The Greatest Degree Of Discretionary Powers In Criminal Justice

The criminal justice system is effective in achieving justice, in relations to police power and authority. Police are tasked with an essential role in protecting and enforcing the law. They are a critical aspect towards the criminal justice system and the criminal investigation process. To assist their role to the community, they’ve been provided several types of powers and authorities to achieve their duties towards the community. These authorised powers are used to stop, search and detain a person when they’re certain a crime is committed. Consequently, police can use this authority to potentially violate another individuals’ right, such as privacy. Whilst this power allows police to fulfil their duty to the community, is that justifiable to violate an individuals’ right?

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.

Within the criminal justice system discuss the effectiveness of legal and non-legal measures in achieving justice.

Within the criminal justice system, officials abuse their power. The officials of the justice system have a duty to protect and perform their duties with unbiased decision making. The abuse of power jeopardizes people’s lives who are not able to sustain oneself and their families. Some people do not understand that poorer people find themselves in jail more and once a person is released, that person is subjected to return to jail for the amount of money owed to the state. There are many obstacles for the poor, especially those of color. People of color are treated unfairly in the justice system, from the arrest, the sentencing, and the release. The criminal justice system is supposed to be just but that is not the case. The criminal justice system allows for the police, public defenders, and judges to bend the laws and not be punished for their actions or that apologizes can fix the wrong that has been done. This paper will discuss the abuse of power from the justice system and the solutions to rectify the damages.

According to LEPRA, the main powers police are granted are to detain and question suspects, search property and seize evidence, use technologies that may help the case (i.e mobile phones, computers), use reasonable force is absolutely necessary and, as a last resort, arrest and interrogate the suspect(s). They also have the power to recommend to the magistrate whether bail should be granted to suspects.

Chapter 9 focuses on special topics, which reviews the five present and controversial issue in the criminal justice system. Out of all 5 of these issues I think that the use of confidential informants in war on drug is the most harmful to our nation’s correctional system and should be eliminated. The reason I think that the use of confidential informants should be eliminated drug war on drugs is because the use of CI’s frequently have negative consequence on the war on drugs (Austin & Irwin, 2012). The first example, is that CI’s are not appropriately screened and supervised, which causes innocent individuals to be arrest. In my opinion, I think that if CI’s are going to be used then they should be supervised at all time because the lack

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 addition to our other rights, we have the rights to enforce the law and judge on our own behalf. We may intervene in cases where our own interests are not directly under threat to help enforce the law of nature. Still, the person who is most likely to enforce the law under these circumstances is the person who has been wronged. The basic principle of justice is that the punishment should be proportionate to the crime. When victims are judging a crime; they likely to judge it of greater severity than an impartial judge. As a result, there will be miscarriages of justice.

Since the beginning of time, the United States’ Criminal Justice System (CJS) has been scrutinized and will continue to be. If significant changes were to occur within the CJS it could potentially take decades. Different persons, institutions, governments, and even departments within governments have different views; it is a natural occurrence. Thus, as with any subject matter, there are always controversies that cause disruption within society. Often, the controversies stem from the lack of understanding and the historical patterns of unsupported data.

Discretion of the Court is the system of the court that governs individuals those who are charged for committing crimes, examine the time of their trial and other during major purposes of trial. A person who accused of committing a crime is normally is held in the jail till the time it is proved that whether the person is guilty or innocent. However, the court has the authority to bail out the person before the trial. But they would need certain documentation and that the person cannot leave the place until the trial takes place. Sometimes the person who is accused may also need to pay some fines or

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

See Robert L. Misner, Recasting Prosecutorial Discretion, 86 J. Crim. L. & Criminolcxiy 717, 726 (1996) (detailing the relative resources spent on corrections versus those spent on legal services).

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

Prosecuting those who commit crimes is very important to the overall wellbeing of society and the citizens within society. Prosecuting and convicting criminals not only prevents them from committing another crime, it also serves as a deterrent to others that may be considering breaking the law. Many courts make up the judicial branch and these courts are responsible for applying laws made by the government. The courts are made up of courtroom workgroups that are the basis of the courts proceedings.

The legitimacy of the criminal justice system is based largely upon both its effectiveness and its fairness. Its effectiveness is judged by its ability to investigate and detect crime, identify offenders and mete out the appropriate sanctions to those who have been convicted of offences. Its fairness is judged by its thoroughness and the efforts it makes to redress the resource imbalance between the accused and the state at the investigatory, pre-trial, trial and appellate stages. The system does this by providing evidentiary protection and effective legal representation at all points.