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What is police discretion and how does it relate to ethical choice
Discretion in Police Operations Quizlet
What is police discretion and how does it relate to ethical choice
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Discretion is using an individual’s judgment, instead of a set of formal rules, to make decisions (Bohm, 2014.) Discretion for police officers is used because there are no list of policies and procedures that could cover every single situation that an officer could face on their everyday workday (Bohm, 2014.) The book made sure to even mention those police officers can face discretion from both a parking meter violation and the ignoring of violations of the law that they deem appropriate (Bohm, 2014.)
This leads to the next topic full enforcement and selective enforcement. Selective enforcement is relying on the judgment of the police leadership and the rank-and-file of officers to decide which laws to enforce and to decide on important matters
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.
In order to diminish police brutality, excessive force, and prejudice behaviors in the police officers, several actions must be set in motion. The police hiring process, training, in-field monitoring, and disciplinary actions must be adjusted to eliminate discriminatory actions against citizens. Likewise, it is a necessity for citizens to be informed of their rights, civil liberties, and how they can resolve corruption within the justice system. These actions seek to shrink the number of minorities who are racial profiled and brutalized by police officers. A more stringent hiring process, it will help curtail unethical and unprofessional police officers. Police training must be altered so that situations are handled safely and impartial. In-field monitoring with eliminate police officers from managing to catch police officers who brutality handle citizens. Disciplinary actions help to prosecute police officers to break the law. Lastly, if citizen are informed of what they should about corrupt police officers and a poor justice systems.
Cop in the Hood by Peter Moskos is a book concerning a sociologist named Peter Moskos wanting to know more about the ways of American cops. A Harvard student going to work in Baltimore in the eastern district for one year, writes about his learnings and findings from firsthand experience. Some people say cops are not prepared when they leave police academy. From the book it says police officers learn more in the first two years than they will learn at the police academy. Becoming one of the deadliest profession cop’s duties are eye opening and even jaw dropping. Cops are known either has “gatekeepers” or even “pigs” in slang term. What if there were no cops in America? What would happen if they all just vanished and there was no one to protect
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).
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.
“I’ve always had a natural fear of the police, or abuse of their power” (Terrence Howard). This is a perfect example of why police powers should be restricted because the main reason for police officers is to protect human society but many people have stopped running for help due to their fear they have towards police abuse. There has been an immersive amount of cases involving police abusing of their powers in the past years for example the following cases Oscar grants, James Blake’s, Nicole Smits’s ext., which is why many people want to limit police powers in the United States. On the other hand you have people 100% for police powers who believe it’s the right way to handle situations in order to have society in fear causing less crime. police powers is an argument that has been going on for quite some years causing a lot of controversy on what is the right thing to do, I believe police powers should be completely restricted in future references.
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 is usually described as a choice of options or actions one can take in a situation. People exercise discretion everyday. Discretion is like when you want to watch a movie and you are contemplating whether you want to watch a scary movie or a comedy movie. Discretion involves making a judgment and a decision. Although everyone experiences discretion, not everyone makes the same choices or decisions when it comes to discretion.
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.
Discretion is a strong, and unpredictable tool that police use to demonstrate their power to maintain social orders in the community. It allows police officers to show authoritative powers to eliminate an individual’s freedom. The process enhances the way the police will be able to control all the crimes that happens within the society. It is an important process and therefore highly recommended in every community. The main aim of this work will be to investigate the process of discretion, the positive impacts it has in the society, and the effects it might have if it is abused.
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).