Police Discretion
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.
Philosophers such as Ronald Dworkin and H.L.A. Hart have referred to discretion as “the hole in the doughnut” (doughnut theory of discretion) and “where the law runs out” (natural law theory). In perspective, discretion is the empty area in the middle of a ring consisting of policies and procedures. And remember Davis’ definition - the making of choices from among a number of alternatives? The freedom of being able to make choices is called a strong sense of discretion. In the weaker sense we would consider cases in which not only the rules don’t apply, but the officer makes individualized judgments. In both sense, it’s the problem of loose definition.
Some discretion terms may be helpful to analyze. Discretion-as-judgment—discretion is the opposite of routine and habitual obedience. It brings knowledge, skill, and insight to bear in unpredictable ways. Police are not solders who must blindly follow orders. Police must be more than competent than applying the rules; they must adapt those rules to local circumstances in a rule-bound way. Discretion-as-choice—discretion is not just a matter of realizing when you’re in the hole of the doughnut, or a “grey area”. It involves making personal contributions, judgment calls, exercising autonomy, and individual solutions. It’s about the courage to make your own decisions, to have personal input, following your conscience, even if those decisions are reversed later by a superior. Discretion-by-discernment—discretion is not just about making “safe” choices, or being “soft”. It’s about making good, virtuous choices by habit or the wisdom that comes from age. Prudence, foresight, the ability to size up people, arguments, and situations. Tactfulness, tolerance, empathy, and being discreet are all forms of discernment. Discretion-as-liberty—discretion is not where the law ends, nor is it the ...
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...emselves, precedent set by the past behavior of police officers, need to build security for future police officers.
Vice crime—vice is crime against the public order or morality (e.g., prostitution, nude dancing, gambling, pornography, illegal sale of alcohol, narcotics). Such crimes are also “victimless” in the sense that participants are involved consensually and willingly. There are a number of reasons why vice enforcement is uneven, sporadic, and ineffective: the laws are almost unenforceable. Most police departments can’t afford special vice units, and such investigations are costly and time-consuming. They go after it when opportunities avail themselves. Vice enforcement encourages illegal police activity, like wrongful searches, planted evidence, entrapment, corruption, and organized crime infiltration.
In summary, police discretion appears to be a double- edged sword. It can be used for good or bad. It’s not as simple as it being right or wrong. Certainly if the sources of discretion included individual police officer prejudice, whim or caprice, this would be completely wrong, but there are other more important causes of discretion, as we have discussed.
Decision Making – Police officers have considerable decision making powers at their own discretion. This is true for low ranki...
Discretion does have its advantages. Philip Howard puts forward as an argument that discretion is an essential and inevitable element of public administration. According to Howard discretion is needed to make certain that benevolence is in the manner of governing. He suggest that in an effort to attain conformity with the rules or fairness, more than is normal limited the discretion of public officials in some principle of action adopted by government areas.
These outcomes are determined by the community and states. At times the community supports the police officers and at times they do not which that also depends on the state and the budgeting. The police discretion can also be limited depending on economic hardship, social services agencies for youth. Another important part that plays an important role in discretion would be changes in political climate and public
Police officers have a significant level of discretion when ethical decision making is incorporated in deciding how to respond to a domestic violence call. For example, officers exercise discretion by deciding how to respond to domestic violence when a situation involves a fellow officer. America is a country in which many believe in privacy within the household and often choose not to be involved in a domestic dispute because families should resolve their own problems. However, discretionary powers abused by an officer are used to dissuade the victim from filing charges against the officer’s colleague. Officers often do not choose to arrest in a domestic dispute because they believe the family, not the justice system, should resolve the problem. If the police officer abuses his discretionary power by persuading the victim to not file charges, then he is going against community policing. This is because, he is not serving the interests of the community, but rather the code of silence within a police department. This discretion is exercised even more when the domestic violence situation involves an off duty police officer. When police officers commit domestic violence against their spouse it is usually explained by the fact that police officers deal with difficult citizens on a daily basis on the streets and as a result of the high levels of stress on the job bring their frustrations home and spouse becomes the scapegoat for his feelings (Wetendorf, 1998:3).
As stated in the textbook, police often have to make decisions on their own, with only their moral compass to guide them. Most ethical dilemmas that police officers face derive from their powers of discretion. Moral dilemmas that police officers face are often frequent and unavoidable. They are often unpopular with many people, resolved quickly, and are often dealt with alone.
In law enforcement, discretion is left up to each police officer to make responsible and reasonable decisions on situations while in the field. A police officer will have no choice but to use discretion in certain situations and make decisions on what type of force or punishment is necessary for the situations. Many people in the society always believe that police officers can make any decision they wish to at any time while working. This is very wrong because there are situations whereby a police officer or even the chief of police has no other choice, but to follow the law in making decisions. The role of the police administrator is double challenging because, he/she must determine how best to use discretion as well as encourage or dissuade discretion by subordinate members ...
Police discretion is structured and controlled by the kind of situation that the police must deal with (Wilson, 1968). Wilson (1968) delineates four different situations. Police-invoked law enforcement, citizen-invoked law enforcement, police-invoked order maintenance, and citizen-invoked order maintenance.
Officers are able to use discretion in many situations that their morals would guide them in. They have the right to pull a person over with probable cause or a violation and they can choose whether to give them a ticket, a warning, or nothing, depending on the situation.
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).
Over the years, this country has witnessed many cases of police brutality. It has become a controversial topic among communities that have seen police brutality take place in front of their homes. Officers are faced with many threatening situations everyday, forcing them to make split second decisions and to expect the worst and hope for the best. Police officers are given the power to take any citizens rights away and even their lives. With that kind of power comes responsibility, that’s one major concern with the amount of discretion officers have when to use force or when to use lethal force.
So much is to be said about law enforcement and the discretion that is needed to maintain good order, impeccable judgment, and discipline within the ranks. Discretion is a topic that varies from person to person and institution to institution; it holds many different meanings and can be used negatively if sound judgment is not exhibited.
Police discretion. Police discretion is defined as the decision-making power afforded to Police Officers that allows them to decide if they want to pursue police procedure or simply let someone off with a warning. Police discretion can be also defined as the individual’s ability to make a decision based on the principle of courses in the actions. Police officers are usually in the position of having to make decisions on how to handle a specific situation alone, or without immediate supervision. In other words, police discretion is the choice the officer has on how he or she enforces the law. Discretion in law enforcement includes whom to arrest, whom to investigate, whom to talk to, and whom to interview (Pollock, 2014). Use of discretion
I think police discretion is very common. Police officers exercise the choice of whether to question someone, arrest a suspect as well as several other duties and each of these decisions are made without the presence of supervision so perhaps this is the reason it exists. Discretion may be decreased but I don’t think it can be eliminated, even with supervision police officers together hold the authority to make discretionary decisions even if the public disagrees with their tactics. I don’t necessarily think police discretion should not be eliminated because, majority of the decisions that are made by them are made in the best interest of the public or victim.
Laws and procedures are the most common basis for officers choosing not to allow offenders to remain free based on their discretion, a study by Mendias and Kehoe (2006) has found. The study found that laws or responsibilities were the main reason for a decision to suspend discretion in eighty-two percent of cases involving an arrest. The study also found that keeping the peace and procedural implications were the primary justifications for ex...
Police decisions can affect life, liberty, and property, and as guardians of the interests of the public, police must maintain high standards of integrity. Police discretion concerning how to act in a given situation can often lead to ethical misconduct (Banks 29).