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Research Note: Cops and ‘Stool Pigeon’-Professional Striving and Discretionary Justice in European Police Work

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2024

James Leo Walsh
James Leo Walsh*
Affiliation:
Oberlin College
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Extract

The interplay between professionals and clients has been examined in a number of settings (Etzioni, 1964: 87-89; Becker, 1952; Willie, 1960; Schur, 1968; Myers and Roberts, 1959) and the impact of laymen on professional behavior is well-known to the sociologists (Friedson, 1960). In this research report these insights are applied to police-citizen interaction in an effort to explain the dynamics of discretionary decisions by police officers and the role such discretion plays in their quest to attain higher professional stature. Specific attention will be paid to variations in the willingness of policemen to develop and utilize informers or “stool pigeons.”

Type
Research Article
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 7 , Issue 2 , Winter 1972 , pp. 299 - 306
Copyright
Copyright © 1972 The Law and Society Association

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Footnotes

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is a revision of a paper presented at the meetings of the American Sociological Association, Denver, Colorado, Fall, 1971. Support for this research was provided through the Research and Development Committee of Oberlin College. Many of the ideas presented in this paper result from conversations with my colleague, Richard R. Myers.

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