Mandatory Arrest: Loosely Coupled Organisations, Situational Variables, and the Arrest Decision
| Author | Scott W. Phillips |
| DOI | 10.1350/ijps.2008.10.4.093 |
| Published date | 01 December 2008 |
| Date | 01 December 2008 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Mandatory arrest: loosely coupled
organisations, situational variables, and
the arrest decision
Scott W. Phillips
Buffalo State College, 1300 Elmwood Ave., Buffalo, NY 14222. Tel: +1 716 878-3154;
email: phillisw@buffalostate.edu
Received 21 July 2007; accepted 2 January 2008
Keywords: loose decision theory, police decision-making, discretion
Scott W. Phillips
is an assistant professor in the
Criminal Justice Department at Buffalo State
College. He worked as a police officer in
Houston, Texas and as a grant advisor for the
Office of Community Oriented Policing Services
within the US Justice Department. He received a
PhD from SUNY at Albany, and his research
interests include police behaviour and police
organisation issues.
A
BSTRACT
Police officer decision-making is thought to be a
function of organisation size and situational vari-
ables. Large organisations are assumed to have
gaps between administrators and street-level
workers, allowing officers in large agencies to
exercise discretion in their decision-making,
whereas officers in small agencies are closely
connected to, and more easily monitored by,
administrators. Situational variables are the legal
and extralegal aspects of an incident that might
influence decision-making. Loose-coupling theory
provides a framework to examine the impact of
organisation size on officer decision-making. This
study examined the arrest decisions of officers
when handling domestic violence incidents. A
factorial research design integrated four situational
variables into vignettes describing a domestic viol-
ence incident. Police officers in four departments,
one large and three small, indicated the likelihood
of making an arrest based on cases described in
the vignettes. 917 vignettes were analysed, with
results showing that most officers would arrest the
offender. Victim injury, an order of protection, a
victim’s preference for an arrest, and an unco-
operative offender were significant in the arrest
decision. Agency size, however, was not sig-
nificant in the arrest decision. The impacts of the
findings are discussed, as is the utility of loose-
coupling theory.
INTRODUCTION
Police officer decision-making is thought to
be a function of organisational structures
and the situational characteristics of an
incident. The organisational structure of a
police agency is assumed to influence an
officer’s behaviour through formal policies
and the influence of administrators
(Mastrofski, Ritti, & Hoffmaster, 1987). In
larger police agencies there are multiple
bureaucratic layers that separate a street-
level officer from the policies or direct
influences of the upper-level administrators.
These layers cause a gap between admin-
istrative control and street-level behaviour.
In larger organisations it would be common
for a street-level officer to have no inter-
action with the police chief. The gaps
between street-level officers and the admin-
istration make larger organisations ‘loosely
coupled’ (Stojkovic, Kalinich, & Klofas,
International Journal of Police
Science and Management,
Vol. 10 No. 4, 2008, pp. 374–387.
DOI: 10.1350/ijps.2008.10.4.093
International Journal of Police Science & Management Volume 10 Number 4
Page 374
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