Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T22:33:31.277Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Expectancy Theory and Police Productivity in DUI Enforcement

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2024

Stephen D. Mastrofski ,
R. Richard Ritti  and
Jeffrey B. Snipes
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

This article drew on expectancy theory in industrial/organizational psychology to explain arrest productivity for driving under the influence (DUI) in a sample of Pennsylvania police officers. Expectancy theory is a cognitive model of motivation and performance based on workers' perceptions of their situation. Its major elements are estimated in a regression model: the officer's capability and opportunity for DUI enforcement (performance-reward expectancy), the instrumentality of DUI enforcement behavior for the officer, and the reward-cost balance associated with making DUI arrests. These factors account for 26% of the residual variance in the number of DUI arrests made annually once organizational effects have been removed. The relationships revealed are as expectancy theory predicts, except for instrumentality variables, which show a negative relationship to arrest productivity. This is due largely to the orientation of a small number of “rate busters,” whose exceptionally high arrest rate and negative attitudes toward their peers and the department hierarchy make them a distinct group accounting for a disproportionate number of arrests.

Type
Organizational Theory and Police Arrests
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 28 , Issue 1 , 1994 , pp. 113 - 148
Copyright
Copyright © 1997 by The Law and Society Association.

Footnotes

This work was sponsored by the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation. The contents of this report reflect the views of the authors, who are responsible for the facts and the accuracy of the data presented herein. The contents do not necessarily reflect the official views or policies of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania at the time of publication. This report does not constitute a standard, specification, or regulation. The authors are grateful for anonymous reviewers' helpful comments on earlier versions.

References

Aaronson, David E., Dienes, C. Thomas, & Musheno, Michael C. (1984) Public Policy and Police Discretion: Processes of Decriminalization. New York: Clark Boardman Co.Google Scholar
Acker, James R. (1989) “Social Sciences and the Criminal Law: A Report on America's War against Drunk Driving,” 25 Criminal Law Bulletin 376.Google Scholar
Arthur Young & Company (1974) Factors Influencing Alcohol Safety Action Project: Police Officers' DWI Arrests. Report No. DOT-HS-801-151. Prepared for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Washington, DC: Arthur Young & Co.Google Scholar
Bayley, David H., & Bittner, Egon (1989) “Learning the Skills of Policing,” in Dunham, R. G. & Alpert, G. P., eds., Critical Issues in Policing: Contemporary Readings. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press.Google Scholar
Bittner, Egon (1970) The Functions of the Police in Modern Society. Rockville, MD: Center for Studies of Crime & Delinquency, National Institute of Mental Health.Google Scholar
Black, Donald J. (1971) “The Social Organization of Arrest,” 23 Stanford Law Rev. 1087.Google Scholar
Brown, Michael K. (1981) Working the Street: Police Discretion and the Dilemmas of Reform. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Burns, Marcelline (1991) “DUI Enforcement Problems at Roadside,” 7 Alcohol, Drugs & Driving 215.Google Scholar
Campbell, John P., & Pritchard, Robert D. (1976) “Motivation Theory in Industrial and Organizational Psychology,” in Dunnette, M. D., ed., Handbook of Industrial and Organizational Psychology. Chicago: Rand McNally College Pub.Google Scholar
Chatterton, Michael R. (1983) “Police Work and Assault Charges,” in Punch, M., ed., Control in the Police Organization. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Coch, Lester, & French, John R. Jr. (1948) “Overcoming Resistance to Change,” 1 Human Relations 512.Google Scholar
Davis, Kenneth Culp (1975) Police Discretion. St. Paul, MN: West Publishing Co.Google Scholar
Dunlap & Associates (1974) Factors Influencing Arrests for Alcohol-related Traffic Violations. Report No. DOT-HS-801-230. Washington, DC: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.Google Scholar
Goldstein, Joseph (1960) “Police Discretion Not to Invoke the Criminal Process: Low-Visibility Decisions in the Administration of Justice,” 69 Yale Law J. 543.Google Scholar
Greenfield, Lawrence A. (1988) Drunk Driving. Bureau of Justice Statistics Special report. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice.Google Scholar
Harris, Douglas H. (1980) “Visual Detection of Driving While Intoxicated,” 22 Human Factors 725.Google Scholar
Hoffmaster, Debra P. (1986) “The Drunk Driving Encounter: An Analysis of the Impact of Organizational Factors on the Arrest Decision.” Master's thesis, Pennsylvania State Univ.Google Scholar
Hurst, Paul M. (1980) “Traffic Officers' Attitudes toward Blood Alcohol Law Enforcement,” 12 Accident Analysis & Prevention 259.Google Scholar
Independent Commission on the Los Angeles Police Department (1991) Report of the Independent Commission on the Los Angeles Police Department. Los Angeles, CA: Los Angeles Police Department.Google Scholar
Jacobs, James B. (1989) Drunk Driving: An American Dilemma. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kanfer, Ruth (1990) “Motivation Theory and Industrial Organizational Psychology,” in Dunnette, M. D. & Hough, L. M., eds., 1 Handbook of Industrial and Organizational Psychology. 2d ed. Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press.Google Scholar
Klein, Stuart M., & Ritti, R. Richard (1984) Understanding Organizational Behavior. 2d ed. Boston: Kent Publishing Co.Google Scholar
LaFave, Wayne R. (1965) Arrest: The Decision to Take a Suspect into Custody. Boston: Little, Brown.Google Scholar
Manning, Peter K. (1977) Police Work: The Social Organization of Policing. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Manning, Peter K. (1989) “Occupational Culture,” in Bailey, W. B., ed., Encyclopedia of Police Science. New York: Garland Publishing.Google Scholar
Mastrofski, Stephen D. (1990) “The Prospects of Change in Police Patrol: A Decade in Review,” 9 American J. of Police 1.Google Scholar
Mastrofski, Stephen D., & Ritti, R. Richard (1990) More Effective DUI Enforcement in Pennsylvania: Final Report. Report No. PA-90-011+88-04 to the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation. University Park: Pennsylvania State Univ.Google Scholar
Ritti, R. Richard (1992) “You Can Lead a Horse to Water …: A Case Study of a Police Department's Response to Stricter Drunk-driving laws,” 9 Justice Q 465.Google Scholar
Mastrofski, Stephen D., Ritti, R. Richard, & Hoffmaster, Debra (1987) “Organizational Determinants of Police Discretion: The Case of Drinking-Driving,” 15 J. of Criminal Justice 387.Google Scholar
Meyers, Allan R. (1991) “Machines, Motives, and Management: Police Discretion in the Enforcement of Laws against Driving under the Influence of Alcohol (DUI),” 7 Alcohol, Drugs & Driving 205.Google Scholar
Meyers, Allan R., Heeren, Timothy, Hingson, Ralph, & Kovenock, David (1987) “Cops and Drivers: Police Discretion and the Enforcement of Maine's 1981 OUI Law,” 15 J. of Criminal Justice 361.Google Scholar
Meyers, Allan R., Heeren, Timothy, & Hingson, Ralph (1989) “Discretionary Leniency in Police Enforcement of Laws against Drinking and Driving: Two Examples from the State of Maine, USA,” 17 J. of Criminal Justice 179.Google Scholar
Mitchell, Terence R. (1974) “Expectancy Models of Job Satisfaction, Occupational Preference and Effort: A Theoretical, Methodological, and Empirical Appraisal,” 81 Psychological bulletin 1053.Google Scholar
Mitchell, Terence R. (1982a) “Expectancy-Value Models in Organizational Psychology,” in Feather, N. T., ed., Expectations and Actions: Expectancy-Value Models in Psychology. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Feather, N. T. (1982b) “Motivation: New Directions for Research, Theory, and Practice,” 7 Academy of Management Rev. 80.Google Scholar
Muir, William Ker Jr. (1977) Police: Streetcorner Politicians. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Reiss, Albert J. Jr. (1971) The Police and the Public. New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Reuss-Ianni, Elizabeth (1983) The Two Cultures of Policing. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books.Google Scholar
Roethlisberger, F. J., & Dickson, William J. (1939) Management and the Worker. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Ross, H. Laurence (1992) Confronting Drunk Driving: Social Policy for Saving Lives. New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Rubinstein, Jonathan (1973) City Police. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux.Google Scholar
Saunders, David N., & Pemberton, Linda J. (1977) Determinants of Police Officers' DWI Activity. Report No. DOT-HS-803-986. Washington, DC: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.Google Scholar
Sherman, Lawrence W. (1980) “Causes of Police Behavior: The Current State of Quantitative Research,” J. of Research in Crime & Delinquency 69 (Jan.).Google Scholar
Sherman, Lawrence W. (1992) Policing Domestic Violence: Experiments and Dilemmas. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Skolnick, Jerome H. (1966) Justice without Trial: Law Enforcement in a Democratic Society. New York: John Wiley.Google Scholar
Snipes, Jeffrey, & Mastrofski, Stephen D. (1990) “An Empirical Assessment of Attitude-Behavior Consistency among Police Officers,” 14 American J. of Criminal Justice 268.Google Scholar
Snortum, John R., Riva, Paul R., Berger, Dale E., & Mangione, Thomas W. (1990) “Police Documentation of Drunk-driving arrests: Jury Verdicts and Guilty Pleas as a Function of Quantity and Quality of Evidence,” 18 J. of Criminal Justice 99.Google Scholar
Sparrow, Malcolm K., Moore, Mark H., & Kennedy, David M. (1990) Beyond 911: A New Era for Policing. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Van Berkom, Lowell C. (1991) “Chemical Test Evidence in DWI Cases: Some Issues and Challenges,” 7 Alcohol, Drugs & Driving 229.Google Scholar
Van Maanen, John (1974) “Working the Street: A Developmental View of Police Behavior,” in Jacob, H., ed., The Potential for Reform of Criminal Justice. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Jacob, H. (1975) “Police Socialization: A Longitudinal Examination of Job Attitudes in an Urban Police Department,” 20 Administrative Science Q. 207.Google Scholar
Jacob, H. (1983) “The Boss: First-Line Supervision in an American Police Agency,” in Punch, M., ed., Control in the Police Organization. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Verschuur, W. L. G., & Gundy, C. M. (1987) “Police Enforcement of Drinking Driving Laws: A Survey of the Opinions and Practices of Police Officers,” in Noordzij, P. C. & Roszbach, R., eds., Alcohol, Drugs, and Traffic Safety—T86. Excerpta Medica, International Congress Series 721. The Hague: Elsevier.Google Scholar
Vingilis, Evelyn (1991) “Problems in Detecting DWIs,” 7 Alcohol, Drugs & Driving 197.Google Scholar
Vingilis, E., Adlaf, E. M., Blefgen, H., & Bennett, C. (1985) “A Controlled Evaluation of the DWI Visual Detection Guide Training Programs for Police Officers,” in Kaye, S. & Meier, G. W., eds., Alcohol, Drugs and traffic Safety. Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on Alcohol, Drugs, and Traffic Safety. San Juan: Medical Sciences Campus, Univ. of Puerto Rico.Google Scholar
Vingilis, E., Blefgen, H., Colbourne, D., Reynolds, D., Wasylyk, N., & Solomon, R. (1986) “Police Enforcement Practices and Perceptions of Drinking-Driving Laws,” 28 Canadian J. of Criminology 147.Google Scholar
Voas, Robert B. (1991) “Enforcement of DUI Laws,” 7 Alcohol, Drugs and Driving 173.Google Scholar
Westley, William (1970) Violence and the Police. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
White, Susan O. (1972) “A Perspective on Police Professionalization,” 7 Law & Society Rev. 61.Google Scholar
Whyte, William F., et al. (1955) Money and Motivation: An Analysis of Incentives in Industry. New York: Harper & Bros.Google Scholar
Wilson, James Q. (1968) Varieties of Police Behavior: The Management of Law and Order in Eight Communities. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Worden, Robert E. (1989) “Situational and Attitudinal Explanations of Police Behavior: A Theoretical Reappraisal and Empirical Assessment,” 23 Law & Society Rev. 667.Google Scholar
Worden, Robert E. (1992) “The ‘Causes’ of Police Brutality,” in Geller, W. A. & Toch, H., eds., And Justice for All: A National Agenda for Understanding and Controlling Police Abuse of Force. Washington, DC: Police Executive Research Forum.Google Scholar
Worden, Robert E., & Pollitz, Alissa A. (1984) “Police Arrests in Domestic Disturbances: A Further Look,” 18 Law & Society Rev. 105.Google Scholar
Zylman, R. (1970) “Are Drinking-Driving Laws Enforced?” 9 Police Chief 48.Google Scholar