91172.pdf

8 1 Police and Law Enforcement—Adult Forensics

with the amount of arrests made. Research which spells out specific influences on

police decision making could be used to form policies which are found to best suit

the public in terms of appropriate numbers of arrests and other law enforcement

decisions.

Suggestions for Future Research

Research examining the psychological processes underlying police discretionary
decision making is of current interest in both the psychological and criminolog-
ical literature. While the topic of demeanor and police decisions to arrest have
been examined scientifically, specific modalities involving police decisions to arrest
and methods of police intervention are still areas of research worthy of investi-
gation.
Police expectancy theory, for example, is an area of research that is needed.
Mastrofski et al. (1994) state that broader and more diverse samples of department
examination will help in the development of theories attempting to explain cogni-
tive models of police decision making. These authors further state that the effects
of expectancy theory could be tested by focusing to a larger degree on actual police
arrest decisions rather than examining police arrest totals post hoc.
More systematic analyses of citizen behavior, which are likely to result in arrest
decisions, should be explored more fully. The majority of studies indicate that
illegal behavior will result in police decisions to arrest. However, it may also follow
that other citizen behaviors besides those that are blatantly illegal will result in
either arrest or citation. Research examining these processes is needed and certainly
warranted.
There is also a lack of psychological research examining a police officer's per-
sonality and its relation to arrest likelihood. Although some studies exist which
have attempted to quantify the typical police personality, virtually no research exists
which attempts to correlate police personality characteristics, such as overcontrolled
hostility and passivity, with an officer's likeliness to arrest.

USE OF FORCE

Introduction

The question of force used by police first came to attention in 1974, in Memphis,
Tennessee, when a 15-year-old boy named Edward Garner broke into a home and
stole 10 dollars and a purse. At the arrival of the police, Garner, who was unarmed,
fled from the home and ran across the backyard. As the police began pursuit of the
suspect, Garner reached a six-foot fence surrounding the yard. In an attempt to
avoid police custody, he continued to flee and began to climb over the fence. The