Policing Is Important For The Society 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

The Associations of Chiefs of Police created this website as a police informational site. It is an educational site that explains the hiring process, basic requirements, training and academy life, and skills candidates should process. The site also offer a virtual ride along. I can use this site to explain the training and academy life of a cadet.

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?

There are many factors that contribute to today’s American policing. Once such factor that contribute tremendously to today’s policing came in 1829 when Sir Robert Peel’s concept of policing came into effect. This would change the way policing would be performed in not only England, but the United States (U.S) and around the world. Another huge factor that impacts policing is the relationship the U.S. Government has with policing. These factors affect every policing organization in the U.S.

Many people know of the police officers of today’s world and that it is their job to enforce the laws set by their government, but not many people know the history of your typical everyday United States police officer or how they came about. The idea for neither your everyday police officer nor his or her department they work for or how a police department operates, originated in the United States. Over the years though America has made changes and adapted its system over the years to make it more suitable for its countries beliefs and practices.

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, uncertainly, and inefficiently are rampant and essential in criminal justice. Nobody expects perfection. That would neither be good nor fair. Justice is a sporting event in which playing fair is more important than winning. Law enactment, enforcement, and administration all involve trading off the possibility of perfect outcomes for security against the worst outcomes. Policing is the most visible part of this: employees on the bottom have more discretion than employees on the top.

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.

Since a very young age we have been taught to put our trust into police officers. If we are in distress, they are always there to help since it is their job to protect and serve the common citizen. So what happens when the individuals we are supposed to trust to bring justice are the ones causing the injustice we see in the news? Recently, several police officers have been under fire for their excessive use of force. The number of casualties caused by police officers in the recent years have citizens demanding a reform in the system that officers work under.

Police Departments are continuing to evolve to try to stay ahead if the criminal. Police technology is most influential changes relative to modern policing. Police agencies are using modern technology such as internet to convey information to the public, smart phones with the capacity to communicate with others from the field, and mobile computers to retrieve information, (Grant & Terry, 2012). Because police officers have mobile computers while in the field,

Since the founding of this country, to the wild west, and up to the present, the agenda of the policing bodies have been clear: to uphold and enforce the laws of our society. Of course the way they do this today had undergone changes from the first police forces of early America, law enforcement has seen trends come and go.

policing is a pivotal part of effective policing, this paper will examine 2 articles that will discuss

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.

The dictionary definition of the police is “the organized civil force of a state, concerned with maintenance of law and order, the detection and prevention of crime, etc,” (Collins English Dictionary, 2002). This definition states the minimum of what the police actually do. Providing support for families, protecting society from criminals and responding to calls 24 hours a day 7 days a week are just some of the other roles that police have to deal with. In this essay the evolution of the police will be discussed as well as how the police are facing challenges.