NCJ Number
85136
Date Published
1979
Length
198 pages
Annotation
This study identifies general features of case routinization in order to clarify how detectives interpret their duties to achieve order and predictability in their handling of cases and their encounters with victims and others.
Abstract
Detectives first attempt establishing commonalities between an actual case and typical case patterns. The need to routinize cases is partly due to bureaucratic pressures and constraints to meet deadlines and produce arrests. Detectives divide cases into the routine and the nonroutine (problematic cases), although this classification is subject to revision. These decisionmaking schemes are informal and based on previous experience in handling similar cases and on commonsense social knowledge. Cases are structured along race, class, age, sex, and territorial lines in order to minimize case handling problems. For each offense, detectives identify a significant core feature or set of features and interpret other features in line with this core feature. Detectives too often rely on assumptions in such cases rather than actually gathering information on the case; this often results in the doctoring of formal organizational reports. Similar interpretive schemes can be found in all bureaucratically organized enterprises where many cases/clients are processed, where staff deal with similar events time and again, and where the formal organization does not counter stereotyping. Implications of these findings are suggested. No references are included. (Author summary modified)