SOC 3750 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Whistle Rymes, Erving Goffman

• School: University of Guelph
• Department: Sociology
• Course: SOC 3750
• Professor: Parnaby

Document Summary

Discretion: the ability to decide on the basis of one"s own judgment. Police discretion discretionary they work: discretion could mean: Arrive late or on time: cultural perception: officers consistently enforce the law. Factors that (partially) determine whether the law will be enforced: scholarly focus on (cid:498)selective enforcement(cid:499) Depends on the cops mood (e. g. , arrest vs. non-arrest) identify what those factors are and how. Violation compels officer to act event a happens, officer lays charges. Circumstances (cid:498)external(cid:499) to event ignored people assume will be ignored not taken into consideration: image of consistent enforcement is valuable crucial role for organization, (cid:498)mask of full enforcement(cid:499) (cid:523)klockars and mastrofski(cid:524) Overall, the law is relatively self explanatory. Gives people impression that the police use full enforcement and no exceptions. As long as they can give this image of full enforcement they can justify. Police discretion themselves when people question their enforcement.