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Police Criminal Charging Decisions: An Examination Of Post-Arrest Decision-Making, Scott W. Phillips, Sean P. Varano
Police Criminal Charging Decisions: An Examination Of Post-Arrest Decision-Making, Scott W. Phillips, Sean P. Varano
Justice Studies Faculty Publications
Scholars have encouraged studies of police decision-making to move beyond the arrest decision into research that broadens the understanding of police behavior. The criminal charge placed by officers against offenders is largely an untouched area of study. Examining criminal charging decisions goes beyond simple dichotomous decisions, such as arrest, but instead explores the area of police leniency or punitiveness. Randomly constructed vignettes describing a domestic violence incident were given to officers from four agencies. Officers indicated the criminal charges they would likely list against an offender if they were to make an arrest. Serious criminal charges were often supported by …