Judging Police Misconduct: "Street-Level" versus Professional Policing

In their interactions with citizens, police officers are prohibited from (1) using unnecessary Force, (2) Abusing their authority, (3) speaking Discourteously, or (4) using Offensive language, all captured by the acronym FADO. However, acts of police misconduct are complex social phenomena that involve both following legal guidelines and responding to extralegal or mitigating circumstances. Using a factorial survey of police‐civilian interactions that introduce various dimensions of FADO and surrounding circumstances, respondents are asked to rate from zero to ten the seriousness of police misconduct in an encounter. Findings show that respondents' judgments of the seriousness of misconduct consider both legal and extralegal dimensions. On the legal side of the ledger, officers' unnecessary use of force and use of offensive language significantly increase judgments of serious misconduct; on the extralegal side of the ledger, civilians' confrontational demeanor significantly reduces judgments of serious misconduct. The findings suggest that citizens expect officers to behave professionally, or by the book, but with a recognition that “street‐level” discretion has a place in an officer's toolkit. Citizens' expectations that street‐level discretion has its place is also demonstrated by findings for the dimension abuse of authority: Abuse or threatening behavior by officers is not a significant predictor of serious police misconduct. In addition, characteristics of the respondents explain propensities to observe different degrees of police misconduct. Controlling for the social status, political orientation, and prior experience of respondents with the police, we find that (1) blacks rate police misconduct significantly higher than their white counterparts, and (2) liberals rate police misconduct significantly higher than their conservative counterparts. Differences in judgments by blacks and whites and by liberals and conservatives concerning judgments of police misconduct have important implications for the legitimacy of police authority.