| Summary: | An inside look at police discretionary actions and their consequences for poor communities. This ethnographic study, which includes participant observation research and in-depth interviews with police officers in a major California city and a large East Coast city, explores how police officers use their discretionary time on the job - and the consequences. Providing insights into police discretion, the authors show that America's "tough on crime" approach to justice has too often proved to be a smoke screen for controlling people deemed undesirable, rather than a genuinely effective strategy for reducing crime.
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