家庭暴力案件中的警察执法:上级控制抑或执法者特权

Police Enforcement of Domestic Violence Laws:Supervisory Control or Officer Prerogatives

警务人员在执法时享有高度自由裁量权,而如何控制这项酌情权是十分重要的问题。虽然每个警务人员的态度和偏好决定了他们的自由裁量活动,但同时这些警务人员也身处准军事组织中,需要将执法情况汇报给上层领导。本研究采用分层线性模型,通过对来自美国多个州的23个市警察局的311名巡逻警和61名警长进行抽样调查,旨在探索警务人员态度和警方管理层的影响力两个方面与家庭暴力犯罪逮捕率的关系。与之前的许多文献不同的是,本次调查结果显示:警务人员的职业态度对特定的职务行为没有影响,警方管理层的影响力(如奖励机制和书面规定)对警务人员在家庭暴力犯罪案件中的逮捕行为影响显著。本研究的结果强调了对警务人员自由裁量权进行控制的复杂性。

Police officers are afforded a high degree of discretion in the exercise oftheir authority,and the control of this discretion is an important issue.Whileit is assumed that individual officer attitudes and preferences shape theirdiscretionary activity,these officers are also members of a paramilitaryorganization with leaders over them.The present study explored theinfluence of both officer attitudes and management influences to explainvariation in officer domestic violence arrest rates.Hierarchical linearmodeling was used with a sample of 311 patrol officers and 61 supervisorsfrom 23 municipal police agencies across multiple states.Unlike much of theprevious literature,the results revealed that officer occupational attitudeshad no effect on this particular officer work behavior.Managementinfluences(such as rewards and written policies)significantly influencedofficers’domestic violence arrest behavior.The findings emphasize thecomplexity involved in the control of officer discretion.