@phdthesis{01H8CB0BX0SZ0BXJNBE4BHSACR,
  abstract     = {{The present dissertation studies Belgian police officers’ decision-making through a decision-making model, operationalised in four different steps to explore decision-making processes: moral recognition, situational judgement, perceived decision-making and actual decision-making. It was found that police officers experience difficulties in defining moral dilemmas and explaining why certain situations are considered to be a moral dilemma (moral recognition). Nonetheless, the respondents were able to give several examples of general and function-specific dilemmas.

Based on a scoping review, a multitude of factors were identified that affect police decisions (situational judgement). For this study, these factors are divided into four groups: police officer characteristics, civilian characteristics, organisational characteristics and situational characteristics. These factors were applied to police officers’ perceived decision-making (i.e. how police officers think they make decisions) by means of interviews on the one hand, and to their actual decision-making (i.e. how police officers make decisions in practice) by means of systematic social observations on the other hand. Differences were found between factors that were identified through the interviews and their importance in practice. Regarding perceived decision-making, the following factors were most decisive: professional experience, laws and regulations, a police officer’s personality, colleagues, civilians’ use of aggression, supervisors, and whether or not the civilians are already known to the police. Concerning actual decision-making, and especially related to domestic violence, the following factors were found to be most important: civilians’ socioeconomic status and their attitude, the initiation of the encounter, the timing of the encounter, the number of police officers and civilians involved and whether or not children are present. Although numerous police officer and organisational characteristics were
identified as important during the interviews, these factors yielded no statistically significant results on the police decisions to draw up a report and interrogate the persons involved based on observations of domestic violence encounters. However, organisational factors were frequently mentioned by police participants when explaining the decisions made. 

This study also assessed the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on police discretion and found that different factors specific to the pandemic context affected police officers’ decision-making. The observations furthermore demonstrated that the policing styles employed during the pandemic strongly depended on situational aspects.}},
  author       = {{Feys, Yinthe}},
  keywords     = {{Police,Discretion,Decision-making,Policing styles,Individual characteristics,Civilian characteristics,Organisational characteristics,Situational characteristics,Moral dilemmas,COVID-19}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  pages        = {{var. p}},
  publisher    = {{Ghent University. Faculty of Law and Criminology}},
  school       = {{Ghent University}},
  title        = {{Practice what they preach? An empirical study of police decision-making in Belgium}},
  year         = {{2023}},
}