This insightful volume examines key research questions concerning police decision to arrest as well as police-led diversion. The authors critically evaluate the tentative answers that empirical evidence provides to those questions, and suggest areas for future inquiry. Nearly seven decades of empirical study have provided extensive knowledge regarding police use of arrest. However, this research highlights important gaps in our understanding of factors that shape police decision-making and what is required to alter current police practice. Reviewing this research base, this brief takes stock of what is known empirically about all aspects related to the use of arrests, providing important insights on the knowledge needed to make evidence-based policy decisions moving forward. With the potential to better impact policy and programs for alternatives to arrest, this brief will appeal to researchers and practitioners in evidence-based policing and police decision-making, as well as those interested in alternatives to arrest and related fields such as public policy.

A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press's Open Access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more. In the United States, the exercise of police authority-and the public's trust that police authority is used properly-is a recurring concern. Contemporary prescriptions for police reform hold that the public would better trust the police and feel a greater obligation to comply and cooperate if police-citizen interactions were marked by higher levels of procedural justice by police. In this book, Robert E. Worden and Sarah J. McLean argue that the procedural justice model of reform is a mirage. From a distance, procedural justice seemingly offers a relief from strained police-community relations. But a closer look at police organizations and police-citizen interactions shows that the relief offered by such reform is, in fact, illusory.