JUDGMENTAL ASYMMETRY IN THE EXERCISE OF POLICE DISCRETION

Police officers and probationer constables rated 40 sets of circumstances as to how far each would influence them to prosecute or not prosecute a motorist stopped for speeding. The distribution of responses about the ipsative means exhibited an asymmetry, consistent with the maximum salience bias towards a negative proportion of 1/e (Tuohy and Stradling, 1987). This asymmetry occurred in both directions, differentiating between a minority group for whom ‘prosecute’ was the negative pole and a majority for whom ‘not prosecute’ was negative. These groups did not differ significantly on overall mean rating, but did so on the primary underlying factor (‘lack of deference’), where the former group was significantly more likely to prosecute. Significant differences were also found between probationer and experienced officers in their susceptibility to the bias, and in their distribution between the two groups. Copyright © 1990 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd