Pros And Cons Of Discretion Of Prosecutors

Unchecked Discretion and Prosecutors Misconceptions Prosecutors, for many years, are empowered with making decisions about who to prosecute, how many years the defendant could get, who gets a plea deal, and who does not.

Furthermore, prosecutors can make these decisions based on what they believe it is a “winnable” case. This “winnable” criteria depends on many factors, one of them, is the experience level of the prosecutor among some other issues closely followed by the knowledge and uniqueness of this law. As discussed in previous papers, human trafficking cases are unique on its development and investigation; however, this is not the case for its prosecutions. Prosecutors used the same tactics of prosecution on these cases as the

Some of the reasons behind this are the lack of information available to inexperience prosecutors to assist them in developing a prosecution strategy. The lack of specialty units and training it is another factor that many prosecutor’s offices deal with while working these types of cases.

A direct result of this lack of training and specialized units is the belief that human trafficking victim’s credibility will be questionable during trial, simply because they are prostitutes or because they were in part responsible for their victimization. Another misconception of this type of cases is that the victim will refuse to cooperate with the case with prosecutors among others.

Victim Centered

In regards to Human Trafficking the U.S. Department of Justice has used this term for funding purposes since about 2004 when they started funding several law enforcement and victim service programs that were combating human trafficking.

The Metropolitan Bureau of Investigation was founded to provide services to Orange and Osceola Counties in 1978 and currently the longest serving task force in the United States. Since 2012, this task force had been working with other jurisdictions to combat human trafficking as recommended by DOJ; however, this task force has been in operation without federal funding. The task force originally was composed of four agents from two local agencies and a supervisor.

Currently the group has eight investigators assigned to the task force with resources from Orange County Sheriff’s Office, Orlando Police Department, State Attorney’s Office Investigations, Florida Department of Law Enforcement, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Homeland Security Investigation.

The goal of this multidisciplinary team is to provide the broadest range of services and resources for victims and the most diverse range of investigation and prosecution options in response to the perpetrators of this