Citation

Kerstetter WA, Winkle BV. Crim. Justice Behav. 1990; 17(3): 268-283.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1990, SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/0093854890017003003

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

A criminal complainant's decision to prosecute has long been recognized as an important aspect of criminal justice case processing. Much of the literature regards this decision as a simple expression of a victim's volition. On the basis of interviews with detectives, prosecutors, and a victims' advocate and quantitative analyses (based on a sample of police files), it was concluded that police officers have a substantial influence on a complainant's decision to prosecute. The study also assessed evidence for three explanations for officials influencing complainants' decisions: feminist conflict theory, Black's "behavior of law" hypotheses, and the need to efficiently allocate scarce resources. It was found that the need to efficiently allocate resources best explained the data.

Language: en