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Peeling an Apple: Police Discretion from an Officer's Perspective in Terms of a Definition, Education, and the Process of Routinization

Beech, Andrew Evan
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=wright1219935769

Abstract Details

2008, Master of Arts (MA), Wright State University, Applied Behavioral Science: Criminal Justice and Social Problems.
This study of police discretion contrasts realworld application to academia and has found that an understanding of police discretion is fundamentally different between the two. From focus group methodology with six special agents in the Federal Bureau of Investigation, a group dynamic emerged where five of the six participants associated police discretion with the peeling of an apple. The use of this analogy and metaphor in association to the discussion of police discretion uniquely frames the processes of professionalization and bureaucratization, thus alluding to Weber's theory of bureaucracy. It appears that professionalism within law enforcement structure(s) is flawed through a linkage to bureaucracy which only works to increase supervisory control. Participants of this study stress the importance of discretion, but suggest that professionalism creates an atmostphere that allows administration, through politics, to wrongly restrict essential discretionary abilities.
Karen Lahm, PhD (Committee Co-Chair)
David Orenstein, PhD (Committee Co-Chair)
Tracey Steele, PhD (Committee Member)
Joseph F. Thomas, Jr., PhD (Other)
132 p.
Behaviorial Sciences; Criminology; Organizational Behavior; Political Science; Public Administration; Sociology
police discretion; routinization; professionalism; bureaucracy; focus group

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Beech, A. E. (2008). Peeling an Apple: Police Discretion from an Officer's Perspective in Terms of a Definition, Education, and the Process of Routinization [Master's thesis, Wright State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=wright1219935769

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Beech, Andrew. Peeling an Apple: Police Discretion from an Officer's Perspective in Terms of a Definition, Education, and the Process of Routinization. 2008. Wright State University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=wright1219935769.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Beech, Andrew. "Peeling an Apple: Police Discretion from an Officer's Perspective in Terms of a Definition, Education, and the Process of Routinization." Master's thesis, Wright State University, 2008. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=wright1219935769

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

wright1219935769
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© 2008, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by Wright State University and OhioLINK.