Preview

Police Discretion

Powerful Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1427 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Police Discretion
Police discretion by definition is the power to make decisions of policy and practice. Police have the choice to enforce certain laws and how they will be enforced. "Some law is always or almost always enforced, some is never or almost never enforced, and some is sometimes enforced and sometimes not" (Davis, p.1). Similarly with discretion is that the law may not cover every situation a police officer encounters, so they must use their discretion wisely. Until 1956, people thought of police discretion as "taboo". According to http://faculty.ncwc.edu/toconnor/ 205/205lect09.htm, "The attitude of police administrators was that any deviation from accepted procedures was extralegal and probably a source of corruption. When it was finally exposed, people like the American Friends Service Committee (1971) called for its abolishment, and police administrators sought a clampdown on discretion (administrative rulemaking)." The use of discretion is not necessarily an unpleasant thing as long as it is used properly and it is not being abused. "Adequate mechanisms for control of the exercise of that discretion are also a requisite for more rational decision making. If discretion implies a lack of control – that is, the freedom to choose from among available alternatives completely unfettered by constraints of law or policy – then the idea of controlled discretion may seem to be a self-contradiction" (Gottfredson p.276). Discretion can be used in many different situations. I will be discussing discretion used in dealing with the mentally ill, drunk driving, disorderly conduct, the use of force, and domestic violence. If a police officer uses his/her discretionary power correctly, not only will it help the police officer in their situation, it will help the general community as well. http://faculty.ncwc.edu/toconnor/205/205lect09.htm quotes Gaines, Kappeler & Vaughn (Policing in America) who state that there are three causes of discretion: offender variables,


Cited: Davis, Kenneth Culp. Police Discretion. West Publishing Co. St. Paul, Minnesota. 1975. Delattre, Edwin J. Character and Cops – Ethics in Policing. American Enterprise Institute. Washington D.C. 1996. http://faculty.ncwc.edu/toconnor/205/205lect09.htm Teplin, Linda A. http://www.ncjrs.org/pdffiles1/jr000244c.pdf
Continue Reading
View Writing Issues

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Discretion In Cjs
    • 584 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Discretion In Cjs

    Discretion plays an indispensable role in the criminal justice system (CJS). Discretion is the judgment or decision implemented through values, facts, and principles. In the CJS, it is the authority given to a decision maker to decide between alternatives or no alternatives. Discretion can be used by police in the area of the criminal investigation process. Its role is continuous from sentencing judgments to the point of detaining offenders in prison past their sentencing period. Discretion also allows individuals’ circumstances to be considered, as the law at times can be considered a blunt measurement in delivering an alternative. This demonstrates that discretion plays an important role in the CJS to enforce the law, whilst taking into account the rights of individuals.…

    • 584 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Summary Of Police Discretion
    • 700 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Summary Of Police Discretion

    As of now, the current system is experiencing an overflow of cases from felonies and misdemeanors which already takes days even months to resolved. And so the use of police discretion helps the court system trust the police department to use all their resources and good judgment to stop or continue a criminal process. Police discretion is not supposed to be use recklessly it should only be use on certain situations with good reasons. When the police officer uses discretion takes into consideration standards like profession, legal, social and moral norms as well as offender’s age, race, economic status, gender. Besides giving them a warning for their offence they will offer lectures depending on the severity of the crime.…

    • 700 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Examples Of Police Discretion
    • 236 Words
    • 1 Page

    Examples Of Police Discretion

    In our text, discretion is defined as having to decide between two or more courses of action or behavior. Discretion is practiced in all aspects of the criminal justice system, police, corrections, judges and attorneys all have the power and capabilities to exercise discretion. An example of police discretion is a police officer responding to a domestic violence call, the officer can analyze the situation and decide to arrest one or both parties or, attempt to provide them the resources to get help or give a warning. An example of a correctional officer using discretion is, if the correctional officer witnesses an inmate breaking a law or code of the facility and can make the decision to do nothing or follow procedure. Another example of discretion…

    • 236 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Examples Of Police Discretion
    • 371 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Examples Of Police Discretion

    The types of situations that police officers should be allowed to not enforce the law/ use their own discretion is when it comes to petty crimes such as children writing on walls, jaywalking, or having a headlight out. You can’t possibly write…

    • 371 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    Policing Culture Research Paper
    • 1431 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Policing Culture Research Paper

    By analyzing the culture for women and minorities in policing, it has been determined that a diverse force has become a necessity in today’s world to reflect the citizens who make up the population that they represent. Policing culture can be analyzed when looking at the internal and external mechanisms that control police discretion. Law enforcement officers use discretion every day to determine who to cite, who to arrest, and who to let go with a verbal warning.…

    • 1431 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Police Discretion Research Paper
    • 477 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Police Discretion Research Paper

    There is not an absolute to every situation every time. There are different people involved in different locations with different attitudes. Some officers believe that politicians enact laws to make symbolic statements and that they do not desire full enforcement of the laws. Age, race, income, attitude toward the officer, gender, and income status are all factors of how police respond to a situation. Police are more likely to use more force against African Americans and they are less likely to take a juvenile complaint as serious as an adult. Discretion is used at all levels of the criminal justice system. The police, lawyers, courts, individuals, and corrections all have instances such as deciding minor differences in matters such as a routine pull over for the police, whether to take a case or not for lawyers, whether to break the law or not for citizens, and for judges how long of a sentence should be handed down. Discretion being defined as the ability or power to decide responsibly or the freedom to act or judge on ones own, in this instance still according to the law and regardless of ones own prejudices. Police are the largest and most visible segment of the criminal justice system. Many decisions a policeman or women make is at his or her own discretion. Police have a wide range of discretion in their multiple daily duties. Discretion can be seen when an officer decides whether to pull a car over, question some…

    • 477 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Police Disretion
    • 1144 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Police Disretion

    Police officers are faced each day with a variety of situation in which they must deal; therefore we should ask ourselves the following questions: Should police officers enforce the law equally in all situations? In what situations should police officers be allowed to not enforce the law? What types of situations would they be required to fully enforce the law? Why does police discretion exist? What are its strengths and weaknesses? And what is the relationship between police discretion and police ethics?…

    • 1144 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Police Discretion
    • 538 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Police Discretion

    Police discretion is issued to officers for the purpose of maintaining a just society. Discretion is defined the ability to form decisions based on their own judgment. These decisions are concluded through copious reasons such an officer’s experience or through their own individual backgrounds. Police discretion has the ability to dismiss minor crimes, yet laws exist where discretion is invalid and officers must accomplish whatever means legally to punish the criminal.…

    • 538 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    Discretion in the Criminal Justice System
    • 1914 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Discretion in the Criminal Justice System

    Discretion is the eminence of once behavior or the way of speaking in order to avoid any offensive occurrence or speaking up any private issues or information in public. It is the self-determination for someone to choose or think what should be better to be done in particular circumstances. Especially for a judge, a public official or other private party has the authority to make decisions on any legal matters or other big official subjects. Thus, a person who is authorized with the power of discretion often thinks about how to apply the given supremacy.…

    • 1914 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Police Discretion Analysis
    • 632 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Police Discretion Analysis

    Samuel Walker (1993) asserts the problem is not with the use of discretion, but the misuse of discretion in the Criminal Justice System. According to Walker (1993) “The Criminal Justice System is nothing more than the sum total of a series of discretionary decisions by innumerable officials.” (Walker 1993 p.4) Charles Klahm and Rob Tillyer (2015) explains that “Exposure, activity, and performance independently impact the likelihood of the officer initiating discretionary.”(Charles Klahm and Rob Tillyer, 2015 348). The assumption is police officers who are routinely exposed to diversity among age, race, gender, and criminal or noncriminal individuals effect the police use of discretion. The activities that police officers partake in is another factor that shapes the police use of discretion. The suggestion is that police officer's past behavior will reflect their future behavior in other words. Similar to activity, performance looks at police officers past performance. The assertion is that police officers who perform discretionary searches where contraband was founded were more likely to continue using discretion when conducting…

    • 632 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Arguments Against Police Discretion
    • 380 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Arguments Against Police Discretion

    Patrol officers use discretion each and every time while on shift. They will respond to a variety of calls and have to make a decision on scene whether to charge a subject or arrest them. Patrol officers also work traffic and enforce moving violations and equipment violations. Try to imagine if officers did not have discretion and had to fully enforce the law each time a violation occurred. This would have a negative impact on community relations and would also completely saturate our court systems that struggle already with caseloads. However, discretion allows the officer to make a judgment in the field based on the totality of the circumstances to decide which offenders should be tried through the criminal justice system and which should…

    • 380 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Police Officer Discretion
    • 664 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Police Officer Discretion

    Police officers have a large amount of discretion. This stage of the crime is the most influential to a case. What a police officer decides to charge an individual for and whether or not they charge them at all can completely affect how a case is carried out. For example, let’s say that and individual was going 10 miles per hour over the speed limit and a police officer pulled them over for it. The individual breaking the law was speeding because a loved one was in the hospital. It is now the officer’s decision to either hold this person responsible and give them a ticket or let them off with a warning because of the…

    • 664 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Choice and Discretion
    • 485 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Choice and Discretion

    To define discretion is a pretty easy task. Discretion is something you use before you do something. Discretion means to decide to do the right thing before you do the wrong thing for example you would use discretion to decide when you see a person acting strange on the street would you go over to ask that person if they are alright or would you just make the choice to walk away. Discretion is used because it gives us the ways to make a choice if we need to. We use discretion in everyday life we use it because it tells us whether it is the wrong way to do something or the right way to do something. The choice is up to us. The officer used discretion by choosing to apprehend the suspect after she thought the bike was stolen. She used discretion by chasing after him and trying to apprehend him and struggling with him to try to apprehend him. I do feel however that the officer should have let him run after the third attempt to apprehend him. I do feel that pulling the gun for a minor offense and the suspect not having a gun was not a good discretion. The factors for the officer using the discretion she chose to use were that the man continued to walk away and not answer the officer. After that factor the man decided to drop the bike and run making it look like he stole the bike. The officer struggling with him was also a factor she chose to pursue also by him fighting with her it made the officer have to use more discretion and finally ended with her pulling her gun and killin him. I feel the officer should have aimed for his leg or even arm rather then kill him it was a minor violation that she was pursuing him for. I feel that up until the shooting the officer used good discretion by chasing him you would have foun what the problem was in the first place and it was her job to assume that the bike was stolen after the suspectsactions. Even with the struggling I found it to be good discretion since the suspect was being violent and attacking her for doing her job.…

    • 485 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Police Discretion
    • 689 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Police Discretion

    Should all police officers of America be advised to enforce the law equally in all situations? Before a justifiable response, let’s create a scenario; a full grown man in his early twenties is walking in a residential neighborhood, carrying a baseball bat and smashing car windows. Authorities have been called and the man is obstructing both officers that arrived in a squad car- the man is swinging the bat in the direction of the officers and is creating a threat to their lives. Now let’s compare this with the same scenario, except it is an elderly woman doing the same thing. First, the age difference of the perpetrators should be taken into consideration. In both scenarios, technically the officers’ lives are in danger, but does that give them the right to use deadly force in both situations? A man in his early twenties is typically very strong and could create catastrophic damage to both officers, even if they were trying to take him to the ground, using martial arts take-downs. An elderly woman is typically very fragile and could be taken down more quickly using martial arts take downs. A young man is more likely to survive a gunshot wound to the body- an elderly woman is not. So should police officers truly be advised to enforce the law equally in all scenarios? The answer is, absolutely not, because it creates a zero tolerance policy.…

    • 689 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    Police Discretion
    • 1042 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Police Discretion

    Police discretion is the ability to choose a course of action because of broad limits of power. It "refers to the autonomy an officer has in choosing an appropriate course of action" (The Police In America, 113). It "includes authority to decide which of the various means of helping the helpless, maintaining order, and keeping the peace are best suited to particular circumstances" (www.worldandi.com/specialreport/1989/january/Sa15878.htm). The police need to have discretion since it is impossible to record everything on what they are supposed to do and not do. We can also understand that if you could record all the rules and regulations it would be too extensive for an individual to comprehend.…

    • 1042 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More

Related Topics