Discretion Of A Police Official Essay

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

First, having discretion in the police department can have numerous positive attributes. This can lead to a positive outlook from the community. The officer has many chances to use discretion for the people, meaning understanding the situation and acting based on that situation not going straight to the rule book. Rather use the rule book for a stricter guideline. An example would be if someone were to violate the law, the police officer could rather warn them then give them an expensive ticket or arrest them leaving them with a positive idea of the police and giving them a chance to correct their ways without paying heavy court costs. In Matthew Taylor's article “ Police discretion can reduce crimes and save lives” while talking about the positives of discretion he

"Proper use of discretion is probably the most important measure of a police officer or department." -- Rich Kinsey (retired police detective)

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

Police have the uncontested right to use force when necessary to apprehend a suspect. If the force exceeds that which is necessary it is defined as excessive force and is illegal. An officer’s discretion on use of force is a based on judgment. They do not know if a judge will later rule an instance of use of force as excessive or not. There is a fine line between what is considered acceptable force and what is considered excessive force. All an

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.

First, I will define Police Discretion. Police discretion is the power or authority that is given to a police officer to act officially in a manner that appears to be just and proper under the presented

What is police misconduct? It can be defined as any action performed by a law enforcement officer that is unethical by established employment guidelines, unconstitutional, or a crime with in itself. When people hear the term “police misconduct” they automatically think of a police officer using unnecessary force against a civilian. While that is a form of police misconduct it is not only form. Throughout this paper I will bring light to the many types of police misconduct that can happen in the law enforcement industry.

Professions are guided by codes of ethics to aid them in performance of their duties and to ensure maintenance of high standards of conduct. Police officers are faced with a maze of obligations in the performance of their official duties. The “Law Enforcement Code of Ethics” and “Canons of Police Ethics” were created to make explicit the conduct considered appropriate for police officers and to guide them in the performance of their duties. Although police have these guides, many are faced with ethical dilemmas, also known as a moral dilemmas. This mean the officer is challenged to make a decision which sometimes conflicts with societal and personal ethical morals and values and provide no

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.

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.

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

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