Police Response to Interpersonal Violence: Defining the Parameters of Legal Control

Abstract

This paper examines factors influencing how police handle violence between citizens. Police decision-making in violent encounters reflects styles of control, three of which are considered in this analysis: whether to mediate the problem, to arrest the combatants, or to resolve the matter by separating the disputing parties. Drawing on Black's theory of law and previous studies of police behavior, factors hypothesized to influence styles of control include characteristics of the parties involved such as race, sex, and relationship; aspects of the encounter itself, such as weapon use, location, and whether the citizens involved have been drinking; and the context in which the encounter occurs, such as the type of neighborhood. The analysis indicates that how police handle these encounters reflects who is involved in addition to what has occurred. The implications of these findings for a more complete understanding of police decision-making are discussed. In recent years, social scientists have become increasingly aware of the discretionary nature of decision-making by legal officials such as the police. Numerous studies during the past two decades, for example, indicate that law alone is often a poor predictor of police behavior, especially decisions to arrest (Banton 1964; Berk and Loseke 1981; Black 1970; Lundman 1974; Smith and Visher 1981). In one of the first major studies of American policing, Michael Banton (1964) commented that the most striking aspect about the police was the frequency with which they choose not to arrest suspected offenders. This line of research has resulted in a clearer picture of routine police work and increased our sensitivity to the complexities of the police role within the social control process. It is now widely acknowledged, for example, that police perform a number of roles ranging from mediator to peacekeeper to law enforcer (Bittner 1967, 1970; Cumming et al. 1965; Goldstein 1977; Mastrofski 1983; Reiss 1971; Wilson 1967). *This research was made possible in part by a grant from the Law and Society Section of the National Science Foundation (NSF SES-83-19782). The paper has benefited from the insights of Christy Visher and anonymous referees. Address correspondence to the author, Institute of Criminology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742.