| As legislation outlining mandatory discretionary decision for law enforcement increases, it is incumbent upon those who train police officers in decision making to understand what influences police officers' decisions. Although research has examined discretionary decision making in several aspects of police work, emergency protective orders have not been included. This basic interpretive qualitative study explored factors that influence police officers decision-making processes when determining the need to advise a victim of domestic violence of the availability of an emergency protective order. The 10 participants were drawn from a suburban police department in Southern California. California police officers were of particular interest for this study as a new state legislation, California House Assembly Bill 2139, had been enacted in January, 2007 that mandates discretionary decision making for police officers in advising victims of domestic violence of the availability of an emergency protective order if the police officer believes that the victim is in danger of imminent harm.;The findings showed that, in the absence of clear policy on the part of the police department, the officers made autonomous decisions based on their past experience, intuition, and efficiency. There was little evidence that recent legislation influenced their decision-making processes. The implication for practice is clearly that to maintain standardization and reduce potential liability, there needs to be greater emphasis in the training of law enforcement in discretionary decision making and the definition of imminent danger that conforms to department policy. |
