Who Decides?

Abstract

A criminal complainant's decision to prosecute has long been recognized as an important aspect of criminal justice case processing. Much of the literature regards this decision as a simple expression of a victim's volition. On the basis of interviews with detectives, prosecutors, and a victims' advocate and quantitative analyses (based on a sample of police files), it was concluded that police officers have a substantial influence on a complainant's decision to prosecute. The study also assessed evidence for three explanations for officials influencing complainants' decisions: feminist conflict theory, Black's “behavior of law” hypotheses, and the need to efficiently allocate scarce resources. It was found that the need to efficiently allocate resources best explained the data.

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