Police Discretion Case Study

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.

In 2002 alone, large state and local law enforcement agencies, those with 100 or more officers, received more than 26,000 citizen complaints about officers’ use of force. Among those complaints only eight percent had sufficient evidence of the allegation to justify disciplinary action against the subject officer (U.S. Department of Justice). These incidents occur frequently but what truly happens is never very clear. Witness reports don’t hold up with evidence, the victim has their recollection of what happened and the police officer has another. There is no concrete way to hold police accountable for their actions unless there is hard evidence to prove them guilty. This allows officers to use excessive force and not face any penalization from their department or in court.

Now one way to prevent things like this from happening again is to train the young and inexperienced police officers the correct and effective way to judge the use of force. An officer must reasonably believe it is necessary to shoot to kill to defend him or herself or someone else from imminent death. It’s a call made in the blink of an eye, in tense and uncertain circumstances, sometimes limited by distance, distractions or darkness. And it brings to bear all of the officer’s experience, awareness and, perhaps most important, training. The question is how do we do this? How do we prepare our officers for the real world? Half a second. According to experts, that’s how much time an officer has to pull a weapon when confronted with someone perceived as dangerous and about to inflict harm. Studies show that it takes a quarter of a second for an officer to recognize a threat, such as when a person is reaching for a gun, and another quarter-second for that officer to draw his gun. It takes another .06 seconds to pull the trigger. One place that is trying to make a difference and make those

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.

Imagine you are a mother of a 12 year old kid who you let go to the park by themselves. A few hours later, you get a call or a knock on your door saying your child was killed by a police officer. What was their crime? Minding their own business playing with a toy water gun. That is what happened to Tamir Rice, a 12 year old little boy, who was playing the park by himself. The police were called by a person at the park who thought he was playing with a real gun but the person stated at least two times that there was a chance it could be fake.The video shows the cops driving up on the officer and telling him something and then shooting him. They claimed they thought that Tamir was older than 12 years old. Both officers were

In July of 2014 Eric Garner was killed by a “chokehold” by an officer. 12 year old Tamir Rice was shot by police for playing with a toy pistol in november 2014. (text 1, line 10) Police departments continue to generate headlines even after the 1992 Los Angeles riots. Most recent deaths on the police department have fueled a debate across the nation. (text 1, line 2) while some believe that police brutality only happens as isolated incidents the truth is that it is a major societal problem.

The use of discretion, and the use of force is a major issue within the police field. The law does not cover every situation that a police officer encounters. Decisions must be made very quickly, usually without time for input from another source. The exercise of discretion is not the problem; the abuse of discretion is the problem. This use of power can open many negative possibilities such as racism, gender bias, and other forms of inequality. The amount of force an officer uses depends on the level of resistance or threat an offender may pose. Using the Graham standard, officers must apply constitutional levels of force, that’s based off the circumstances of the case. In regards to corrections, the art of communication is very vital. The

The Role of Discretion in Policing As a law enforcement officer, every situation will be handled differently. Everything is not always black and white. In fact, when it comes to policing, there are a lot of grey areas.

The kid was in the streets with hands in his pocket, and a police officer approached him at gun point. The teen put his hands in the air and then the officer shot him dead. Major controversy occurred due to this tragedy. Only for the reason that the teen did not deserve to die and did nothing wrong, but still paid the price. How could this have been prevented? If the officer knew or was reminded of the steps to take in a situation like that, then the whole thing would have been handled way better. And the only way for officers to learn their training is in the police

State and territory police play a pivotal role in protecting community safety and protection. ‘Policing’ was a combination of national economic interests, domestic and international security, and represented in time by distinctive organizations (Chapman, 1970; Emsley, 1994). They have responsibility for peace preservation, and crime prevention as well as upholding the laws, providing assistance in personal emergencies, and coordinating and managing emergency incidents. Since the police can employ the discretionary powers, which is a flexible way to dispose of social problems, in a manner that either directs offenders to or diverts them away from, further penetration into the justice system, they are seen as the ‘gatekeepers’ of the criminal justice system, model authority, and law-abiding enforcement (Rob and Santina, 2015, p.348; Wortley, 2003). “They seek to sustain politically defined order and ordering via tracking, surveillance, and arrest. As such, they require compliance to command from lower participants and citizens. " (Peter and Jeffrey, 2015, p.246). Discretion is universal and legitimate power applied by criminal justice professionals in modern policing, which requires employing individual judgment for adjudicating whether they use a legal sanction in a particular situation (McLaughlin, 2013).

As a law enforcement officer, every situation will be handled differently. Everything is not always black and white, in fact when it comes to policing there are a lot of grey areas. This is where discretion plays an important role. An officer will use discretion in almost every situation he or she encounters; however there are times where an officer’s discretion is limited. There are many different factors that come in to play, some that are limiting to an officer’s discretion, and some that increase an officer’s discretion. The role that discretion plays in policing is important because the decisions that an officer makes affect the lives of the citizens, such as whether an individual should be arrested or not. Where you have discretion, you have discretion that is misused and you also have the need to control discretion. The role that discretion plays in policing is important because it affects each and every decision that a law enforcement officer makes.

The reality of discretion in some cases is very possibly discrimination. As indicated above, the problem lies within the enforcement side of the issue. How can one hope to show discrimination when it can be legally explained in some instances, as the execution of discretion by the officer involved in the situation. Discretion is and always will be a very important part of the criminal justice system. Even though there may be those instances as the writer described above where justice does not seem to prevail, society must acknowledge the necessity for discretion as a tool to be used by law

I do believe that officers discretion is a critical component of policing. Although many may think that the use of officers discretion lends itself to favoritism are bias It has been my experience that most officers understand when someone it doing wrong as opposed to making an honest mistake. Without this ability to use officers discretion, many people who honestly have good intentions, would be punished, which would discourage do gooders.

A father purchased a toy gun as a birthday gift for his young son. His son went outside to play and and encountered a police officer who shot him seven times. This incident occurred in Sonoma County in October 2013. A similar incident occurred in November 2014 when Cleveland police killed a 12-year-old boy carrying a toy gun. Use of excessive force by police is common in impoverished "black" or "brown" communities.

When writing this training briefing, it was asked if officers have too much discretion, which leads to unethical behavior. An officer's discretion is a powerful. Police discretion is defined as the power to make decisions that allows them to decide rather or not to pursue police procedures. Proper use of discretion is very important. If the decision to remove this discretion is made, offenses would d result in many unnecessary arrests. While "must arrest" offenses may be considered harsh. Creating” can’t arrest" offenses may result in people disregarding the laws of the town. Those gullible to unethical behavior use their police discretion to abuse the system in many ways. Engaging in corrupt behavior such as gratuities, bribes and disruptive