Pursuing an Answer: Bureaucratic and Legal Accountability in Local Law Enforcement Pursuit Policies (original) (raw)

Using qualitative and quantitative data obtained from 30 interviews with local law enforcement managers (12 county sheriffs and 18 municipal police chiefs), this study explores the decision-making processes used by these managers in the context of a pursuitrelated accident involving an innocent third party. My findings suggest that: (1) managers most often conduct internal investigations to ensure that their officers' behavior demonstrated adherence to the agency's standard operating procedures; (2) managers use multiple mechanisms, including consultations with legal actors and professional peers, to keep their pursuit policies updated with regard to case law; (3) policy restrictiveness shares a positive, but marginal, relationship with a manager's education level; (4) policy restrictiveness shares a negative, but marginal, relationship with a manager's total number of professional association memberships; and (5) policy restrictiveness shares a significant negative relationship with a manager's total years of law enforcement experience. Pursuit driving is one of the most captivating law enforcement behaviors in American popular culture. It is also one of the most easily recognizable situations in which public sector accountability and the phenomenon of multi-jurisdictional governance can be found. Consider, for instance, the Fox network's perennial run of World's Wildest Police Videos. Now in syndication, this show was essentially a compilation of agency-submitted videos showcasing police officers engaged in pursuits and other dangerous situations. Pursuits have also been fodder for news media reports, such as the recent piece written by journalist Lara Moore detailing her experience when a simple "ride-along" with Sgt. Cullen LaFrance of the Cumming, Georgia, Police Department turned into a "harrowing" police chase (Moore 2008), or the televised coverage of the 1993 O. J. Simpson pursuit spectacle. This can easily be seen as an issue to which scholars of social justice might attend, especially if one remembers that the infamous Rodney King beating was preceded by a pursuit. Surprisingly, scholarly attention to police pursuits has only developed recently. It is within this realm that pursuits have been most thoroughly scrutinized, and sometimes completely demonized. One might begin to question why police pursuits are so intriguing. Perhaps the

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