From practical police experience it is clear that the most frequent first stimulus are: indicators (signals, symptoms, first information - there is no formal duty to act because it is not strictly established by law) and official stimulus (in accordance with Penal Code and Act on the Police Force, the police officers are obliged to act). They both have an influence on the character of the main processes (detection and clarification, respectively investigation). Another possible (ideal) version is when detection spontaneously continues into investigation.…
Research shows that discretion can be when an officer uses legal sanctions. This can be when an officer is on a traffic stop, giving a ticket or making an arrest. The time when an officer is most at odds to use discretion is in a case of use of force: weather the amount of force or weather to use any at all. (Hunter 1985; Terrill et al. 2002.) One other broad use could be when an officer has to make a decision on dividing the amount of services or various duties that are to be performed. (Engel 2007). A prime example would be when on patrol and answering a call, assisting a stranded motorist, the amount of time spent assisting , and a third would be non-sanction, and non- service that an officer will perform such as community…
Ethical issues in policing reach back to the early ages of law enforcement. The profession of policing plays a vital role in the rationale and motivation of how officers conduct themselves while on and off duty. This is a primary focus point of the society in which they work, due to the society’s level of trust and confidence in the officers to act accordingly and responsibly without any negative person vengeances or vendetta. As a result of the numerous negative encounters of officers interacting with the public, which has been mainstreamed by the media, there is a heightened sense of entitlement and false responsibility of citizens to report to higher authorities or the media when they do not get whatever it is that they want or receive the…
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.…
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…
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…
Discretion is granted to police officers in order to maintain an upright society. If discretion did not exist and every single crime required a punishment, suddenly the population of jails and prisons would…
There have been ongoing debates about the guidelines for police officers when conducting discretionary searches. One police department that has been in the headlines for its practices of discretionary searches have been the New York City’s Police Department. New York City’s Stop and frisk policy allowed police officers to stop and search an individual on the street at their discretion based on suspicion of criminal activity. One of the most highly publicized cases of NYPD’s stop and frisk tactic was the 2014 death of Eric Garner in the hands of Staten Island Police Department. The Eric Garner’s case followed outpours from citizens calling for change in NYPD’s stop and frisk guidelines and other police departments as well. This week’s article…
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…
Police officers in the United States and around the world have an extremely hard job both physically and mentally. Police discretion is a tool that officers use every day on their jobs (Odom 2009). It is a decision making process where the officer deduces from the situation and observation the best solution. For example, an officer pulls over a driver for running a red light. The officer must decide whether or not to issue the driver a citation. If the officer feels the driver isn’t intoxicated, or a danger to others, the officer may let the driver go with just a warning. The officer might pull over another car for the same thing, but issue the citation because the driver was a danger to other drivers on the road.…
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…
End of life decisions can cause people to make choices they would not normally choose. People begin to reflect on their lives, remembering the good and the bad. I believe one wish when facing death that most people have is they do not want to suffer. They also do not want their family to watch them suffer. I think that physician assisted suicide may be a consideration in some extreme cases where pain cannot be controlled with medications or when the patient is comatose and will never regain consciousness. Many people believe that physician assisted suicide is unethical because it is viewed as murder. Those who view physician assisted suicide as unethical also feel that no one, even a physician has the right to assist anyone with suicide.…
Police officers argue that body cameras can deal with privacy issues. Privacy won’t become an issue if some of the police officers actually did their job right. Many of the police departments have been denying to wear body cameras because cameras may prevent people from coming forward as credible witnesses to help assist with investigations, due to fear of public exposure and the fear of someone coming after them to kill them. Technological issues related to the cameras may prevent proper functioning at times and the cops are not able to fix them because they don’t know much about technology. This could be due to a dead battery, damaged components, obstructed lens, and other problems. This could result in personnel missing important witness statements or crucial behavior by officers or citizens. The equipment is expensive as well. Some police departments don’t have the money to buy expensive cameras. The cameras the cops need have to have a lot of storage in them. Plus, cameras need to have long-term batteries so that it won’t die out while on duty. Yes,…
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.…
Law enforcement officers, prosecuting attorneys, judges, correction officers and probation officers are faced with discretionary decision making throughout the criminal justice process. Discretionary choice is defined as“ the lawful ability if an agent of government to exercise choice in making a decision” (D.Neubauer & S. Meinhold; pg 478). In several cases many people face a plea- bargain. Plea barging is the process through which a defendant pleads guilty to a criminal charge with expectation of receiving some consideration from the state” (D.Neubauer & S. Meinhold; pg.244). The procedure starts with deciding as a law enforcement officer to make an arrest and once the case is sent to the prosecuting attorney; discretionary decisions are…