“We Handle It, I Guess You’d Say, the East Texas Way”

Use of discretion is an integral part of a police officers’ ability to effectively perform their job responsibilities. While discretion is based upon a variety of factors, research to identify how officers use discretion is lacking in mainstream policing literature and academic research has focused more on the decision to make an arrest. In addition, most research on the use of discretion has focused on officers working in urban environments. In this study, the authors seek to gain insight into the use of discretion in a rural environment generally, and more specifically, policing of youth.

Officers working in rural communities have broader discretion in performing their jobs than their counterparts in more populated suburban and urban areas. They are more likely to have ‘grown up, reside, and socialize’ in the areas they work, so they typically have more familiarity with background information regarding events and the persons involved. As a result, officers are more likely to mediate or separate individuals than taking a legalistic approach and make an arrest. When dealing with juvenile offenders, officers are more likely to employ similar approaches that focus on informal methods such as release or diversion.

This study utilized semi-structured focused interviews of 30 officers serving in six different rural agencies in East Texas. The purpose of these interviews was to evaluate officers’ responses around two general questions:

1. How do rural law enforcement officers informally respond to encounters with rural juvenile delinquency?

To provide better context, officers were asked to describe how they typically handled juveniles and give three examples of separate incidents to illustrate these approaches. Their responses were separated into nine separate categories. The top three were:

• • Calling guardians or releasing the juvenile to guardians
  • Educating or talking to the juvenile
  • Facilitating or allowing the victim and offender to agree on some type of informal restitution.

2. What factors are more influential in rural law enforcement officers’ decision to respond informally to rural youth who have engaged in delinquent behavior?

This question identified 16 distinct factors that influence their decision making and responses. The top six were:

• • Offender Attitude
  • Negative Effects of the System
  • Offense Severity
  • Prior Dealings/Record
  • Juvenile’s Home Life
  • Resource Availability/Staffing

Officers were more likely to employ alternative approaches if the juvenile was “polite or remorseful”, did not have an extensive record and the offense was not severe. In other cases, the officers noted they did not want the youth to have lifelong impacts from engaging the legal system. In addition, officers were often embedded in the community and were more likely to know the youth’s families and friends.  Also, officers were more likely to “access social knowledge” to make appropriate diversions to informal handling.

The participating officers also noted the lack of personnel and distance to juvenile detention facilities as well as the availability of facilities influenced the decision to handle incidents in an informal manner. Throughout the interviews the researcher noted officers’ responses were related to the “density of acquaintances” and a reliance on informal relationships.

The authors noted this approach may resolve the situation, but the victim would not receive legal protection if the event escalated in nature or occurred again. They suggested some victims may feel the officers’ actions resulted in compromised policing, as well as endangered the victim and their trust in the system. Despite this, “the findings illustrate the gray area of police discretion, capturing more than the decision to arrest or case outcomes, and expose police responses to incidents that do not exist in official records.”