Publication Date
2008
Document Type
Thesis
Committee Members
Karen Lahm (Committee Co-chair), David Orenstein (Committee Co-chair), Tracey Steele (Committee Member), Joseph F. Thomas, Jr. (Other)
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Abstract
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.
Page Count
132
Department or Program
Applied Behavioral Science
Year Degree Awarded
2008
Copyright
Copyright 2008, all rights reserved. This open access ETD is published by Wright State University and OhioLINK.
