Police Discretion: A Case Study

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.

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

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.

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.

Police officers are given a lot of power because it is needed to help protect citizens and the community. However, police often abuse their power by the over use of force, corruption, sexual misconduct, bias based policing, and failure to maintain police ethics. (Peak, 2011)

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.

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, undoubtedly plays a massive role and is implemented in various aspects of the system. But what is discretion? Discretion, as defined in Canadian Criminal Justice: A Primer, is merely the freedom to choose among different options when confronted with the need to make a decision. As significant part of the criminal justice system in Canada, being a police officers “involves the use of a significant amount of discretion” (McKillop & Pfeifer, 2004) . Due to the portrayal of the police by the media, the general public believes that there are certain methods and procedures that officers have to follow where it is clearly stated that if this happen you have to arrest them or if that happens you have to detain the person. In reality, police officers have to put forth their own judgment based on all the other surrounding circumstances which include the presence of a weapon or what the aggravating or mitigating factors were. This act of making a decision based off of the surroundings is also known as the totality of the circumstance. For example, if a police officer stops a vehicle that was speeding and finds out there is a toddler on board, the officer now has the decision to either arrest the driver and take custody of the toddler or to just let the driver go home safely with a warning involves their own judgment. Nevertheless, discretion does not mean that the officers can completely depend on their judgment; they still have to follow certain guidelines the Canadian

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.

Police officers are given a lot of discretionary power that they would use to enforce the laws as they are implied or use their discretion to not enforce the law, but give a warning when necessary. This discretion has called into question their use of force. The media has displayed officers involved in use of force situation that seems unprovoked and again people of African American decent. For instance on September 4, 2014 a South Carolina Highway Patrol trooper stopped a vehicle for allegedly not having on a seatbelt. The individual was stop in a gas station and step outside his vehicle, then officer Sean Groubert asked for his license, the individual turned quickly into his vehicle to retrieve his license, officer Groubert yelled "Get

Discretionary actions of law enforcement in some cases have proven to be an effective tool by all levels of law enforcement for many years, but have also been an ethical problem as well. In the early years of organized law enforcement agencies such as the New York Municipal Police, which began conducting law enforcement activities in the mid-1800s, it was possible for police officers to use their own judgment to enforce the laws they saw fit to enforce. In some instances police officers could be paid off by gangs and gang leaders to render enforcement of the laws which would benefit the gangs. Additionally the officer would just look the other way as laws were being broken. This could have happened by the people perpetrating the crimes paying off the officers or the officers simply refused to get involved due to fear of the criminals.

Police discretion is a very important part of the entire criminal justice system. Police officers find themselves in situations every day that simply put cannot be accounted for in a rulebook. Police discretion is the idea that an officer will have the ability to judge a situation and act appropriately to it. This can be used in smaller incidents such as deciding not to give a crying pregnant woman a ticket, to some larger decisions such as an emergency sweep of a criminal’s house.

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

1.) Police discretion is a popularity vague term that has appropriately vague definition. It is defined as the decision making power afforded to police officers that allows them to decide if they want to pursue police pursue police procedures or simply let them off with a warning. How it looks in practice is a different situation. Police discretion relies on the officer's confidence and good judgment to work correctly and in the best interests of the community. If every police officer holds every citizen to the letter of the law, then some violations may cost the city more money then it recoups from fines. For instance, if a police officer pulls a motorist over for a speeding violation and then discovers that the driver has been smoking a