Analysis Of Lon Fuller 's Principle, Real Life Issues Within The Field Of Criminal Justice

First, there are several positive aspects of police discretion. One, “that it allows the officer to treat different situations in accordance with humanitarian and practical goals” (82). Meaning that in certain situation where a citizen is breaking the law the officer will have compassion and not enforce the law. For instance, a husband speeding trying to rush to the hospital because his wife is in labor. Even though he’s speeding above the speeding limit, when

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?

One important work which highlighted some of the shortcomings of officer discretion was a survey sponsored by the American Bar Foundation. Among other things that survey noted in the 1960’s a national crisis arose with certain problems relating to law enforcement. The survey noted that the possibility existed that discretionary decision making could represent a pattern of discrimination, it did say, on the other hand, the survey was unable to say definitively rather discrimination existed in

Discretion is defined as the authority to make a decision between two or more choices (Pollock, 2010). More specifically, it is defined as “the capacity to identify and to document criminal and noncriminal events” (Boivin & Cordeau, 2011). Every police officer has a great deal of discretion concerning when to use their authority, power, persuasion, or force. Depending on how an officer sees their duty to society will determine an officer’s discretion. Discretion leads to selective enforcement practices and may result in discrimination against certain groups of people or select individuals (Young, 2011). Most police officer discretion is exercised in situations with individuals (Sherman, 1984).

Over the years, the nature of policing has changed and developed drastically. Their role not only entails crime fighting and emergency response, but also social enforcement and social peacekeeping. Bound by a code of ethics, this highly demanding role asks police to remain professional in their dealings with society, and ensure they uphold the law impartially and fairly. When it comes to enforcing the law, it is important to look at the methods and approaches taken by police in order to combat crime, and whether or not they meet current ethical standards. Although this may be the case, it is also important to acknowledge that aspects of police culture such as loyalty, deception and protection of colleagues will ultimately shape the nature of approach to resolving crime, gaining helpful information and protecting fellow officers. Police officers are granted large amounts of discretion within their roles, however, when officers deliberately abuse this amount of discretion and become display misconduct, it becomes challenging to limit discretionary authority of police officers because of the frequent circumstances they encounter where deception may provide highly constructive outcomes. Throughout this essay, methods used by police officers including entrapment, wiretapping and planting of evidence will be assessed for their strengths and weaknesses. Furthermore, the ethical standards of these methods and approaches will be assessed as to whether or not they prove as ethically

Discretion is not doing as you please. Discretion is bounded by norms. The future of policing as a profession depends upon whether discretion can be put to good use. Two problems impending police professionalization, however, in that there are few uncontroversial areas in police work, than in other professions. Sometimes the public wants no enforcement, and other times they want strict enforcement. Citizens will scream false arrest in the first case, and some groups may file a write of mandamus in the second case.

Abdullah and Wells (2011) describe the public idea of discretion as a very misunderstood aspect of police work, therefore making the public’s opinions of police operations negative in some circumstances. Abdullah and Wells (2011) also highlight Packers crime control model saying that “A crime control model places high value on efficiency in apprehending and punishing offenders” and “to operate efficiently the officers must act quickly”. A more concise definition of police discretion is viewed by many law enforcement professionals as an officer’s best judgment in determining whether or not action should be taken in the situation that is presented at that point in time. The best example of this is simply deciding which individuals to stop and what action should be taken against them, if any (Sekhon, 2011). While using discretion is one of the most important tools a police officer has in their line of work, it has not always been concisely known of or defined within the criminal justice system.

“Ethical issues regarding corruption and off-duty behavior have become an increasing challenge in criminal justice” (Writing, 1999-2013). Within the criminal justice system, ethics can be complicated by the moral implications of actions. Differences in cultures and different circumstances can affect the individual moral compass. However, all departments of criminal justice operate by a certain code of ethics and by certain standards. But those standards and ethics often become challenged due to issues relating to police brutality, off duty conduct and corruption that we hear about all of the time through the media.

Today, police discretion is a very important aspect to the criminal justice field. There are different substances where discretion is not discipline enough or not monitored enough even though having discretion is not always bad. There are still ways to abuse it and today police officers have their own way of using police discretion for different situations. Discretion can be defined as someone having the power or authority to make a decision based on what they feel should be done in a certain situation. Police officers are taught how to handle certain situations according the law. But when the officer is on duty no one is there to make sure that they are making the right decisions that follow the law and according to the law, there are not set guidelines in the law for police discretion which give the police officer an advantage. Discretion is used by police officers when they are facing a decision with a bunch of results that could handle the situation but the officer has control to pick which result they would want to choose.

Assume an undercover officer believes Andy is selling narcotics. During his surveillance he observes individuals approach Andy and hand him money. After Andy collects the money he would walk toward a tree and out of the sight of the officer. Andy would then return and hand small packets to the individual. After Tara conducts a transaction w/Andy, the police detain her. On her person is 6 small bags of heroin. Tara told police she purchased the heroin for her boyfriend. When police detain Andy he has $500 on his person but no narcotics. Underneath a rock by the tree where Andy walked to, police found 200 bags of heroin. Criminal liability was imposed because, possessing narcotics is a misdemeanor and the sale of narcotics is a felony. Each

Law enforcement officers deal with criminal offenders, some who are more dangerous than others . Officers may be sometimes assigned to field work that has a high crime ratio or even assigned to institutional settings, where there may be a high risk of violence. Results of working as a law enforcement agent can be very stressful and risky at times. Ethics in criminal justice provides us with the knowledge to get resources to help us make moral choices during challenging situations involving ethical issues in everyday operations.Moral rules and ethics are a very import concept in the criminal justice field.

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.

In the United States of America, law enforcement has the ability to make their own judgement, while encountering criminals. Although discretion is at all levels of the police department, law enforcement agencies can easily make unlawful decision. Researchers determined that police officers are prohibited from using offensive language or speaking discourteously, abusing their authority, and using unnecessary force (Carroll, Kovath, & Pereira, 2004). Law enforcement officers are expected to respect their community and ensure that all citizens are kept safe. Some police activity can occur in a private view without supervision from the public, which allow police officers to make a reasonable decision. Police often make quick reaction when it comes

In this paper, I will be discussing the different criminal justice theories found in the movie Catch Me if You Can staring Leonardo DiCaprio as Frank Abagnale, Jr, and Tom Hanks as FBI Agent Carl Hanratty. Some of the themes I will be discussing include Rational Choice Theory, Critical Criminology Theory, Social Learning Theory, Neutralization Theory, and Social Control Theory.

I would not help the officer steal the marijuana for his wife's illness. I can understand that he wants his wife's pain to be at ease but with this there is so many ways it can go wrong and come back to bite me in the but and I will loose my job and go to jail. The first element of thought that I used during this thought process is the Implication and consequences if I was to give this marijuana to my partner instead of turning it in. I could get caught and be prosecuted for