Controlling street-level police discretion

The Committee to Review Research on Police Policy and Practices' Fairness and effectiveness in Policing: The Evidence provides a review of research on the causes of street-level police behavior, but the report offers little insight into how to control that discretion effectively. This is not due to deficiencies in the report but rather to limitations of the available research. This article discusses four problems with that research: underdeveloped theory, weak research designs, insufficient generalizability of findings, and inattention to the kinds of police discretion that really matter to policy makers, practitioners, and the public. The article gives special attention to the last problem and makes recommendations for improving the quality of research to better inform choices about how to control police street-level discretion.