ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with a discussion of some of the implications of the analysis and some suggestions for future research work. Police officers screen people and events for further processing, that is, a decision is made which differentiates between people, leading either to a decision to do nothing or a decision to proceed further in some way. Case and policy decision-making is associated with the way in which the law is mobilized. Decision behaviour in case and policy decisions presents a number of contrasts. In general, it seems that the less serious the behaviour encountered, the wider the array of possible choices about action open to a police officer. Information which has made only one loop, such as from patrol to detective division and back, remains secondary information once processed. A distinction that to some extent elaborates upon the primary-secondary-tertiary classification is the degree of differentiation of the information system.
