The use of police authority is a major area of focus for criminal justice researchers. While a variety of factors have been found to impact police use of formal authority, most of these factors relate to legal, situational, and individual characteristics of the police-citizen encounter. While the research on legal, situational, and individual factors has been plentiful, comparatively little attention has been dedicated to examining the influence of organizational and ecological factors on the use of formal authority in police-citizen contacts.
In 1997, David Klinger proposed a theory that explains how ecological and organizational variables impact the level of formal authority an officer will use during police-citizen contacts. However, this theory has been subjected to limited empirical verification. This dissertation conducted the most complete test of Klinger’s theory of ecological and organizational impacts on police use of formal authority to date. This dissertation adds to the increasing body of knowledge about factors that influence officer decisions to use their authority in police-citizen contacts.