Police officers are more like judges than machines. Their room for manoeuvering - their so-called "discretionary power" - is quite real. In handling traffic violations (20 million tickets a year), they must observe, record, report, transmit and thus select and make decisions. On the basis of ethnographic observations and a longitudinal analysis of cohorts of violations, it is shown that writing out a ticket always entails using discernment and, ultimately, making a judgement. But what does "fair" mean to police officers ? How do they make choices ? Who will be given the benefit of the doubt ? This study of the work of the traffic police adopts a theoretical position that sees the bottom up approach as a way for renewing thought about how public policy is implemented. This general position lays emphasis on analysing in detail the actual autonomy that those whom Lipsky has called "street-level bureaucrats" have in doing their jobs. This article provides an outline for the indispensable combination of a sociology of police activities and a sociology of the production of traffic safety. (A)
Abstract