Cascading Constraint and Subsidiary Discretion: Perspectives on Police Discretion From Police-Led Drug Diversion and Stop and Search in England

Abstract This article explores how discretion is managed and exercised across senior, middle, and street levels of policing. It uses qualitative data from two studies in England. The first, a study across three police force areas, involved interviews and focus groups with 221 people who were designers, deliverers, and recipients of police-led drug diversion. The second study used 354 hours of ethnographic observation and 21 interviews to examine stop-and-search practices in one other police force. Rather than a simply expanding scope of discretion at lower levels of the hierarchy, the findings reveal a multi-level process of cascading constraints and subsidiary discretion. At each level, we observe the exercise of occupational professionalism and autonomous judgement, but higher-level constraints shape how discretion is applied in pursuit of organizational professionalism.

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Publication Details

Journal
The British Journal of Criminology
Published
2025-05-23
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1093/bjc/azaf050
Citations
4
Primary Topic
Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
16.81

Funders

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article

Cascading Constraint and Subsidiary Discretion: Perspectives on Police Discretion From Police-Led Drug Diversion and Stop and Search in England

Caitlin Hughes, Charlie E. Sutton, Alex Stevens, Rivka Smith et al.
4 citations
The British Journal of Criminology
Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis
16.81
article

Cascading Constraint and Subsidiary Discretion: Perspectives on Police Discretion From Police-Led Drug Diversion and Stop and Search in England

Caitlin Hughes, Charlie E. Sutton, Alex Stevens, Rivka Smith, Emma Williams, Charlie Lloyd, Matthew Bacon, Nadine Hendrie, Winifred Agnew-Pauley, Paul Quinton, Mark Monaghan, Helen Glasspoole-Bird
article en
4 citations

Abstract

Abstract This article explores how discretion is managed and exercised across senior, middle, and street levels of policing. It uses qualitative data from two studies in England. The first, a study across three police force areas, involved interviews and focus groups with 221 people who were designers, deliverers, and recipients of police-led drug diversion. The second study used 354 hours of ethnographic observation and 21 interviews to examine stop-and-search practices in one other police force. Rather than a simply expanding scope of discretion at lower levels of the hierarchy, the findings reveal a multi-level process of cascading constraints and subsidiary discretion. At each level, we observe the exercise of occupational professionalism and autonomous judgement, but higher-level constraints shape how discretion is applied in pursuit of organizational professionalism.

The British Journal of CriminologyVol. 66(2)
Loughborough University (GB), Flinders University (AU), The Open University (GB), University of Kent (GB), College of Policing (GB), Alcohol and Drug Foundation (AU), Anglia Ruskin University (GB), University of York (GB), University of Sheffield (GB)
Australian Government
Openalex Percentile: Top 1%
Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis
16.81
DOIOpen Access PDFOpenAlex
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