Police Officers: Police Use Of Force And Discretion

Police use of Force and Discretion

The use of force by law enforcement officers is necessary and permitted under specific circumstances, for example self-defense or in defense of another individual or group. Police Officers should only use the necessary amount of force needed. An officer’s goal is to regain control as soon as possible while protecting the community. In the United States, this is governed by Tennessee v. Garner, (U.S. Supreme Court 1985) which said that "deadly force...may not be used unless necessary to prevent the escape and the officer has probable cause to believe that the suspect poses a significant threat of death or serious bodily harm to the officer or others." The excessive use of force by police officers is an epidemic

By action, the criminal law “has attempted to establish those forms of conduct which its members desire to be declared criminal” (Goldstein, 1963, p. 141). However, these laws are often expressed in such broad terms so that the definitions of crimes are vague, and thus, trying to interpret and enforce this kind of legislation becomes difficult for police officers. The second point to note in support of police discretion is that, total enforcement of all laws is basically impossible. Police departments do not have the required manpower or sufficient resources to respond to every call for service. Furthermore, they cannot arrest everyone who has ever committed a crime and get them ready for prosecution. A third pro to the use of discretion in law enforcement, concerns the variations in the seriousness of offenders behaviors. Every offender police encounter is different, thus police officers have to consider the contextual and mitigating factors as well as the offender themselves and not just the illegality of the offence. Hence, this is where discretion is advantageous in assessing the culpability of an offender. Not everyone can be treated in the same manner as professional criminals, there needs to be exceptions for individual circumstances, which brings police discretion into