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Speeding violation dispositions in relation to police officers’ perception of the offenders

This study has been undertaken to investigate the relationship between police officers’ discretion in disposing of speeding violations and their perceptions of the offender. The exercise of police discretion has received much research attention during the past two decades (Brooks, 1997). Although police discretion has been justified on many grounds, the results of this exercise have posed some problems that have caused dissonance between the police and the public (Wagner & Decker, 1997; Peak, 1993: 185). Since it is an attitudinal reaction to a particular situation, and since there is a lack of formal guidelines (Powell, 1990), the individual police officers, who have been allotted a wide variation of actions in disposing of police-citizen encounters, may abuse this power. This raises questions about the equity and efficiency of police service delivery (Eck & Spelman, 1997). Although many variables, such as the seriousness of the offense, department policy, officers’ traits and offenders’ traits, can be the determinants of police discretion, this study is especially interested in offenders’ personal characteristics, including gender, age, physical appearance and attitude. Police discretion in this study focuses on an understudied area*/speeding violation, an everyday offense. Patrol officers, when having observed a citizen traveling in excess of the speed limit, have the authority to act in one of several ways from disregarding the situation to issuing a citation. The significance of this study is directly related to the issue of discretion management. Police departments are being encouraged to make clear policies to reduce officer discretion (Brooks, 1997). Such policies not only protect the community, but also protect the officer and make the officer’s job easier (Brooks, 1997). This study could help both the public and police administrators understand the integrity level of those officers who patrol the roadways. Due to the incorporation of four independent variables, the researchers proposed several hypotheses for this study. First, police officers are less lenient to male