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

to officer and from location to location. Although the goal of police discretion is to avoid injustices, they do happen for exactly this reason—the inconsistency. According to Goldstein, what one officer decides is the right thing to do in a situation may not be at all what another officer would think is the right thing to do if they were to be in similar situations (Goldstein 1963). No two police officers are the same which means none of them have the same morals as another. With discretion, each individual officer is responsible because their job is to make sure that the criminal law is enforced even when they have to use their own judgement, but this often leads to many injustices.
One factor that needs to be considered in police discretion is race, gender, and ethnicity because this is one of the areas where police abuse their power most. This is very important because often times police arrest decisions are based on race instead of the circumstances, making a very unjust decision and supports the argument that police discretion is disadvantageous. This factor becomes problematic because of the question of whether the police are doing their job, and it happens to be a neighborhood with more minorities, or if they are being bias toward one race over another. In a paper on speed discounting (writing a lower speed of the driver than was actually observed) in Boston, Massachusetts, it was found that officers were, overall, more bias toward their own race, with the majority of the officers being caucasian (Anbarci and Lee 11-24). The bias can start to show from the minute that the officer decides to pull over a driver to the decision to cite or search the driver as well. In a different study, it was found that officers were more than twice as likely to probable cause search non-white drivers than white drivers, and the citation rates for minorities and black drivers were also higher than those of white drivers (Ridgeway 1-29). Racial profiling is definitely one factor that shows the disadvantages of police discretion. It is extremely bias and disregards the actual situation of the offense, and, instead, focuses on the motorists race. In cases involving conflicts with race, police are seen as taking advantage of their power. A recent study of every traffic stop done by the Maryland State Police showed, that officers abused their discretion in their decision to stop and ticket African Americans on Interstate 95 showing that this is a large problem with police abusing their powers (Katz and Walker). According to a study performed by Rowe, in 2005, 63.4% of all traffic tickets in the U.S. were issued to males, and even when women drivers were pulled over, males were more likely to receive a ticket in the end which shows police discretion as a disadvantage because of the skewed decisions being made. The study that Rowe performed also showed that the gender of the officer who pulled over the driver was more likely to be bias toward a driver of the same gender. If a male pulled over a woman, he will be less likely to give her a ticket than if he had pulled over a male driver performing the same offense and vise versa with a female driver and officer. Often times it is seen that police have too much power because many situations are left up to only that policewoman or policeman's own morals and standards.
This leads to one last con of law enforcement discretion which is police corruption due to the mix of having too much and abusing that power which is how police corruption does usually start. By using police discretion they may use bribes or other illegal strategies to get the offender to do what they want them to do. The police corruption is fed by acts like bribes, lies, stealing, and drugs for personal or financial gain since there is nobody there to look over them or to tell them what to do otherwise.
One advantage of police discretion is to prevent injustice based on small technicalities in the law, which can, in turn, create a healthier police-community relationships. to prevent hatred and anger towards police and law enforcement it is important to be fair when dealing with citizens and minor offenses. The law does not cover every type of situation a police officer will encounter which is when discretion is utilised (Archbold). If the police were to enforce every single law exactly how it is stated, they would be seen as being unfair and have a negative role in the community. According to Goldstein, it gives the officer the chance to show the community that some laws will not solve the problem unless some deliberation is made based on the circumstances of the situation (Goldstein 1963). Police discretion can help show responsible leadership of the police in the community which can be very hard when the public is criticising so much of what you do. Police discretion can allow for some vagueness of the law, allowing officers to settle situations in which there is no specific law stating exactly what to do in that exact situation. It helps with criminal justice efficiency because if the every singe offense were charged for that crime under the law, the criminal justice system would be swamped with too many cases to count. The single officer on duty has to decide for him/herself whether the situation calls for an arrest or citation, and whether or not it fits in a category in which the law tells them what to do. As an example, if an officer was to approach an individual who was performing the offense of an assault, they would have to decide whether it was a simple or an aggravated assault. The law defines the types of assault, but it is up to the officer on scene to have the last decision on which type of assault it is and what to do about it.
An advantage of police discretion is that in situations where it is impossible to enforce every single law, completely, all the time, police can use their best judgment to decide what to do under the given circumstances. Police enforcement has limited manpower, and with this limitation, police discretion plays an important role. This goes back to the point that police discretion helps limit the number of cases that end up going to court or prosecution because they use their best judgement of the situation to help focus on the most important crimes they need to take care of. This also helps with efficiency of the criminal justice system since it lets the police utilise their time and in the best way that they can. As Goldstein worded it, police are “enforcing the spirit of the law, rather than the full letter of the law” (Goldstein 1963). Police discretion would appear as a more considerate option because if the law was followed to par every time, there would be a lot more arrests than there are.
Another advantage is that, with police discretion, the diverse spectrum of police -offender encounters can be considered.

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

fairly.
Police discretion has shown to be an inevitable practice as there is not a law for every situation for every officer dealing with any type of person. With that being said, it is impossible to eliminate it because the judgments of the officers are based on the citizens of the community and on individual, one-of-a-kind situations. There are many advantages to police discretion as well as disadvantages, but there are a few things that can be done to minimize the injustices due to discretion. Police departments can enforce more policies that give more direction over discretionary decisions as well as having more supervision over officers, more training, and more guidelines. Feedback from the community can also help avoid the abuse of discretion in the law. Overall, police discretion allows selective enforcement of the law, which is needed in many cases, but many officers still take advantage of their power which shows that discretion needs to be even more looked over and regulated than it is now. The purpose of police discretion is to create peace and safety in the society and communities, but by taking advantage of the system it is impossible to do so. If police enforcement can find a way to standardize discretion more and stop certain types of behavior ,discretion would have the positive impact on society that it should.