Factors Influencing Police Discretion

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.

Discretion is defined as “ power of free decision or latitude of choice within certain legal bounds” ( merriam-webster dictionary ).Police have discretion in most jobs they take on while out in the field. This could range from a wide variety of choices from drawing his weapon to shooting his weapon, or just issuing a traffic ticket or smaller violation. With such a wide gap between little choices to life or death a policeman’s discretion can either make or break himself, his department, and how the citizens look at policing today. Regardless discretion must be used in a lot of the police officers day, and when it's used right it gives the officer and community to have a more just society.

Discretion in policing and the court system is a necessary and unavoidable facet of criminal justice work, yet it is still very controversial. Discretion exists when courtroom actors (police officers, attorneys, judges) have the flexibility to choose an appropriate response to a situation. Police discretion is defined as “The opportunity of law enforcement officers to exercise choice in their daily activities” (Nowacki, 2015). This means that actors with a great deal of discretion at their disposal may allow biases to affect their decision-making. These decisions lead to important implications throughout the criminal justice process, especially in the courtroom. The process begins with the decision to arrest by a law enforcement officer in the field. Once the case is forwarded to the prosecuting attorney, multifarious avenues of discretionary decisions are available to resolve a case. Potential issues that could arise and that are ever-present in everyday policing include racism, sexism and socialism (Miller, 2015). These issues ultimately have a negative affect on the criminal justice process, leading civilians to not trust the one process and actors that are there to help them. While discretion should play a role in the actions a courtroom actor takes and cannot be eliminated entirely, instead it should be limited and controlled throughout the criminal justice environment so that citizens can once again trust the process and so that there will be no disparities.

In this paper, I will be writing about Police Discretion. I will start by defining Police Discretion then briefly discuss the use in domestic disturbances, minor misdemeanors, and traffic enforcement. I will also discuss the application of police discretion, the provisions it uses and how it is currently practiced. At the end of these brief descriptions, I will then present the myth that exists in regards to police discretion. And finally, I will end this paper with my personal opinion as well as a brief conclusion.

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.

Ultimately this course provided me with new ideas on how to handle certain situations in several criminal justice occupations. This course relates very well to officer discretion, corruption and discrimination. In today’s society police officers are faced with problematic situation each day and although we cannot teach fight or flight in a classroom we can try to learn what not to do in a difficult situation. When observing the different controversial decisions that are being made, you learn that when police officers are faced with critical and life changing decisions officers do not have the convenience of time. The decisions are made while that person has adrenalin rushing through their bodies and time moving faster than any person can anticipate. This is the synopsis of ethical issues, the different controversial decisions that must be made as a police officer, judge or correctional officer. What is the correct decision being the topic for discussion? A discussion in which the professor allows all voices to be heard so that we all can learn from one another perspectives.

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

Not every child that encounters a police is taken in custody. Police officers are more lenient on juveniles because they do not want a stigma to be placed on them as they grow up. Some youth’s are not that lucky, in which they are taken into custody and are given one of

Police discretion is a very important approach in matters concerning criminal justice. There has been a consistent problem between enforcing the law and the spirit of the law. Discretion in the broader sense can be defined as the individual’s ability to make a decision basing on the principle of courses of the action. During training, police officers are given different possible scenarios that they may experience while on duty. However, the situations presented are not exact and the police come face to face with more riveting situations that demand their personal choices. The

Police officers not only have to follow a set of rules and legislation, but they also must behave in a decent manner while on duty as well as off duty. Unfortunately, nobody is perfect, and police officers also make wrong decisions that could jeopardize the integrity of their police department. Often people know something they do is wrong. However, they still do it because they feel no harm will come to them or it they think nobody will ever find out. For instance, cheating on a test is wrong, but people do it because they think they can 't get away without the professor finding out.

So DACA affects a many different immigrants from all parts of the world not just the Hispanic population. To really get an understanding of how the current public policy DACA has come into play. We first must know its origins.

Discretion is defined by the Merriam-Webster Dictionary as “the ability to make responsible decisions, individual choice or judgment, power of free decision or latitude of choice within certain legal bounds.” In law enforcement discretion is left up to each individual officer on the field everyday. Police officers are given the authority to make reasonable and responsible decisions out in the field. Discretion is used in many situations, such as when an officer chooses to stop a vehicle for a small traffic violation. There are also times when the officer has no choice but to use specific discretion in certain situations. Society believes that an officer can make any choice he or she chooses

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 article of 12 year-old Tamir Rice puts the audience in awe again even after the incident regarding Michael Brown. As mentioned this event happened so close to the indictment of the police officer who shot Michael Brown so it has enraged the community. Rice was at a local park aiming his gun at people, someone reported it and when police arrived and try to talk to the boy he put his hand on his waist like reaching for the gun. The police officer took two shots, to which the boy later died in the hospital. When the police inspected the gun they figured out that it was a bb gun. (Bever, 2014) One can connect this case with that of Police Discretion, one may feel that the action that the police officer took but others might think it was uncalled for. Unfortunately, stuff like this happens often and some of the times the whole situation can be avoided if it is thought out before action is taken.

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