Substantial research shows that police officers often choose not to apprehend or arrest drivers they believe to be driving under the influence (DUI) of alcohol. Officers report doing so for a variety of reasons, few of which relate to their own inability to detect or demonstrate drivers' intoxication. More commonly in making such decisions, officers are responding to some combination of expedient situational factors; competing law enforcement priorities; perceived administrative policy; and their frustration with the ways in which prosecutors, judges, and juries deal with DUI cases. Although the exercise of police discretion may compromise the goals of general deterrence, it cannot, and probably should not, be eliminated from police work. More appropriate goals are to eliminate more pernicious forms of discretion; the development of consistent policies on the use of discretion; and the coordination of such police policies on discretion with those of prosecutors, judges, and others responsible for DUI law enforcement. 39 references