The Most Appropriate Roles For The Future Of Policing

Police officers are faced each day with a variety of situation in which they must deal; therefore we should ask ourselves the following questions: Should police officers enforce the law equally in all situations? In what situations should police officers be allowed to not enforce the law? What types of situations would they be required to fully enforce the law? Why does police discretion exist? What are its strengths and weaknesses? And what is the relationship between police discretion and police ethics?

Police officers are faced each day with a vast array of situations with which they must deal. No two situations they encounter are ever the same, even when examines a large number of situations over an extended period of time. The officers are usually in the position of having to make decisions on how to handle a specific matter alone, or with little additional advice and without immediate supervision. This is the heart of police discretion. As we shall find, the exercise of discretion by police has benefits and problems associated with such exercise. The unfettered use of discretion can

Exactly what does discretion mean when it comes to a police officer whose job it is to enforce societies written laws and statues? Who decides how much discretion is allowed and when it can be used? What kind of issues concerning an individual officer’s discretion might have an effect on his or her whole department? After answering these questions, I hope to show why discretion is a necessary part of a police officer’s job.

The use of force is without a doubt an important aspect in policing. The decision to utilize any type of force comes from a multitude of recourses; department policies, training, situational variables and ethical systems. There are three major categories in which an officers use of force is categorized under; justifiable, excessive and deadly; with a thin line between justifiable and excessive. Cases where excessive force has been used, has lead to injuries, deaths, civil damages, officers convicted and sentenced to jail and police chiefs and elected officials being removed from office (Fyfe, 1988). It is an officer`s discretion in determining when the use of force is justifiable.

Criminal justice system has three main subsystems: police, courts and corrections. Each subsystem has its particular duties, but they work together to meet the goals: doing justice, controlling crime and preventing crime (Cole, Smith, & DeJong, 2015). Although this system had been built for a long time ago, continuously, some of its policies need to be reconsidered and reformed to suit the society with various situations. One of the characteristics that exercised by different levels in the criminal justice system, from police to correctional officials, is discretion. This characteristic also receives both supports and oppositions. In this paper, I will focus on an aspect of discretion in police. I believe that police discretion is very important, hence, it needs to be reformed by expanding its level.

Over the past few years, there has been a great divide in our society between that of law enforcement agencies and some local community’s members that have placed fault onto on the law enforcement community (Abegbile, 2017). We have seen from the local communities not just cries for change in our law enforcement community, but have also protested in cities across the United States. With demands for criminal justice reform being demanded by such of an outcry in our society, we must evaluate the issues that are at the forefront of these matters (Abegbile, 2017). Our law enforcement community has over the past few years had to assess its leadership, the use of force by law enforcement officers, and to improving public safety.

The police in turn are dependent upon the prosecutor to accept the output of their system: rejection of too many cases can have serious repercussions affecting

On the matter of community policing, I believe that the police force plays a big role. This is based on implementing the various strategies geared towards achieving an effective community policing. Taking a closer look at crime, it is widely evident that crime cases in any given society cannot be solved by any single individual alone. This calls for aid in order to curb the vice. Not to mention the complexity of crime, the police should no be left alone to deal with the matter. The community and police thus need to work together to deal with criminal activities. This will necessitate splitting of the crime matter into smaller areas that are easy to manage. The police officers are then set to work in these areas. The police therefore work

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.

I think the future trend of policing will be predictive policing. Predictive policing is taking data from different sources, analyzing them and then using the results to anticipate, prevent and respond more effectively to future crime. Predictive policing entails becoming less reactive. The predictive policing idea moves law enforcement from focusing on what happened to focusing on what will happen and how to effectively put resources in front of the crime, and ultimately change outcomes. Most police work is conducted in a reactive manner but in proactive policing, law enforcement uses data and analyzes patterns to understand the nature of a problem.

On the other hand, if a police officer decides to shoot their weapon when the suspect is unarmed, is very unnecessary and unethical (USDOJ, 1999). The use of force is almost always up to the officer that is dealing with the suspect at hand; though an officer’s interpretation of the law and any personal bias’ towards a certain group are individual factors that can influence an officer’s decision. Although the description given to police officers regarding the extent of the use of force is that which is only necessary and reasonable in a present situation, but factors such as officers' rights to protect themselves and precedent set by the past behaviour of police officers are also worthy of consideration in regards to the amount of force to be used. The use of force must be controlled and confined though is unquestionable (USDOJ, 1999).

With so much that has transpired recently involving law enforcement and the citizens that they are sworn to protect and serve. There are many questions along with different controversial views on the roles of policing. The roles of policing are a very complex and at times can become very controversial depending on the laws and different induvial ways of thinking. In this paper, I will attempt to point out and discuss several roles of policing. Before talking about anything first, the understanding and clarity to what policing really means. By tradition, most people think of police usually as having the responsibility to responding to crimes after it has already taken place and, therefore are organized to support regular patrols, be speedy

By and large, police kill citizens when they trust they must choose between limited options keeping in mind the end goal to protect human life, most particularly their own as well as that of different nationals. As Dr. Laurence M., (2015) emphasized that by customary tenet; a cop was permitted to utilize any non-dangerous power that sensibly

Policing is a vital and visible component of our criminal justice system. To protect and serve is a basic responsibility of every police department, specifically in Canada. In Canada, citizens have a lot of faith in the police, as they look forward to police for any kind of safety concerns they may have, yet people are also very quick to judge the police. The police play an important role in minimizing threats and maximizing safety of their citizens. The role of the police in our society is shaped by social, economic and political factors.