Patterns in police decision-making with youth: an application of Black’ s theory of law Jennifer L. Schulenberg Published online: 7 July 2009 # Springer Science + Business Media B.V. 2009 Abstract Prior research suggests that police officers may use more than one style of law (therapeutic, conciliatory, compensatory, penal) and that the quantity of law applied may also vary within an encounter in order to maintain order. The implication is that police decision-making varies, and is, to some extent, case dependent. The research objective is to investigate the extent to which principles from Black’ s (1976) theory of law are applicable to police decision-making with apprehended youth in Canada. The findings suggest that police decision-making is a dynamic process that is a progression in the application of formal social control from least to most intrusive of personal liberties both in the quantity and style of law. The analysis reveals that the factors which affect police discretion can vary, in some circumstances, across physical space (urban, suburban, and rural communities). In addition, as informal mechanisms of social control weaken, the police use a higher quantity of law, be it penal, compensatory, conciliatory, or therapeutic. Specifically, the quantity and style of law is affected by the degree and nature of parental involvement. Introduction It is difficult to understand the factors that affect police discretion without acknowledging that police action in itself is a process. To mobilize the police, the earlier conclusion that “the moral standards of the citizenry have more to do with the definition of juvenile deviance than do the standards of policeman on patrol” [3] still appears valid today. The decision-making activities of police officers continue to “highlight fundamental processes of how social order is possible” [9]. Crime only exists once someone (a member of the public or police) seeks an official designation of a person’ s behavior as criminal. However, once such a designation has been made, the degree of formal social control used and the Crime Law Soc Change (2010) 53:109–129 DOI 10.1007/s10611-009-9210-4 J. L. Schulenberg (*) University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada e-mail: jlschule@uwaterloo.ca