How Police Use Information to Make Decisions

Abstract

Systematic study of the decision-making process at each critical stage of the criminal justice system has been limited. Specifically, little attention has been given to the decision-making of police on whether or not to process juveniles into and through the system. Even more remarkable is the lack of research on the types of information police use to arrive at their decisions.

One device available for studying information handling in decision-making is the information or decision board developed by Leslie Wilkins. The technique simulates, as closely as possible, the real-life use of information and allows for rigorous experi mental conditions. By use of this technique, the decision- making of twenty-four policemen was studied—specifically, the amount and types of information each used to make a decision about a juvenile charged with drunk and disorderly conduct.

The results show that police use more information to make a decision than is popularly believed. On the average, five pieces of information were selected before a decision was reached. The data also indicate that younger officers (less than five years on the job) tend to use nearly twice as much information as their more experienced counterparts (five or more years on the job) and that these two groups of officers do not always reach the same final decisions.

Twenty-three of the twenty-four officers selected offense first, but the most critical topic for reaching a final decision was attitude of offender. Eighteen of the twenty-four officers made a decision when this piece of information was selected. Surprising ly, the piece of information race had little significance in the decision-making process.

This study shows that the information board can be used effectively to examine the decision-making of police in their processing of juveniles. The data suggest that future studies may be able to identify types of decision-makers among police by examining their information-search profiles.