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...
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 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
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.
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.
Police officers are faced each day with a vast array of situations with which they must deal. No two situations they encounter are ever the same, even when examines a large number of situations over an extended period of time. The officers are usually in the position of having to make decisions on how to handle a specific matter alone, or with little additional advice and without immediate supervision. This is the heart of police discretion. As we shall find, the exercise of discretion by police has benefits and problems associated with such exercise. The unfettered use of discretion can lead to the denial of citizen rights. Strategies that control the use of discretion are, therefore, very important. The benefits and problems of police discretion and controlling strategies are the focus of this essay.
The degree of force that officers use is heavily influenced by police discretion in real-world situations rather than espoused by a certain agenda. Discretion can be classified into four different categories where administrators, the community, and the individual police officer exercise differing degrees of influence in decision-making. What is needed to help officer discretion is a central ethos that will guide discretion when all other rules fail to help.
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.
Police discretionary practices vary from officer to officer and every officer is differently trained by departments. Without the proper use of discretion out on the field, police officers are left open for legal suit actions however, if the officers are trained and exercising the use of discretion in a good manner, each individual officer can be held accountable. The second disadvantage of use of police discretion is that it allows the police officers to have too much power on making decisions which can affect the life, safety or liberty of an individual (Bargen, 2005). Police discretion presents a clear danger to society because the average officer can make a poor decision and affect the life of a person or persons. If discretion in law enforcement is used in a wrongful manner, it has great potential for being abused out of the field. Discretion allows police officers to “perform a duty or refrain from taking action” (Gaines & Kappeler, 2003, p. 251). Police officers are supposed to enforce equality under the law, people in society all should have equal rights and should be treated the same. However, discretion allows police officers to misuse it by treating offenders of different genders, race, class, ethnicity, religion, age and more inappropriately (Pepinsky, 1984). Law enforcement officers are
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...
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).
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 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).