Discretion Of A Law Enforcement Officer

Everyday police officers are faced with two difficult decision to make. Whether to intervene in the situation and how to intervene when they observe something suspicious or illegal happening. Police discretion is defined as having the power to make decision, and choosing how to respond to a given situation depending on the circumstances. Even though, there are law in place it is still up to a police officer own discretion. Ultimately, police officers have the choice to enforce the law and how to carry it out in public. In the text book “Policing America” by Ken Peak he states that there are two criminal law in discretion. “the formality and the reality. The formality is found in the statute books and opinions of appellate courts; the reality is found in the practices of enforcement officers” (82). He also, demonstrate when should each criminal law be use. However, there are negative and positive aspects of police discretion. Also, there are pros and cons of allowing patrol officers to make discretionary decisions.

With such a broad volume of discretion apparently in nearly every aspect of police decision making what strengths does this level of discretion have? Police work and the work environment require the use of discretion. Decisions must be made very quickly, usually without time for input from another source. This is despite the fact that a bureaucratic structure exists for the department as a whole. Moreover, communities cannot agree on what constitutes criminal behavior or the level to which criminal behavior should be sanctioned or ignored. A prime example is that of the skid-rows areas. The approach taken by most police in dealing with the skid-row “problem” or

In this essay a discussion will be explored about the benefits and problems associated with police use of discretion. Which current policing strategies have the most potential for controlling officer discretion and providing accountability, and which have the least, and why is that the case? And finally, how might these issues impact the various concerns facing law enforcement today?

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).

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.

Officers back each other up and protect one another from dangerous situations. While the code can help protect officers for safety reasons, it can also protect the officers who violate the laws (Skolnick, 2008). Police discretion is the power given to an officer in which allows them to make a judgement call as to whether they will follow police procedures or dismiss the action (Myhill & Johnson, 2016). As with the “code of silence” police use their discretion or what they would call “professional curtsey” by no enforcing the laws against fellow officers (Wetendorf & Davis,

In the criminal justice system, discretion is often performed by the police, prosecutors, judges and juries, correctional officials and

The disadvantages of police discretion mostly lie in the abuse of the privileges they have in regard to exercising the discretion power. Discretion has been seen as inviting partiality in dealing with the citizens as well as creating an opportunity for corruption. Others have debated that during discretion, the police don’t have the slightest idea about what could be the consequences of their actions (Peak, 2009). Police discretion is a potential tool for abuse that could possibly result into potential needless death and/or injury. A police officers choice may be influenced by personal factors that may determine an irrational decision. For example; In the 2005 shooting, that occurred on 126th Street between Fifth and Lenox Avenues, the suspect, Richard Gooding, ignored officers’ orders to drop his gun and began shooting. Five officers returned fire, fatally injuring Mr. Gooding and wounding Ms. Johnson in the right elbow. Garnold M. King was shot in the lower back; he has settled his lawsuit with the city.

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.

The topic of this week had a few questions concerning officer discretion and the amount that officer could exhibit in the course of their job. Where does the line between officer discretion and obligation does began and end? The answer is about as clear as mud and varies depending on the interaction. After reading a post from a fellow classmate I was informed that he had the discretion to asses a warning citation in light of a teenager observed to by the officer breaking many traffic laws. He had the ability issue a warning in the event the teenager informed his father of the incident and his father gave the officer a call to verify. This was in total contrast to the traffic stop that occurred a few months prior that I witnessed. My girlfriend

When the judge take on the case load of the day they have the obligation to enforced the law yet they are allowed to use discretion as well. The judge can give the offender a second chance, a light sentence or the max sentence available for the offense committed. Discretion is very important in the field of criminal justice to help serve, protect and enforce the law. When law official break the law by not using discretion they as well can be charged, punished and dismissed from the force. The choices that is made in the criminal justice field always comes the reactions so the officers has to be carefully when making them.

Guidelines need to be set so that officers continue to incorporate and maintain the concept of community policing. Therefore, there must be information available to inform reader that police discretion not only encompasses use of police profiling, responses to domestic violence, or choices in acceptance of gratuities but discretionary decision to use force.

The term discretion has several meanings the liberty to decide what should be done in a specific circumstance is one general universal definition. But when dealing with criminal justice and police work the description changes a bit. The criminal justice definition of discretion is Police discretion discusses the authority given to a police officer that allows him or her to decide how to best handle a certain situation. This is designed at increasing the flexibility of the criminal justice system as the punishment may not always be the suitable approach of dealing with crimes. Discretion may also permit a police officer to overlook a minor offense giving the offender a warning. But with discretion the officers try not to overdue the law by

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.

One aspect of the criminal justice system that has been debated for many years is that of police discretion. Police discretion is defined as the ability of a police officer, a prosecutor, a judge, and a jury to exercise a degree of personal decision making in deciding who is going to be charged or punished for a crime and how they are going to be punished. This basically is saying that there are situations when these law enforcement officers have to use their own personal beliefs and make choices coming from their own morals and ethics. The subject of police discretion was discovered in 1956 by the American Bar Foundation and has been an important problem in criminal justice since that time. When it