Discretion In Police Discretion

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.

First, there are several positive aspects of police discretion. One, “that it allows the officer to treat different situations in accordance with humanitarian and practical goals” (82). Meaning that in certain situation where a citizen is breaking the law the officer will have compassion and not enforce the law. For instance, a husband speeding trying to rush to the hospital because his wife is in labor. Even though he’s speeding above the speeding limit, when

In the book American Courts Discretion is the lawful ability of an agent of government to exercise choice in making a decision. Discretion is there to determine how a decision is made. This is a very important aspect in the court system.

To illustrate this imagine that two men get into a fight in Times Square. A nearby police officer notices the disturbance and attempts to separate the two men instead of arresting them on the spot. In this hypothetical situation the police officer needed to use discretion to decide how to best handle the situation. At times however, police discretion causes more problems than it resolves. There have been reports of police being called to a scene were a husband is being extremely aggressive towards his wife. The police feel as the situation that is occurring is not severe, and therefore leave the scene. The next day, the police station receives a call that there was a homicide. As they arrive to the scene, the police realized it was the same couple from day before.” The report details in-depth reviews of 84 cases in which 135 people died, including some instances of homicide-suicide — cases when abusers killed victims as well as themselves. In 48 of those 84 cases, police had previously responded to a domestic-violence call”- (WA Report: Criminal-Justice System Fails Domestic-Violence Victims). At times the unfettered use of discretion can lead to the denial of citizen rights, at times the unfettered use of discretion can lead to the denial of citizen rights, and cause many flaws in the justice system; for example, many communities might have different definitions of what constitutes criminal behavior or what

A police officer is morally obligated to lie on account of trying to stay ethical. (Ciske, 2009) How many criminals do you know that are volunteering to confess criminal activity? Social media in our society has added to everyone views on the conduct or misconduct of police officers. I believe the focus should be on public safety rather than how police use deception to get an individual to confess. A police officer using trickery to get a confession is no more different than a person lying on the witness stand. Crimes are being committed, and someone has to solve them. However, any statement made during interrogation without being Mirandized usually are thrown out of court. Miranda states that once a person in custody invokes the right to remain silent, whether before or during questioning, the interrogation must stop. (Hall, 2014) The purpose of Miranda is to reduce the risk that coerced confession would be admitted; therefore, police should not be responsible for an individual ranting off during interrogation. Suspects in custody have rights; it’s up to them to exercise their rights.

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 an issue for American policing because how police use their discretion can greatly impact the public’s view on the police. First what police discretion is must be defined, “the leeway that officers enjoy in selecting from more than one choice in carrying out their work” (Mastrofski, 2004). This definition accurately sums up an ability the police use every single day that affects the public. The police can use discretion for almost any situation they encounter. There are many reason the police can exercise their own discretion the way they do, usually through personnel experience or departmental policy. While every person exercise discretion on a daily basis the reason police discretion is an issue is because they are agents of a government force that are allowed by the public to enforce the rules set down by members of the legislature that are elected by the public. Discretion for the police arises because of the individual subjectivity that each officers use when assessing an incident that requires police attention. An example is that Officer A does not arrest a teenage for underage drinking, he instead pour out the remaining alcohol and tells the youth to go home and that he better never catch him drinking again. In the same situation Officer B arrest the youth for underage drinking. The way these officers handle the situation different is police discretion. Officer B may have had a young relative that was involved in a drunk driving accident, either

Police officers are given a significant amount of discretion simply due to the nature of the job. Officers are faced with many threatening situations forcing them to react quickly, yet appropriately. They have the power to infringe upon any citizen’s rights to freedom and therefore they must use this power effectively. One major concern with the amount of discretion officers have is their power to decide when to use force or when to use lethal force. Manning (1997) argues that it is generally accepted that police should be allowed to use force. He also explains that there are an uncertain amount people who agree on as to what constitutes excessive force. The line

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?

Discretion-as-license—discretion is the opposite of standard expectations. It’s the privilege to go against the rules, disobey your superiors, be less than optimal or perfect all the time, all without degenerating the rules or eroding the trust between you, your superiors, or the public. License involves a sense of accountability that does not have to be formally recognized or structural.

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.

But police officers are also taught to not use discretion all the time so that society can also learn to follow the law, so discretion cannot always be practiced because then it will give people the idea that they can do whatever they want. According to “Criminology Articles” on police discretion, it talks about there are three categories or variables on how it is used such as, offender’s variable, situation variables, and the system’s variables. Offender variable is when “aspects-are directly linked to the offender including their age, race, economic status, gender, and health among others” (Scott 1). This means when a police officer is using discretion, they are making decisions based on what someone looks like, what their financial background seems like, if they are young or if they are older, and if they are healthy. When it comes to situation variables, this depends on the “seriousness of the crime, the type of property involved in the crime, and who initiated the investigations” ( Scott ). This means depending on what crime was committed police will use discretion to make a decision depending on how serious the crime is and to see if any property damaged is involved. The last

One aspect of the criminal justice system that has been debated for many years is that of police discretion. Police discretion is defined as the ability of a police officer, a prosecutor, a judge, and a jury to exercise a degree of personal decision making in deciding who is going to be charged or punished for a crime and how they are going to be punished. This basically is saying that there are situations when these law enforcement officers have to use their own personal beliefs and make choices coming from their own morals and ethics. The subject of police discretion was discovered in 1956 by the American Bar Foundation and has been an important problem in criminal justice since that time. When it

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).

the word discretion mean to me is that a person has the the ability to the major outcome of a situation they are placed in which can lead to a positive or negative outcome