Police Discretion

POLICE DISCRETION There's a difference between the ministration and administration of justice. Nobody (except mechanical jurisprudence theorists) wants a ministerial agency of justice, one that would ritually and religiously follow every rule and regulation down to the letter in a mechanistic, repetitive, assembly-line manner. Instead, we need responsible administers -- officials who show "good judgment" and exercise discretion by assessing the context of each and every situation. By definition, discretion is the making of choices among a number of possible courses of action (Davis 1969). This is a modified definition of what Kenneth Culp Davis actually said was "free to make choices". Discretion, uncertainty, and inefficiency are rampant and essential in criminal justice. Nobody expects perfection. That would neither be good nor fair. Justice is a sporting event in which playing fair is more important than winning. Law enactment, enforcement, and administration all involve trading off the possibility of perfect outcomes for security against the worst outcomes. Policing is the most visible part of this; employees on the bottom have more discretion than employees on the top; it's a symbolic bureaucracy (Manning 1977). The law simply does NOT cover every situation that a police officer encounters in the field. In cases where the law may be clear, it might be more prudent for the officer to ignore strict letter-of-the-law interpretations. Laws are passed in a vacuum, and usually written quite narrowly. Police encounter a wide range of behaviors and a variety of situations that the law hasn't even thought about yet. One of the most amazing things about policing is not who they arrest, but who and how many they let go (nonarrest options, leniency, underreaction). On the other hand, police work is dangerous, and officers sometimes view non-dangerous situations as more dangerous than they really are (overzealous, brutality, deadly force, overreaction). In