Penn State Harrisburg

Lee’s research examines police decision-making



Lee, primarily a criminologist who studies social and psychological factors of crime and delinquency, holds a master’s degree in criminal justice from Penn State Harrisburg and a doctorate from Sam Houston State University in Houston, TX. While at Sam Houston, Lee studied police response to domestic violence incidents in the city of Houston.

During a recent discussion of his research, Lee explained that the public expects police to uniformly enforce laws in all cases because those laws are arrived at by a consensus of society. For example, police would be less likely to make an arrest if an incident involved simple assault as opposed to aggravated assault, and would be more likely to make an arrest if there was a restraining order against the assailant.

However, Lee said, “There are extra-legal factors, in addition to legal factors, that constitute the incident and ultimately matter to police officers.”

In his analysis of domestic violence cases handled by the Houston police department, Lee found that officers use discretion in handling incidents, despite the presence of mandated rules and regulations governing how officers are supposed to respond.

For instance, officers were less likely to make an arrest in a neighborhood with a high-crime rate, compared to a more upscale neighborhood. Also, some of the situational contexts, such as age, gender, and race of assailants, as well as time of the day, day of the week, and location of the incident, were associated with the odds of making an arrest. Of course, there is no such law that advises officers to make an arrest based on who the suspect is or where and when the crime occurs.

“The most important point is, it doesn’t necessarily mean (police officers) are ignoring the social consensus,” Lee stressed. “It is the fabric of our society with a wide range of subcultures that brings a question to the validity of social consensus.

“Amongst different income levels, generations, ethnicities, etc., are we sure we have one uniform consensus? When a case moves from one context to another, consensus on the topic changes as well, this is why police find it difficult to apply one law to all cases.”

