (4)
the incorporation of ethical standards into
the culture of policing and police decision
making.
ORGANIZATIONAL RULES AND
STANDARD OPERATING
PROCEDURES
As noted, many studies have shown
organizational policies affect the decision
making of officers. It logically follows then
that organizational policies should be used
to control police discretion. Written
policies can identify the actions that must
be taken in certain situations, the actions
that should not be taken in certain
situations, and/or the factors officers
should consider when making decisions in
certain situations. Essentially, policies
identify how a police department expects
its officers to act in certain situations. As
explained by the American Bar
Association,
p.180
Police discretion can best be
structured and controlled through the

process of administrative rule making
by police agencies. Police
administrators should, therefore, give
the highest priority to the formulation
of administrative rules governing the
exercise of discretion, particularly in
the areas of selective enforcement,
investigative techniques, and
enforcement methods.42
There are many examples of policy
changes affecting officers’ behaviors. For
example, as already discussed, policies that
restrict deadly force have been shown to
reduce the frequency by which officers use
such force, and policies that restrict high-
speed pursuits have cut down on such
pursuits.
Over the years most police departments
have developed policies that address a
wide range of officers’ decisions. There are
rules about evidence collection, searches
of subjects, uniforms and equipment,
incident report writing, overtime,
documenting injuries on the job, and
operating departmental vehicles. It is fair
to say that in an attempt to control police
discretion, departments today have
become very rule-oriented. An officer who
was interviewed by Professor Peter
Manning provided a critical view to the
process of rulemaking in his department:

140 years of fuckups. Every time
something goes wrong, they make a
rule about it. All the directions in the
force flow from someone’s mistake.
You can’t go eight hours on the job
without breaking the disciplinary
code. . . . But no one cares until
something goes wrong.43
One must ask, however, if policies are so
encompassing and effective at controlling
police decisions, why are there still
circumstances in which police officers
misuse their discretion? This is a good
question, and there are several possible
explanations. First, administrative rules
have limitations. Many of the most
important policies of police departments
do not provide specific direction to
officers; officers are still required to make
judgments, often under conditions of
limited time and information. For example,
part of the pursuit policy of the Seattle
Police Department states that “officers will
cease pursuit when the risk of the pursuit
outweighs the danger to the public if the
suspect is not captured.”44 What does that
mean? How exactly is the “risk of the
pursuit” measured in comparison to the
“danger to the public?” Clearly, even with a
policy, officers must still use discretion

when deciding to stop or continue a
pursuit.
As another example, the use of force policy
of the Seattle Police Department provides
some direction regarding when use of
force is not allowed (Exhibit 8.2), but much
of the policy consists of statements that
require officers to use discretion to
determine when force should be used (Ex-
hibit 8.3).
It is important to realize that if policies are
not supported by training, they are less
likely to successfully control police
discretion. Training can provide an
interpretation of a department’s policy and
serve as a basis on which police officers
can model desired actions while
performing their job duties. However, if a
policy is vague, specific direction through
training will likely be difficult.
Finally, if administrative rules are not
supported with supervision and
enforcement, they are less likely to control
police discretion. The supervision and
direction provided by sergeants, who are
officers’ first-line supervisors, is
particularly critical. However, once again, if
a policy is vague, enforcement will be
difficult as conflicting interpretations of
the policy may exist. In addition, sergeants
are only one rank removed from patrol
officers and therefore tend to have closer

and stronger relationships with officers
than mid- or high-level managers, such as
lieutenants and captains. Their supervisory
capacity may be diminished as a result.
Due to the limitations of policies, training,
and supervision, the challenge is to
develop ways by which these factors can
be made more effective in guiding police
discretion.
p.181
Exhibit 8.2
Seattle Police Department Use of
Force Policy: When Force Is Not
Allowed
An officer may n o tn o t use physical
force:
* To punish or retaliate.
* Against individuals who only
verbally confront them unless
the vocalization impedes a
legitimate law enforcement
function.
* On restrained subjects (e.g.,
including handcuffed or
contained in a police vehicle)
except in exceptional
circumstances when the

subject’s actions must be
immediately stopped to prevent
injury, or escape, or destruction
of property. All such force shall
be closely and critically
reviewed. Subjects who are
refusing to get out of a
department vehicle may be
removed from the vehicle after
reasonable attempts to gain
voluntary compliance have
failed, subject to supervisor
approval.
* To stop a subject from
swallowing a substance that is
already in their mouth: Officers
may use reasonable force, not
including hands to the neck or
insertion of any objects or
hands into a subject’s mouth, to
prevent a suspect from putting
a substance in their mouth.
In the event that a suspect
swallows a harmful
substance, officers shall
summon medical assistance.
* To extract a substance or item
from inside the body of a
suspect without a warrant.45
S o u r c e :S o u r c e : Seattle Police Department website

(http://www.seattle.gov/police-manual/title-
8).
Exhibit 8.3
Seattle Police Department Use of
Force Policy: When Force Is
Allowed
1. Use of Force: When Authorized
An officer shall use only the force
reasonable, necessary, and
proportionate to effectively bring an
incident or person under control,
while protecting the lives of the
officer or others.
In other words, officers shall only
use objectively reasonable force,
proportional to the threat or
urgency of the situation, when
necessary, to achieve a law-
enforcement objective. The force
used must comply with federal and
state law and Seattle Police
Department policies, training, and
rules for specific instruments and
devices. Once it is safe to do so and
the threat is contained, the force
must stop.

When determining if the force was
objectively reasonable, necessary
and proportionate, and therefore
authorized, the following guidelines
will be applied:
R e a s o n a b l eR e a s o n a b l e: The reasonableness of
a particular use of force is based on
the totality of circumstances known
by the officer at the time of the use
of force and weighs the actions of
the officer against the rights of the
subject, in light of the circumstances
surrounding the event. It must be
judged from the perspective of a
reasonable officer on the scene,
rather than with the 20/20 vision of
hindsight. Factors to be considered
in determining the objective
reasonableness of force include, but
are not limited to:
• The seriousness of the crime or
suspected offense;
• The level of threat or resistance
presented by the subject;
• Whether the subject was posing
an immediate threat to officers
or a danger to the community;
p.182
• The potential for injury to
citizens, officers or subjects;

• The risk or apparent attempt by
the subject to escape;
• The conduct of the subject being
confronted (as reasonably
perceived by the officer at the
time);
• The time available to an officer to
make a decision;
• The availability of other
resources;
• The training and experience of
the officer;
• The proximity or access of
weapons to the subject;
• Officer versus subject factors
such as age, size, relative
strength, skill level,
injury/exhaustion and number of
officers versus subjects
• The environmental factors
and/or other exigent
circumstances; and
• Whether the subject has any
physical disability.

The assessment of reasonableness
must allow for the fact that police
officers are often forced to make
split-second decisions—in
circumstances that are tense,
uncertain, and rapidly evolving—
about the amount of force that is
necessary in a particular situation.
The reasonableness inquiry in an
excessive-force case is an objective
one: whether the officers’ actions
are objectively reasonable in light of
the facts and circumstances
confronting them, without regard to
their underlying intent or
motivation.
N e c e s s a r yN e c e s s a r y: Officers will use
physical force only when no
reasonably effective alternative
appears to exist, and only then to the
degree which is reasonable to effect
a lawful purpose.
P r o p o r t i o n a lP r o p o r t i o n a l: To be proportional,
the level of force applied must
reflect the totality of circumstances
surrounding the situation at hand,
including the nature and immediacy
of any threats posed to officers and
others. Officers must rely on
training, experience, and assessment
of the situation to decide an

appropriate level of force to be
applied. Reasonable and sound
judgment will dictate the force
option to be employed. Proportional
force does not require officers to use
the same type or amount of force as
the subject. The more immediate the
threat and the more likely that the
threat will result in death or serious
physical injury, the greater the level
of force that may be proportional,
objectively reasonable, and
necessary to counter it.46
S o u r c e :S o u r c e : Seattle Police Department website
(http://www.seattle.gov/police-manual/title-
8).
ENHANCING PROFESSIONAL
JUDGMENT THROUGH THE
SELECTION OF OFFICERS
Officers with different traits and
characteristics may bring different styles
of police discretion to the job. If police
leaders desire a particular style of conduct
from officers, perhaps it would make sense
to select candidates most likely to display
that orientation. For example, if police
leaders most desire a department of
employees who act with integrity and in
which ethical decision making prevails,

The Importance of
Passion and
Perspective for
Police Of!cers
then the selection process should involve
the identification of those applicants who
have previously demonstrated in their lives
high standards of character, integrity, and
ethical conduct. According to the
Police training manual, “Past interests and
activities of an applicant will often prove to
be a far more accurate indicator of the
values, attitudes, and overall character of
the applicant than any psychological
screening test.”47 At the very least, if
officer integrity is to be maximized, the
background investigation of a candidate
would seem to be one of the most
important aspects of the selection process.
As explained by the Independent
Commission on the Los Angeles Police
Department in its assessment of the LAPD,
p.183
GOOD POLICING
Not everyone has
what it takes to be
a good police officer, just like not
everyone has what it takes to be a

good student, a good painter, a good
salesperson, a good garbage collector,
or a good professor. Besides the skills
necessary to perform the job well,
police officers should have certain
other qualities. Surprisingly, though,
very little research has been
conducted on this issue. It has been
argued that good police officers need
two qualities: passion and
perspective.49 Passion refers to the
desire to do a good job, to an
enthusiasm for the job and everything
it entails, and a particular
understanding of the necessity of
sometimes having to use coercive
power. But passion has to be kept in
check; that is the role of perspective.
Perspective refers to an
understanding of “the suffering of
each inhabitant of the earth”50 and
the belief that “no individual is
worthless.”51 Perspective also entails
a realistic understanding of the
capabilities and limitations of the use
of power and force to accomplish the
goals of police work. Passion and
perspective must be equally present
for good police work to result.
The initial psychological evaluation is
an ineffective predictor of an

applicant’s tendencies toward violent
behavior and the background
investigation pays too little attention
to a candidate’s history of violence.
Experts agree that the best predictor
of future behavior is previous
behavior. Thus, the background
investigation offers the best hope of
screening out violence-prone
A Question to Consider 8.2
Personal Qualities of Police Officers
Along with passion and perspective,
what other qualities would you argue are
important for police officers to possess?
Why?
applicants.48
Along this same line, reducing the
frequency of use of force among officers
was the major goal of leaders of the LAPD
when it set ambitious goals of female
officer recruitment in the 1990s. The idea
was that female officers would be more
likely to bring a “kinder and gentler” style
to policing.
There are at least two problems with the
selection of officers as a way to control
police discretion. First, it is not entirely
clear how or to what extent officer

characteristics actually affect decisions.
Nevertheless, it is probably fair to say
there are qualities that good police officers
should possess (see Good Policing feature
above). Second, police work can change a
person’s behavior. Police officers may
begin their careers well suited for the
occupation, but the demands of the job
may change the way they think, which
could result in bad on-the-job decisions. As
discussed in detail in Chapter 10, this
highlights the importance of monitoring
officers’ job experiences and performance
and developing programs to help officers
deal with the psychological demands of the
job.
POLICE DEPARTMENT
TRANSPARENCY
The effective control of police discretion
may be helped by departments taking
steps to become more transparent in their
operations. In large part this means
departments share information with
citizens and allow citizens to have input
into how the departments operate. This is
sometimes easier said than done as it
requires the “code of secrecy” that may
exist at the organizational level to be
dissolved and a value of openness to be
instituted in its place.
CAREER VIDEO
Division Chief

Police Body-Worn
Cameras
While some aspects of police operations
should remain confidential, departments
could reasonably share a great deal of
information with citizens, including
information about potentially
controversial issues, such as use of force
incidents and citizen complaints. Many
police departments do provide such
information. For example, in 2016 the San
Jose (California) Police Department began
releasing to the public department
statistics on use of force. Chief of Police
Eddie Garcia was quoted as saying, “We
want to get ahead of the curve. . . . There’s
more credibility with the community when
we do this outside of crisis.”52 Similarly, the
Milwaukee (Wisconsin) Police
Department, through its Fire and Police
Commission, provides on its website
reports detailing the nature and extent of
police use of force incidents and citizen
satisfaction with the police.53 The Chicago
Police Department has released
information on over 28,000 complaints
against its officers from 2011–2015,
although it took a court order to make this
happen.54

p.184
TECHNOLOGY ON THE JOB
Technology can be
used to contribute to the openness
and transparency of police
departments. Of particular
significance today is the use by
officers of body-worn cameras. As
discussed earlier in this chapter, police
officers often use discretion in
situations where no one besides the
officer and the citizen see what
actually transpired. Body-worn
cameras have the potential to change
that and to make police-citizen
interactions visible to others,
including the general public.
OPEN ACCESS VIDEO
LAPD Outfits Every Officer
with Body Cameras
CLICK TO SHOW
JOURNAL
Officer Perceptions of Body-W
orn Cameras Before and After
Deployment: A Study of Three
Departments
CLICK TO SHOW
Body-worn cameras are often
deployed for the ultimate purpose of

monitoring—and perhaps controlling
—police discretion; however,
ironically, the use of the cameras
creates other discretionary issues for
police officers, such as deciding when
cameras should be on and when they
should be off (Exhibit 8.4). Indeed, this
issue is quickly becoming a major
REUTERS/Alamy Stock Photo
PHOTO 8.6 When the police share
information with citizens, it may lead to
citizens having more trust in the police and
in increased police accountability.
factor in the use of these cameras. In
addition, other technology is currently
being developed to eliminate officers’
discretion as to when cameras should
be operating, such as monitors that
turn the camera on and off in response
to an officer’s heart rate.
AUDIO
Police Departments Issuing Body
Cameras Discover Drawbacks
CLICK TO SHOW
Citizens could also have a role in reviewing
complaints against the police, as is the case
in many departments that have civilian
review boards, and departments could
make information about their budgets

easily accessible to citizens. Police
departments could be more open to the
media. They could develop partnerships
with local universities for the purpose of
conducting research on important issues,
problems, and strategies of the police.
They could allow student internships and
ride-along programs. Each of these
initiatives would essentially open police
departments to the public, to the people
the departments are supposed to serve
and protect. If police leaders and officers
knew their decisions and actions might be
seen by outsiders, it might lead to more
careful use of police discretion and
contribute to greater accountability of
officers to their communities.
CULTURAL VALUES AND ETHICAL
STANDARDS OF CONDUCT
Another method that may assist in the
quest toward greater control of police
discretion is a working understanding,
appreciation, and implementation of ethics
as a standard of conduct. Ideally, a
commitment to ethical standards should
provide officers with guidance in making
difficult decisions in uncertain conditions.
JOURNAL
Public Perceptions of the Justifia-
bility of Police Shootings: The Role
of Body Cameras in a Pre- and Post

-Ferguson Experiment
CLICK TO SHOW
p.185
Exhibit 8.4
Excerpts from the Chicago Police
Department’s Body-Worn Camera
Policy
Provided below are excerpts from
the Chicago Police Department’s
body-worn camera (BWC) policy,
which relate to circumstances in
which officers must and must not
activate the camera system.55
Ironically, body-worn cameras are
designed to help monitor and
control police discretion, but their
use creates the need to address
other discretionary decisions, such
as when the cameras should be
turned on and off.
Department members are permitted
to record individuals:
1. if they are on the public way or in
public view;
2. in private residences or in other

places where a reasonable
expectation of privacy exists and
there is a lawful reason for the
presence of law enforcement
officers;
3. during routine calls for service.
Department members assigned a
BWC will activate the system to
event mode to record the entire
incident for all:
1. routine calls for service;
2. investigatory stops;
3. traffic stops;
4. foot and vehicle pursuits;
5. emergency driving situations;
6. emergency vehicle responses to
in-progress or just-occurred
dispatches where fleeing
suspects or vehicles may be
captured on video leaving the
crime scene;
7. high-risk situations, including
search warrants;
8. situations that may enhance the
probability of evidence-based
prosecution;

NOTE:
If victims of incidents that are
sensitive in nature request not to be
recorded, the member will comply
with the request and disengage the
BWC.
9. Situations that the member,
through training and experience,
believes to serve a proper police
purpose, for example, recording
the processing of an
uncooperative arrestee.
NOTE:
Sworn members will not
unreasonably endanger themselves
or another person to conform to the
provisions of this directive.
P r o h i b i t e d R e c o r d i n g sP r o h i b i t e d R e c o r d
i n g s
The BWC will not be used to record:
1. in locations where a reasonable
expectation of privacy exists,
such as dressing rooms or
restrooms, unless required for
capturing evidence.

2. sensitive exposures of private
body parts, unless required for
capturing evidence.
3. personal activities or other
department members during
routine, non-enforcement-
related activities.
4. inside medical facilities, except
when a situation arises that the
member believes to serve a
proper police purpose.
S o u r c e :S o u r c e : City of Chicago Police Department
website
(http://directives.chicagopolice.org/lt2015/data/a7a57b73-
14af4bb0-e1214-af4b-
b44b0d70f0964db3.html?ownapi=1).
Police officers’ conduct should be
congruent with the law and it should
follow departmental policy. In some
instances departmental policy is based on
law. As discussed earlier, however, the
problem is that law and departmental
policy may not provide sufficient clarity to
be useful in guiding police decisions. The
law is sometimes ambiguous. For example,
pedestrian stops are to be based on
reasonable suspicion, but what exactly

constitutes reasonable suspicion?
Similarly, policy is often ambiguous as well.
p.186
A Question of
Ethics
Law Enforcement Code of
Ethics
In most police departments today, an
understanding of the role of ethics is
often limited to a discussion about the
law enforcement code of ethics. The
code of ethics of the Los Angeles
Police Department reads as follows:
As a law enforcement officer, my
fundamental duty is to serve mankind
—to safeguard lives and property, to
protect the innocent against
deception, the weak against
oppression or intimidation, and the
peaceful against violence or disorder,
and to respect the Constitutional
rights of all men to liberty, equality
and justice.
I will keep my private life unsullied as
an example to all; maintain courageous
calm in the face of danger, scorn, or
ridicule; develop self-restraint; and be
constantly mindful of the welfare of

others. Honest in thought and deed in
both my personal and official life, I will
be exemplary in obeying the laws of
the land and the regulations of my
department. Whatever I see or hear of
a confidential nature or that is
confided to me in my official capacity
will be kept ever secret unless
revelation is necessary in the
performance of my duty.
I will never act officiously or permit
personal feelings, prejudices,
animosities, or friendships to influence
my decisions. With no compromise for
crime and with relentless prosecution
of criminals, I will enforce the law
courteously and appropriately without
fear or favor, malice or ill will, never
employing unnecessary force or
violence and never accepting
gratuities.
I recognize the badge of my office as a
symbol of public faith, and I accept it
as a public trust to be held so long as I
am true to the ethics of the police
service. I will constantly strive to
achieve these objectives and ideals,
dedicating myself before God to my
chosen profession . . . law
enforcement.57
Based on this statement:

• What is your general impression of
this code of ethics?
• If you were to summarize the code
in three sentences or less, what
would you say?
• What do you think is the main
purpose of this code?
• Do you think this code actually
serves this purpose? Explain.
S o u r c e :S o u r c e : Los Angeles Police Department
website
(http://www.lapdonline.org/lapd_manual/code_of_ethics.htm).
Where there is ambiguity in the law and/or
policy, ethical standards of conduct—
doing what is right—may fill the void.
Ethical standards can also be a basis for
formulating and enforcing policy. But there
are at least two immediate and major
problems with ethics in this regard: (1)
What is “right” is not necessarily easily
defined or prescribed, and (2) it is difficult
to agree upon which ethical standards of
conduct are proper and appropriate in
different situations. Police leaders
understand ethics should play an

important role in guiding police discretion,
but, probably for the two reasons
identified above, most of them have hit a
wall when it comes to figuring out what
exactly should be done to make ethics
more relevant in the decisions of officers.
This was demonstrated in a survey of
departments conducted by the
Police (IACP).56 The survey found much
concern about ethical issues in police work
and about the need for ethics training in
policing. In particular, respondents were
asked to identify what they thought were
the most important ethical issues in law
enforcement today. A multitude of issues
were identified, including the following:
• Cultural diversity/racism/sexism
• Corruption/gratuities
• Public trust
• Morals/personal values of officers/lack
of values in new officers
• Honesty
• Abuse of force/abuse of authority
• Decision making
• Code of silence

• Off-duty issues/behavior
• Poor work ethic of new recruits
• Lack of a sense of responsibility
• Lack of role models
Respondents were also asked to provide a
“working definition of ethics” used in their
organization. Most simply provided the
police department’s code of conduct or
mission/vision statement (see A Question
of Ethics feature).
To begin it must be understood that ethics
is more than an understanding of a
department’s code of ethics or the code of
conduct. For ethics to become a basis of
police action, efforts must be made far
beyond putting words on paper or holding
a training class or seminar. For ethics to
impact decisions, police agencies must first
establish an understanding among officers
that displaying integrity and honesty and
acting in a moral way is the way policing is
conducted in that agency. Therefore, a
police department needs to specify the
values by which its members operate. For
example, one police department identified
the following eight essential values as
being central to the operation of the
tom carter/Alamy Stock Photo

PHOTO 8.7 New police officers swear to
uphold the code of ethics of their
department.
organization:
p.187
1. Human Life: We value human life and
dignity above all else.
2. Integrity: We believe integrity is the
basis for human trust.
3. Laws and Constitution: We believe in
the principles embodied in our
Constitution. We recognize the
authority of the federal, state, and
local laws.
4. Excellence: We strive for personal
and professional excellence.
5. Accountability: We are accountable
to each other and to the citizens we
serve who are the source of our
authority.
6. Cooperation: We believe that
cooperation and team work will
enable us to combine our diverse
backgrounds, skills, and styles, to
achieve common goals.

7. Problem-Solving: We are most
effective when we help identify and
solve community problems.
8. Ourselves: We are capable, caring
people who are doing important and
satisfying work for the citizens of
(the city).58
Each value was then defined further. For
example, human life was broken down into
the following:
• We give first priority to situations
which threaten human life.
• We use force only when necessary.
• We treat all persons with courtesy and
respect.
• We are compassionate and caring.59
The value statement of a department
should not be limited to the thoughts and
ideas of the police chief or his or her
command staff. Rather, to the extent
possible, it should represent the ideas and
beliefs of the entire police department;
this should provide more support and
acceptance of the values as a basis for
police conduct.
The department’s statement of values

should be the basis for everything the
department and its officers do. It must
become part of the culture by which the
department operates. Selection criteria
and processes, departmental policies,
supervision, performance evaluation,
discipline, officer assistance and support,
and training should be built on an
understanding of agency values. For
instance, officer integrity should be a
primary consideration in personnel
selection decisions. Ethical standards
should be clearly reflected in police
department policies and procedures, and
supervisors and field training officers
should believe in and adhere to
departmental values. A well-defined
process of discipline is important as this is
one way by which officers are held
accountable to the policies and values of
the department, and ultimately to the
community they serve. This system of
discipline should be reasonable and fairly
administered and should include not only
punishment for violations but also rewards
for positive behavior. Violators should be
disciplined; officers who perform well (in
relation to the values of the department)
should be recognized. The code of silence
among officers should be understood as
the enemy of proper conduct, especially
when silence translates into protecting
officers known to have engaged in
improper behavior in terms of the law,

departmental policy, or the values of the
department. The code of silence is so
strong among some officers it can be a
major hurdle in advancing a properly
functioning department. Clear policies
regarding conduct, proper supervision, and
appropriate discipline can have a
meaningful effect on this code. The code of
silence as a feature of the police culture is
also discussed in Chapter 12.
p.188
Instruction regarding ethical standards
typically receives minimal attention in
training curriculum, often because there is
uncertainty about what exactly to train
and how to conduct the training.
Sometimes the argument is made that
there is no one single standard of ethics
and therefore ethics cannot be trained.
This is not true. As explained in a report of
the International Association of Chiefs of
Police,
A Question of
Ethics
A Difficult Ethical Situation
The scenario below is a situation
officers could confront at some point
in their careers. How would you
respond to this situation? Would it
make a difference to know your

department has a policy that requires
the reporting of officer misconduct
and explains how such reports are to
be made? How could this situation
have been prevented? Are there any
other factors that should be
considered when deciding what to do
in this situation? Or are there any
other factors that would make a
difference in deciding what response
would be most appropriate?
Scenario: You are a police officer on
patrol when another officer, a friend of
yours, reports over the radio that he is
in pursuit of a motorist. Shortly
thereafter, the officer reports that the
fleeing motorist crashed into a parked
car. You are requested to respond to
the scene. When you arrive you see
the officer arresting the motorist, who
has his hands cuffed behind his back
and who is bleeding from a cut to his
face. You then see the motorist spit
toward the officer. The officer
immediately reacts by punching the
subject in the face. The officer then
throws the subject to the ground and
spits in the subject’s face. After lifting
the subject to his feet and pushing him
into the back of the squad car, the
officer looks at you and says,
“Sometimes you gotta teach scum a

lesson.” What would you do?
Every police recruit should leave the
training academy with a clear
understanding of what is expected of
him or her in terms of professional
ethics and personal morals. . . . An
academy graduate who knows exactly
what conduct is or is not acceptable is
far less likely to make ethical mistakes
and is one who understands clearly
where the line in the sand is drawn
and that there is no tolerance for
those who cross it. . . . Ethics training
in police recruit classes must be
reality-based and must involve more
than just a simple discussion of
integrity. The training must be candid
and involve free discussion of the
potential problems and pitfalls that
challenge police officers on the job. It
must include discussion of the
temptations that they will face, the
stresses of police work, the effects of
a career in law enforcement on
personal life, and related matters.60
This instruction should also involve a
discussion of the value statement of the
department as well as the policies and
procedures relating to misconduct and the
reporting of the misconduct of other
officers. Difficult ethical situations become
a little less difficult when it is known by

officers that the reporting of misconduct is
required by policy and the failure to do so
is subject to appropriate discipline.
Instruction regarding ethical conduct
should not be limited to just the academy it
should be career long and suited
specifically to the nature of officers’ job
assignments.
Police discretion is necessary, but
sometimes it may be misused. As a result, it
is important that efforts be made to
control it. There are many methods used to
attempt this, although none of them are
completely new and no one method is the
definitive solution to the problem.
Nevertheless, by implementing these
strategies, police departments may
incrementally move toward the more
effective control of police discretion and,
in the process, make officers and
departments more accountable to the
citizens they serve.
p.189
MAIN POINTS
• Discretion exists when a person
makes a decision based on his or
her own judgment. Police officers
are required to use their judgment

on a constant basis, especially
when it comes to law enforcement
situations.
• A decision occurs when a person
chooses a particular option based
on the consideration of available
information. Decision making is a
mental process, and the result of
the decision is an action or a
behavior.
• Police discretion is an important
issue because it can affect citizens
in extraordinarily significant ways.
Patrol officers generally have more
discretion than police executives.
Many decisions of patrol officers
are not seen by people other than
those directly involved in an
incident.
• A bad decision may be considered
bad because of its outcomes, the
way the decision was made, or
because of the information that
was considered when making the
decision.
• Most situations in which police
must use discretion need to be
resolved immediately.
• Discretion is necessary because of
limited resources, the need for

flexibility when enforcing the law,
and because many decisions of the
police are too complex to program
with rules and instructions.
• Many factors have been shown to
strongly and consistently influence
the decisions of officers, including
certain suspect characteristics,
offense characteristics, and
organizational factors.
• The concepts of danger and
suspicion play a critical role in the
police culture.
• Because of the potential to base
decisions on unwarranted factors
(e.g., citizen race or gender) or to
otherwise make bad decisions,
there is a need to control police
discretion.
• Strategies to control police
discretion consist of (1) the
implementation of organizational
rules and policy (SOPs), combined
with training and effective
supervision; (2) attempts to choose
officers who display good
professional judgment when
hiring; (3) providing transparency
in police operations; and (4) the
incorporation of ethical standards

in police decision making. Used
together, these factors have the
best chance of effectively
controlling police discretion.
• Each of the strategies listed above
has limitations. Perhaps that is why
there are still instances of police
misuse of discretion.
• Ethics is more than an
understanding of a department’s
code of ethics or code of conduct.
For ethics to become a basis of
police action, the effort goes far
beyond a training session on the
topic.
• For ethics to impact decisions,
police agencies must first establish
an understanding among officers
that displaying integrity and
honesty and acting in a moral way
is the way policing is conducted in
that agency. Therefore, police
departments need to specify the
values by which its members
should operate. All organizational
processes should be based on the
specified organizational values.
p.190
IMPORTANT

TERMS
Decision 169
Demeanor 174
Discretion 167
Ethical standards of conduct 185
Ferguson effect 171
Low-visibility situations 170
Organizational culture 177
Standard operating procedures (S
OPs) 178
Symbolic assailant 178
Value statement 187
QUESTIONS FOR
DISCUSSION
AND REVIEW
1. What is police discretion? Why is
it necessary? Why does it need to
be controlled?

2. Under what conditions and
circumstances do police officers
use discretion? Why is this
important?
3. What factors strongly and
consistently influence the
decisions of officers?
4. How would you expect the
performance of a college-
educated officer to differ from
that of an officer without a
college education?
5. What is the most significant
limitation of SOPs as a way to
control police discretion? Explain.
6. How do the concepts of danger
and suspicion play a role in police
culture? How do these concepts
relate to each other? What
significance do they have for
police officers?
7. What is meant by police
department transparency? How
could it aid in the control of police
discretion?
8. How might police body-worn
cameras help control officer
discretion?

9. What is the most significant
limitation of a police department
code of ethics as a way to control
officer discretion?
10. Explain what is necessary for
values and ethical standards of
conduct to have an impact on
police discretion.
FACT OR
FICTION
ANSWERS
1. Fiction
2. Fiction
3. Fact
4. Fiction
5. Fact
6. Fact
7. Fact
8. Fiction
9. Fiction
10. Fact

p.191
DIGITAL
RESOURCES
h t t p : //e d g e . s a g e p u b . c o m / b ra n d lh t t p : //e d g
e . s a g e p u b . c o m / b ra n d l
SAGE edge offers a robust online
environment featuring an impressive
array of free tools and resources for
review, study, and further
exploration, keeping both
instructors and students on the
cutting edge of teaching and
learning.
Journal: What Would You Do? The Fact Change
THIS IS NOT A REWRITE THIS IS ONLY TO BE USED TO
HELP GUIDE YOU TO FORM YOUR PAPER AND YOU CAN
USE OUTSIDE REFERENCES TO COMPLETE THE
ASSIGNMENT
Reasonable Force Scenario
Now that I have more information provided to me as the two are
suspected in a near-by
strong arm robbery and match the description with the
information that is provided by the
victim. My first change would be once that I spotted them
walking in the street and have
confirmed that they matched the suspect I would have called it

in letting dispatch know that I
have spotted possible suspects and to dispatch back up. After
that I would have contact with
them getting out of my vehicle and stopped them and begin
questioning them asking where they
are just coming from and where are they headed too. Once back
arrived I would begin to tell
them that they match suspects in possible robbery.
Another thing that I would have done different to is that once I
made contact with them
was probably hold them at gun point while waiting on back up
since I am at the scene alone
which will be for my protection as well as the suspects. The
reason that the new information
change the action of the decision that you will be making for
one the new information sheds
lighter and will help to save your life because at first, I am
thinking that it is two possible
innocent kids walking in the street so I would have approached
it as such not approached it like I
am dealing possible arm and dangerous suspects that could
possibly injure me or even worst.
When reading the story at the beginning I just know that it had
to be more to the story
that would have helped us to make the best decision for the
scenario without having too really
guess the decision that needed to be made.
Journal: What Would You Do? The Facts Change
PLEASE READ ALL DIRECTIONS TO COMPLETE THIS
ASSIGNMENT. AND YOU CAN USE OUTSIDE
REFERENCES TO COMPLETE THE WORK I HAVE ALSO
INCLUDED A PAPER TO HELP GUIDE YOU ALONG AND
READING MATERIAL AS WELL…...THANKS
The two scenarios in the Discussions—and your reactions—

unfolded in a certain way based upon instinct, experience, and
training. Another factor was the available information. Now
imagine that each scenario had different available information,
as described below. Choose one set of changed information and
respond to the Journal prompts.
Reasonable Force Scenario
The officer was in the neighborhood searching for two young
men who reportedly committed a strong-arm robbery at a nearby
convenience store. The clothing and physical appearance of the
young men walking down the middle of the street match the
descriptions provided by the victim. When the officer pulls
alongside the two and orders them to use the sidewalk rather
than walking in the street, he also intends to get a closer look at
the men and question them about their recent whereabouts. The
boys deny involvement or knowledge of the robbery, and from
there the scenario escalates as described in the Week 1
Discussion.
Deception Scenario
The suspect may be developmentally delayed, and other officers
inform Officer Gordon that the suspect idolizes police officers.
If able, he would be an officer. The suspect is known to make
efforts to help or please the police, despite having been arrested
for shoplifting in the past. The suspect was not given Miranda
rights during the initial interrogation. The “interview” took
place in a secure area of the police station where the suspect
was not free to leave if he chose.
Write a 300-word journal response to the following prompts:
Identify one changed circumstance that could lead to second-
guessing your decision.
Explain why this new information might make you or others

second-guess your decision.
REASONABLE FORCE STUDENT REPLIES
STUDENT REPLY #1 Stephanie Bowden
The first thing he should do is remove his gun from within
reach of him and he should try and grab his taser and tase him
to get a hold of the situation and then he should handcuff him
and then call for back up for the suspect that ran. Then when
back up arrives he should put the 1st suspect in one of his
colleague squad car and he should then go and look for the 2nd
suspect. After all is done, he should then go to the station and
fill out paperwork on the 1st guy because he should be charged
with assault on an officer. The reason behind all this is because
he tried to fight an officer with intent to do bodily harm to him.
STUDENT REPLY #2 Stephon Johnson
In the situation where the boy reached into the window of a cop
car and grab the officer by his shirt with one and attempted to
hit him with the other hand, my first action would have been to
fight off the boy's hand. If fighting off his hands didn’t work, I
would have let my window up catching his arms and hands in
the window. If successful I’ll call for backup; if both of his
arms are trapped in my window, I will cuff him. Once back up
arrive he’ll be placed under arrest for assault on law
enforcement.
I chose this approach because I didn’t fear for my life. Yes, he
reached into my car grab my shirt, and attempted to hit me but
my life wasn’t in danger, he wasn’t able to reach my gun if he
tried to. If I had to, I would have gone as far as using my OC
spray or at the most my taser. Deadly force was not needed in
this situation.

STUDENT REPLY #3 Lynsey Simmons
I understand your point for using force knowing the whole
situation but how might neighbors interpret the situation from
their perspective not knowing all the facts, and how could that
impact the situation?
Deception Scenario STUDENT REPLIES
STUDENT REPLY #3 KIMBERLEE LEVETT
Officer Gordon is investigating a series of burglaries in the area
in the second scenario. He has no proof but believes a single
person is committing the burglaries. What the officer did was
not illegal, but it was, in my opinion, morally wrong. To get a
confession, he used deception and coercion. He had no other
way of solving the crime without the suspect's confession.
When police use these tactics, a suspect may make a false
confession. According to psychological research, juveniles and
people with diminished mental capacity are more likely to make
false confessions. Innocent people are more likely to make false
confessions under the mistaken belief that they can confess, end
the interrogation, and sort everything out later (Mince-Didier,
n.d). The action I would take is to wait until I have some
evidence to prove that the suspect committed the crime.
Evidence such as fingerprints, DNA, or eyewitness testimony so
that the case holds up in court. I would wait for substantial
evidence because a suspect can retract a statement when they
receive their defense attorney, and I would want to be sure that
the suspect committed the crime in question.
References
Mince-Didier, A. (n.d). Tactics Police Use to Get a Confession.

Retrieved from http://www.criminaldefenselawyer.com
Deception Scenario STUDENT REPLIES
STUDENT REPLY #4 Lynsey Simmons
The second scenario is morally unfair, and it would be punished
if the same behavior was reciprocated to law enforcement. In
my opinion it seems a bit unjust to say that our criminal justice
system values are “human dignity, truth, and fairness” when the
actions of the people who are to represent those values are
partaking in the total opposite.
If I were the officer in the scenario, I would have handled
things a bit differently. My first approach would be to question
the alleged criminal on the events, I believe in transparency.
The law states we are innocent until proven guilty therefore I
would seek out the evidence/statement to hold leverage on the
criminal. I would have told the criminal face to face how I felt
and based on his response would influence my next move. I
believe that I would have said something like; “look here I
know you did it and the more time I have to spend on proving it,
the harsher the consequence will be on you. So, this is your
chance to be honest with me, I am willing to meet you in the
middle with a fair resolution but if you want to play hard then
don’t expect leniency in the end.” I believe that gets across the
same message as the officer in the scenario however I was
honest. When the public believes that those who enforce the law
are not doing so in a fair or ethical way, cooperation between
law enforcement and the public begins to corrode (Cox,2017).
Police officers should remember that they are exemplars to the
community; deception and intimidation are viewed as

unacceptable tactics when securing a confession. Police officers
must act with honesty and integrity, courage in the face of
danger and self-restraint as they are expected to lead by
example.
Reference:
Cox, S. M., Marchionna, S., & Fitch, B. D. (2017). Introduction
to policing (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.
Chapter 10, “Discretion and Ethics in Policing” (pp. 228–245)
REASONABLE FORCE PROFESSOR REPLY
This is good, rational thinking. If the subject that grabbed your
shirt was substantially larger than you, does that change the
danger level?
Chapter 9:
Survey
Research
1

Learning Objectives
• Understand that survey research involves the administration of
questionnaires in a systematic way to a sample of respondents
selected from some population
• Describe how survey research is especially appropriate for
descriptive
or exploratory studies of large populations
• Describe examples of surveys as the method of choice for
obtaining
victimization and self-reported offending data
• Summarize differences between open-ended or closed-ended
questions, and offer examples of the advantages and
disadvantages of
each
• Recognize how bias in questionnaire items encourages
respondents to
answer in a particular way or to support a particular point of
view
2
Learning Objectives, cont.
• Describe different ways to administer questionnaires, and
offer examples of how they can be varied

• Recognize why it is important for interviewers to be neutral
in face-to-face surveys
• Provide examples of the advantages and disadvantages of
each method of survey administration
• Discuss how survey data can be somewhat artificial and
potentially superficial
• Understand how specialized interviews with a small
number of people and focus groups are different from
surveys as examples of collecting data by asking questions
3
Introduction
• Survey research is perhaps the most
frequently used mode of observation in
sociology and political science, and surveys
are often used in criminal justice research
as well
• You have no doubt been a respondent in
some sort of survey, and you may have
conducted a survey yourself
4

Survey Research Topics
• Counting Crime: asking people about
victimization counters problems of data
collected by police
• Self-Reports: dominant method for
studying the etiology of crime
– Frequency/type of crimes committed
– Prevalence (how many people commit crimes)
committed by a broader population
5
Survey Research Topics, cont.
• Perceptions and Attitudes: To learn how people
feel about crime and CJ policy
• Targeted Victim Surveys: Used to evaluate policy
innovations and program success
• Other Evaluation Uses: e.g., measuring
community attitudes, citizen responses, etc.
– Chicago Community Policing Evaluation Consortium
• General Purpose Crime Surveys
6

Guidelines for Asking Questions
• How questions are asked is the single most
important feature of survey research
• Open-Ended: Respondent is asked to
provide his or her own answer
• Closed-Ended: Respondent selects an
answer from a list
– Choices should be exhaustive and mutually exclusive
• Questions and Statements: Likert scale
7
Guidelines for Asking Questions, cont.
• Make Items Clear: Avoid ambiguous questions;
do not ask “double-barreled” questions
• Short Items are Best: Respondents like to read
and answer a question quickly
• Avoid Negative Items: Leads to misinterpretation
• Avoid Biased Items and Terms: Do not ask
questions that encourage a certain answer

• Designing Self-Report Items: Use of computer-
assisted interviewing techniques
8
Questionnaire Construction
• General questionnaire format: critical,
must be laid out properly and uncluttered
• Contingency Questions: Relevant only to
some respondents—answered only
based on the previous response
• Matrix Questions: Same set of answer
categories used in multiple questions
9
Ordering Questions
• Ordering may affect the answers given
• Estimate the effect of question order
• Perhaps devise more than one version
• Begin with most interesting questions
• End with duller, demographic data

– Do the opposite for in-person interview surveys
10
Self-Administered Questionnaires
• Can be home-delivered
– Researcher delivers questionnaire to home of sample
respondent, explains the study, and then comes back
later
• Mailed (sent and returned) survey is most
common
– Researchers must reduce the trouble it takes to return a
questionnaire
11
Warning Mailings & Cover Letters
• Used to increase response rates
• Warning Mailings: “Address correction
requested” card sent out to determine incorrect
addresses and to “warn” residents to expect
questionnaire in mail

• Cover Letters: Detail why survey is being
conducted, why respondent was selected, why
is it important to complete questionnaire
– Include institutional affiliation or sponsorship
12
Self-Administered Questionnaires
• Monitoring returns: Pay close attention to the
response rate; assign #’s serially
• Follow-up mailings: Nonrespondents can be
sent a letter, or a letter and another
questionnaire; timing
• Acceptable response rates: 50% is adequate,
60% is good, and 70% is very good
– Would we rather have a lack of response bias than a high
response rate?
13
Computer-Based Self-Administration
• Via Fax, Email, Web Site/Page

• Issues
– Representativeness
– Mixed in with, or mistaken for, spam
– Requires access to Web
– Sampling frame?
14
What if you administered a survey? Would
you use the Internet? Why or why not?
15
In-Person Interview Surveys
• Typically achieve higher response rates than
mail surveys (80-85% is considered good)
• Demeanor and appearance of interviewer
should be appropriate; interviewer should be
familiar with questionnaire and ask questions
precisely
• Can probe for additional responses
• When more than one interviewer administers,

efforts must be coordinated and controlled
• Practice interviewing
16
What if you were interviewed as part of a
research project? How would you expect
the researchers to behave?
17
Computer-Assisted Interviews
• Reported success in enhancing
confidentiality
• Reported higher rates of self-reporting
– Computer-assisted personal interview (CAPI):
Interviewers read questions from screens and then type
in answers from respondents’
– Computer-assisted self-interviewing (CASI):
Respondent keys in answers, which are scrambled so
that interviewer cannot access them

18
Telephone Surveys
• 95.5% of all households have telephones
(2005, U.S. Census Bureau)
• Random-Digit Dialing
– Obviates unlisted number problem
– Often results in business, pay phones, fax lines
• Saves money and time, provides safety to
interviewers, more convenient
• May be interpreted as bogus sales calls; ease
of hang-ups
19
Computer-Assisted Telephone Interviewing
• A set of computerized tools that aid
telephone interviewers and supervisors by
automating various data collection tasks
• Easier, faster, more accurate, but more
expensive

• Formats responses into a data file as they
are keyed in
• Can automate contingency questions and
skip sequences
20
What if researchers called your landline or
mobile and asked you to participate in a
survey over the phone? Would you agree
to do it? Why or why not?
21
Methods Comparison
• Self-administered questionnaires are generally
cheaper, better for sensitive issues than interview
surveys
• Using mail: Local and national surveys cost the
same
• Interviews: More appropriate when respondent

literacy may be a problem, produce fewer
incompletes, achieve higher completion rates
• Validity low, reliability high in survey research
• Surveys are also inflexible, superficial in coverage
22
Strengths of Survey Research
• Particularly useful in describing large
populations
• Standardized questionnaires can ensure
uniform responses and measurement
• Protects against respondents interpreting
concepts differently
23
Weaknesses of Survey Research
• Standardized questionnaire items often represent the
least common denominator in assessing people’s
attitudes, orientations, circumstances, and
experiences

• Superficial coverage of complex topics
• Survey research cannot readily deal with the specific
contexts of social life
• Some populations might be hard to contact through
customary sampling methods
24
Should You Do It Yourself?
• Consider start-up costs
• Finding, training, and paying interviewers
is time-consuming and not cheap, and
requires some expertise
• Mail surveys are less expensive, and can
be conducted well by 1–2 persons
• The method you use depends on your
research question
25
Criteria Ratings Points
Instructions 20 to >17.0 pts

Advanced
Student followed all
instructions in the course
instructions and met all
requirements. 5-7
double-spaced pages of
content, with at least 50
peer-reviewed references
(total).
17 to >13.0 pts
Proficient
Student followed most
instructions and met most
requirements. Page length
is between 5-6 pages.
13 to >0.0 pts
Developing
Student followed some
instructions and met some
requirements. Less than 5
pages.
0 pts
Not
Present

20 pts
Article
Quality
12 to >10.0 pts
Advanced
All articles are
peer-reviewed, dated
within five (5) years of the
due date of assignment.
10 to >7.0 pts
Proficient
Most articles are
peer-reviewed, dated
within five (5) years of the
due date of assignment.
7 to >0.0 pts
Developing
Some or none of the
articles are peer-reviewed,
dated within five (5) years
of the due date of
assignment.
0 pts

Not
Present
12 pts
Dissertation
Quality
20 to >17.0 pts
Advanced
Student fully incorporated
ideas and concept from
the weekly readings of the
course. Methodology is
appropriate for the type of
dissertation
17 to >13.0 pts
Proficient
Student partially
incorporated ideas and
concept from the weekly
readings of the course.
Methodology is
dissertation
13 to >0.0 pts
Developing
Student occasionally

incorporated ideas and
concept from the weekly
readings of the course.
Methodology may be
dissertation or
methodology is
inappropriate for this style
of dissertation.
0 pts
Not
Present
20 pts
Grammar
and
Spelling
13 to >11.0 pts
Advanced
Correct spelling and
grammar used throughout
dissertation. Dissertation
contains no errors in
grammar or spelling that
distract the reader from the
content.
11 to >8.0 pts
Proficient

Dissertation contains
some errors in grammar or
spelling that distract the
reader from the content.
8 to >0.0 pts
Developing
Dissertation contains
several errors in grammar
or spelling that distract the
reader from the content.
0 pts
Not
Present
13 pts
Research Paper: Conceptual Draft Chapter 3 Grading Rubric |
CJUS740_B03_202140
Criteria Ratings Points
APA Format
Compliance
10 to >8.0 pts
Advanced

Minimal errors (1-2) noted
in the interpretation or
execution of proper APA
format. APA formatting
elements such as: Title
page, abstract, running
head,
headings/subheadings,
font type and size, line
spacing, and margins.
**APA compliance includes
the proper application of
in-text citations and a
reference list.
8 to >6.0 pts
Proficient
Few errors (3-4) noted in
the interpretation or
execution of proper APA
head,
**APA compliance
includes the proper
application of in-text
citations and a reference
list.
6 to >0.0 pts

Developing
Numerous errors (5+)
noted in the interpretation
or execution of proper APA
head,
**APA compliance includes
the proper application of
in-text citations and a
reference list.
0 pts
Not
Present
10 pts
Total Points: 75
Research Paper: Conceptual Draft Chapter 3 Grading Rubric |
CJUS740_B03_202140

Chapter 10Qualitative Interviewing1© 2018 C

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