Pros And Cons Of Police Discretion

Police discretion is an extremely important aspect in the system of criminal justice. Discretion, in law, is defined as the power of a judge, public official or a private party to make decisions on varying matters based on their opinion that is within general legal guidelines ("Discretion"). There are several advantages to police discretion, but at the same time there are disadvantages as well. There is conflict with police discretion mostly because of the fact that discretion is based on the personal opinion of the authority figure instead of consistent, set guidelines. It lets police make decisions like to not make an arrest even if the offense is committed and the evidence is existent. There is conflict whether police discretion is a good thing or a bad thing to have, and there are many factors to discuss when arguing the pros and cons. There is no uniform procedure for every situation that a police would need to use their discretion in, making inconsistency a disadvantage of police discretion. Every officer-offender situation will vary from officer

For example, different offenders may have different mental states. A person who is considered “mentally stable” and a person who has, let’s say, schizophrenia will react differently in different situations and a police interaction is no different. Police discretion allows for these differences to be considered, whereas if discretion didn't exist, both individuals would be charged the same despite their difference in mental condition (Katz and Walker). By using discretion, the police can treat these people differential so that they do not receive injustice of the police treating incompetent people the same as everybody else. Not everybody can be treated the same even though they are all under the same law which is why police discretion is important so that every individual gets treated