CAUSES OF POLICE BEHAVIOR REVISITED

In 1980, Lawrence Sherman reviewed two decades of quantitative research examining the causes of police behavior in the United States. That review provided a synopsis of the factors known to influence service, detection, arrest, and force behavior. Since Sherman's summary of findings, scholarly interest regarding the causes of police behavior has increased significantly. Moreover, more sophisticated modes of analysis have been utilized, producing a large body of findings on how individual, situational, organizational, and community-level variables influence police behavior. This article reviews quantitative research from the 1980s and compares and contrasts these recent findings with those cited in the Sherman article. The findings indicate that although our understanding of the causes of police behavior has become more refined, a number of questions remain unanswered. The article highlights the gaps in the findings and suggests what issues need to be addressed in future research.