Preview

Assignment: Police Discretion

Satisfactory Essays
Open Document
Open Document
384 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Assignment: Police Discretion
Assignment: Police Discretion To me discretion is something that we always use like in how we choose things like a movie to watch food to eat we always have to be very discrete in what we choose to do. There are a lot of people that would think that it would be better if discretion was taken away from the police. What most of the people do not realize is that discretion needs to be exercised. Discretion is not the problem; the abuse of discretion by some people is. In this world there is always that bad area that has the normal answer to different situations that may not apply. Having that right to exercise to discretion a police officer may be able to find the best solution always. In the scenario there was a couple of times

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    The husband is trying to avoid being arrested and wishes to be left alone by the officers.…

    • 751 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Research shows that discretion can be when an officer uses legal sanctions. This can be when an officer is on a traffic stop, giving a ticket or making an arrest. The time when an officer is most at odds to use discretion is in a case of use of force: weather the amount of force or weather to use any at all. (Hunter 1985; Terrill et al. 2002.) One other broad use could be when an officer has to make a decision on dividing the amount of services or various duties that are to be performed. (Engel 2007). A prime example would be when on patrol and answering a call, assisting a stranded motorist, the amount of time spent assisting , and a third would be non-sanction, and non- service that an officer will perform such as community…

    • 1140 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    In law enforcement, there are two words that have been the center of controversy for centuries which is police discretion. Discretion is defined as, “the ability to make responsible decisions, individual choicer or judgment, power of the free decision or latitude of choice within certain legal bounds” by Merriam-Webster Dictionary. The people of the United States has been a part of this concept for the creation of the Unites States Constitution. The Constitution allows police officers to have the authority to make a sensible and accountable decision while on a call for service. There are internal control mechanisms, external control mechanisms, control of the citizens, legislative control, and control of the courts that put limits of police…

    • 423 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Ethical issues in policing reach back to the early ages of law enforcement. The profession of policing plays a vital role in the rationale and motivation of how officers conduct themselves while on and off duty. This is a primary focus point of the society in which they work, due to the society’s level of trust and confidence in the officers to act accordingly and responsibly without any negative person vengeances or vendetta. As a result of the numerous negative encounters of officers interacting with the public, which has been mainstreamed by the media, there is a heightened sense of entitlement and false responsibility of citizens to report to higher authorities or the media when they do not get whatever it is that they want or receive the…

    • 389 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Police discretion allows officer the power to make decision to purse police procedure or to simply give a warning and let someone go. An example of police discretion would be if an officer pulls over a teenage driver for running a stop sign. Once the officer approaches the care he notices a roach “end of a joint” in the passenger seat. The officer then has the option to either let the teen slide with just a warning or to follow police procedure word for word. In my opinion police discretion is beneficial. Giving someone a warning allows you to explain what could happen to him or her if caught next time. If every person who broke the law or did something wrong was arrested or charged our jails would be packed and officer would have stacks of…

    • 213 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    In our text, discretion is defined as having to decide between two or more courses of action or behavior. Discretion is practiced in all aspects of the criminal justice system, police, corrections, judges and attorneys all have the power and capabilities to exercise discretion. An example of police discretion is a police officer responding to a domestic violence call, the officer can analyze the situation and decide to arrest one or both parties or, attempt to provide them the resources to get help or give a warning. An example of a correctional officer using discretion is, if the correctional officer witnesses an inmate breaking a law or code of the facility and can make the decision to do nothing or follow procedure. Another example of discretion…

    • 236 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Samuel Walker (1993) asserts the problem is not with the use of discretion, but the misuse of discretion in the Criminal Justice System. According to Walker (1993) “The Criminal Justice System is nothing more than the sum total of a series of discretionary decisions by innumerable officials.” (Walker 1993 p.4) Charles Klahm and Rob Tillyer (2015) explains that “Exposure, activity, and performance independently impact the likelihood of the officer initiating discretionary.”(Charles Klahm and Rob Tillyer, 2015 348). The assumption is police officers who are routinely exposed to diversity among age, race, gender, and criminal or noncriminal individuals effect the police use of discretion. The activities that police officers partake in is another factor that shapes the police use of discretion. The suggestion is that police officer's past behavior will reflect their future behavior in other words. Similar to activity, performance looks at police officers past performance. The assertion is that police officers who perform discretionary searches where contraband was founded were more likely to continue using discretion when conducting…

    • 632 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Police Discretion

    • 538 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Police discretion is issued to officers for the purpose of maintaining a just society. Discretion is defined the ability to form decisions based on their own judgment. These decisions are concluded through copious reasons such an officer’s experience or through their own individual backgrounds. Police discretion has the ability to dismiss minor crimes, yet laws exist where discretion is invalid and officers must accomplish whatever means legally to punish the criminal.…

    • 538 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Patrol officers use discretion each and every time while on shift. They will respond to a variety of calls and have to make a decision on scene whether to charge a subject or arrest them. Patrol officers also work traffic and enforce moving violations and equipment violations. Try to imagine if officers did not have discretion and had to fully enforce the law each time a violation occurred. This would have a negative impact on community relations and would also completely saturate our court systems that struggle already with caseloads. However, discretion allows the officer to make a judgment in the field based on the totality of the circumstances to decide which offenders should be tried through the criminal justice system and which should…

    • 380 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Using discretion is doing what is right or wrong just as one does with their morals and ethics in their profession. Disparity is seen through the criminal justice system by all players even legislature (The Sentencing Project, Research and Advocacy for Reform, 2008). Police officers are usually the first persons to deal with criminals and that is where discretion starts in the physical presence. Discretion and disparity are under scrutiny and will remain so. Discretion must be used and there has to be a routine check on…

    • 729 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Police Officer Discretion

    • 664 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Police officers have a large amount of discretion. This stage of the crime is the most influential to a case. What a police officer decides to charge an individual for and whether or not they charge them at all can completely affect how a case is carried out. For example, let’s say that and individual was going 10 miles per hour over the speed limit and a police officer pulled them over for it. The individual breaking the law was speeding because a loved one was in the hospital. It is now the officer’s decision to either hold this person responsible and give them a ticket or let them off with a warning because of the…

    • 664 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Discussions in how discretion is exercised in the legal profession often raises debate in the criminal justice system. Discretion is vastly misused in many of the criminal justice fields. Areas such as youth justice, sentencing, policing, and a host of many other legal fields need better understanding, interpretation and communication. As with many practices, the object of measuring these areas is to understand constraints on its use and areas where it can be regulated better. This paper will reflect the role of discretion and how it is conceived in the justice system. In addition, this paper will examine how individuals elect to measure legal discretion from the public’s point of view as often the public sees only the negative terms of it.…

    • 1526 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Meaning of Discretion

    • 402 Words
    • 2 Pages

    By definition, discretion means freedom to act or judge on ones own. With this privilege, evolves both pros and cons. A major problem which may occur are inconsistencies with the law. The same type of crimes may be given different punishments by judges. This would create controversy and accusations of prejudice and bias would certainly evolve. If the law were emphasized on discretion, the power would be mainly in judges and government official’s hands. It would be their responsibility that our nation continues to follow the principles of democracy and equality. If this did not occur, discretion could end up marking the downfall of our great nation. However I believe the pros overrun the cons in when looking closely at our legal system, in regards to discretion. In too many cases in our nations recent history, has discretion helped in making the right decisions. Every crime has different scenarios and plotlines, making it impossible for the same punishment to fit all the same kinds of crimes. This is why that in our legal system now, murder has evolved into manslaughter and other types of crimes. I believe that the best legal system looks at every case as a separate entity, and is run by judges that have no bias and do not look at any other factors besides, what is true justice. Our country will continue to evolve if we continue to use the component of discretion in our legal system.…

    • 402 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Police Ethics

    • 865 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Law Enforcement has been around since the beginning of man. The Code of Hammurabi, a book of 282 different codes, which specifically spelled out punishments for crimes, was followed back as early as 1700 B.C. (Geo Quest, Current Events, 00113492, 10/28/2005, Vol. 105, Issue 8) In the Bible's story of Adam and Eve, God cast Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden as a punishment for breaking the rules. (The Holy Bible: Genesis Ch.3) These types of historical records display the fact that law enforcers have always existed. Just as law enforcers have always existed, so have ethical issues surrounding the authority exercised by these individuals. Police corruption is a problem that has always existed.…

    • 865 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Police Discretion

    • 1042 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Police discretion is the ability to choose a course of action because of broad limits of power. It "refers to the autonomy an officer has in choosing an appropriate course of action" (The Police In America, 113). It "includes authority to decide which of the various means of helping the helpless, maintaining order, and keeping the peace are best suited to particular circumstances" (www.worldandi.com/specialreport/1989/january/Sa15878.htm). The police need to have discretion since it is impossible to record everything on what they are supposed to do and not do. We can also understand that if you could record all the rules and regulations it would be too extensive for an individual to comprehend.…

    • 1042 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays