Decision Making In Policing

"Decision making in the police environment must take advantage of the latest advances in business and military management, but at the same time remain aware of the challenges associated with maintaining and restoring order on a day-to-day basis. The framework proposed in this book has been elaborated form the diverse experiences of the authors as managers, police officers and crime analysts; and shows how to effectively use intelligence for making decisions, which rules to respect when deploying resources and how to assess and monitor the impact of measures taken."--Publisher.

This book examines how the police make decisions in real life situations, particularly in major enquiries. The two key themes explored are real-time decision making along with what “works” in such circumstances. It aims to set out how successful decisions are arrived at in a variety of difficult and time-constrained situations and discusses the lessons that can be learnt from this. Written by practitioners and academics, the book explores a range of topics, from the decision making process involved operational matters and in difficult-so-solve murder enquiries. It not only examines decision making but also how experienced decision makers function. It looks at the psychology of police decision making, decision making involved in cold case investigations, and discusses the need for “grip” during major investigations. The contributors are experienced and respected practitioners and academics This book will appeal particularly to those studying Policing and Criminology and also to Investigating Officers and those involved in professionalising investigative practice.

Police detention is the place where suspects are taken whilst their case is investigated and a case disposal decision is reached. It is also a largely hidden, but vital, part of police work and an under-explored aspect of police studies. This book provides a much-needed comparative perspective on police detention. It examines variations in the relationship between police powers and citizens’ rights inside police detention in cities in four jurisdictions (in Australia, England, Ireland and the US), exploring in particular the relative influence of discretion, the law and other rule structures on police practices, as well as seeking to explain why these variations arise and what they reveal about state-citizen relations in neoliberal democracies. This book draws on data collected in a multi-method study in five cities in Australia, England, Ireland and the US. This entailed 480 hours of observation, as well as 71 semi-structured interviews with police officers and detainees. Aside from filling in the gaps in the existing research, this book makes a significant contribution to debates about the links between police practices and neoliberalism. In particular, it examines the police, not just the prison, as a site of neoliberal governance. By combining the empirical with the theoretical, the main themes of the book are likely to be of utmost importance to contemporary discussions about police work in increasingly unequal societies. As a result, it will also have a wide appeal to scholars and students, particularly in criminology and criminal justice.

This book gives an overview of the empirical research regarding police discretionary decision-making worldwide through 2022 by means of a scoping review. In total, eleven databases were searched and 15,193 publications have been assessed in terms of relevance for this topic, with 1,563 of these being assessed more thoroughly. The shortlist consists of 526 publications. It answers the following questions: What is the amount of available research concerning police decision-making and what are its characteristics? How and where is police decision-making studied? Which crime phenomena are studied? Which types of decisions are studied? Which factors impact police discretion? Overall, the scoping review summarizes the available empirical research on police discretion and helps understand police decision-making processes. These findings are then used to discuss the current scholarship and give recommendations concerning research (e.g. which decision-making processes/decisions are currently lacking in research, which factors need to be explored further, which research methods can be utilized more frequently) and police practice (i.e. how to support police officers in their decision-making and optimize these decision-making processes).

In this Element we build on our previous work conceptualizing a craft learning model for governing police discretion. We envision a model for harnessing patrol officers' craft knowledge and skills, learned through experience handling similar street-level encounters over time, to the development of standards for evaluating the quality of their decision-making. To clarify the logic of this model and its potential for police reform, we situate it within the context of other systems of discretion control, including law, bureaucracy, science, and the community. We also consider obstacles. We conclude that police organizations need to balance the different strategies for channeling and controlling discretion toward the goal of advancing more transparent and principled decision-making. The challenge is finding a balance that helps prevent arbitrary, pernicious, or uncompromising uses of police authority, but that also empowers and rewards officers for using the skills of perception and resourcefulness that contribute to wise judgment.

Over the past ten years, the field of evidence-based policing (EBP) has grown substantially, evolving from a novel idea at the fringes of policing to an increasingly core component of contemporary policing research and practice. Examining what makes something evidence-based and not merely evidence-informed, this book unifies the voices of police practitioners, academics, and pracademics. It provides real world examples of evidence-based police practices and how police research can be created and applied in the field. Includes contributions from leading international EBP researchers and practitioners such as Larry Sherman, University of Cambridge, Lorraine Mazerrolle, University of Queensland, Anthony Braga, Northeastern and Craig Bennell, Carelton University.