This article by Stephen Mastrofski on “Controlling Street-Level Police Discretion” is a discussion of some of the problems related to the use of discretion by the police in various situations as presented in the report by the Committee to Review Research on Policy and Practices titled Fairness and Effectiveness in Policing: Evidence.
I have chosen this source because it gives a critical analysis on why and how the current research on police discretion and practices or actions such as use of force is inadequate, questionable and problematic. According to Mastrofski, the contemporary research on police discretion including use of force does not effectively represent the real situations on the ground (101). There are also problems in the extant research concerning policing and how the police discretion and attendant consequences of their abuse of that discretion may be controlled.
Examples of the shortcomings of the current research on policing and police behavior include weak internal validity, lack of comprehensive theory, limited external validity, and irrelevance of measures of police practice. Tom him, there are problems with the whole policing process including the organization structure that lacks a philosophical leadership[ for police rookies fresh from academy, policies and procedures for ensuring police discipline and community policing programs. He also discusses what is to be considered in controlling police discretion. This is interesting because it makes a serious case for the need to carry out fresh research on the police use of discretion and force.
This source related to the reading in that it reveals how the lack of valid and concrete research on the use of discretion by the police and the causes of police behavior have led to abuse or misuse of that discretion such as use of lethal force against members of the public. According to him, any research on police discretion should ask “what we want the police to do and what accounts for variations in how well they do it” (Mastrofski 109). It behooves us and researchers, he argues, to engage with the norms concerning what the police need to accomplish. Such norms include the belief that a police practice has an inherent value and the belief that that practice is crucial in accomplishing a valuable thing or objective. In terms of community policing, he argues that such policies have proved that a give and take between the community and the police is possible to establish. He therefore suggests that while coming up with measures on measuring and controlling police discretion, priority should be given to those who exercise, oversee and experience the discretion, that is, those police officers at the street level.
Work Cited
Mastrofski, Stephen D. "Controlling street-level police discretion." The Annals of the American Academy 593 (2004): 100-118. Web. 24 May 2016. <ann.sagepub.com/content/593/1/100.full.pdf>.
