"Active engagement with a police officer association will accomplish far more than hostile isolation. Responsibility for such engagement lies with management, not labor. A police manager, however, needs to clearly articulate the nature of such engagement and its limitations. Some police chiefs and sheriffs are comfortable with a representative of their police officer association attending any or all staff meetings. Some are not. Some are comfortable having an official representative of the association on all internal agency developmental task forces, some ask the union to participate only on selected task forces. Others would prefer to engage the union only in designated meetings that are particularly designed for labor-management communication. What is essential is some level of engagement, and that everyone understands the rules. Community policing initiatives require planning, restructuring, and reallocation of resources. There is no prescriptive formula for union participation in such efforts; however, it is relevant that community policing efforts are by definition a challenge to traditional policing…
The pressure a witness feels in a lineup to choose a suspect can be a great one. Often times the witness looks to the police officer for guidance. When a witness is not sure they may identify a suspect and after ask the police officer how well they did and if they choose the right person. When conducting a lineup, a police officer should be careful not to give feedback or confirmation. When a police officer simply says “good job” even if the witness chooses wrong, it can cause a huge confident boost. When its time for the trial the witness is more likely to make the same mistake again (Clare, 2012, para. 7). When conducting a lineup, the police should use the Blind or Blinded Administration method. In this method the police officer does not know anything about who the suspect is. This will prevent any suggestive or…
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…
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…
There have been ongoing debates about the guidelines for police officers when conducting discretionary searches. One police department that has been in the headlines for its practices of discretionary searches have been the New York City’s Police Department. New York City’s Stop and frisk policy allowed police officers to stop and search an individual on the street at their discretion based on suspicion of criminal activity. One of the most highly publicized cases of NYPD’s stop and frisk tactic was the 2014 death of Eric Garner in the hands of Staten Island Police Department. The Eric Garner’s case followed outpours from citizens calling for change in NYPD’s stop and frisk guidelines and other police departments as well. This week’s article…
Discretion is granted to police officers in order to maintain an upright society. If discretion did not exist and every single crime required a punishment, suddenly the population of jails and prisons would…
Discretion is the eminence of once behavior or the way of speaking in order to avoid any offensive occurrence or speaking up any private issues or information in public. It is the self-determination for someone to choose or think what should be better to be done in particular circumstances. Especially for a judge, a public official or other private party has the authority to make decisions on any legal matters or other big official subjects. Thus, a person who is authorized with the power of discretion often thinks about how to apply the given supremacy.…
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…
Police officers in the United States and around the world have an extremely hard job both physically and mentally. Police discretion is a tool that officers use every day on their jobs (Odom 2009). It is a decision making process where the officer deduces from the situation and observation the best solution. For example, an officer pulls over a driver for running a red light. The officer must decide whether or not to issue the driver a citation. If the officer feels the driver isn’t intoxicated, or a danger to others, the officer may let the driver go with just a warning. The officer might pull over another car for the same thing, but issue the citation because the driver was a danger to other drivers on the road.…
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…
Many questions can arise when dealing with law enforcement issues. This paper looks to scratch the surface on four of these questions. These questions were answer with my own personal opinions and won’t be found anywhere else but here.…
The purpose of this position paper on community policing is to weigh the pros and cons. In order to write an effective position paper, the idea of know what the predecessors stand on this subject would not be a benefit because it is not his problem anymore. If I where to be the new Chief of Police, I would want my opinion to be of value and not regurgitated information from the prior Police Chief. This would be my opinion and if it is not what the City Mayor wants to hear then at least I still had my integrity and dignity. Community policing is a philosophy that promotes organizational strategies, which supports the problem-solving techniques and partnerships. Positively addressing the immediate conditions that give a rise in community issues such as crime, disorder and fear. The community feels like the department is out of touch with the need as a whole and community policing could be the answer to regain the trust needed to be more effective.…
A student ride-along allows the student to observe the use of discretion and techniques that are used by the police officers who patrol our communities. Many people falsely believe that policing is what they see portrayed in the media. We never realize that there is much more to police work then what we consider entertaining or even amusing. By watching a patrol officer in the field, I was able to gain valuable insights into questions concerning why police officers stop certain individuals, why some individuals are taken into custody while others are not, and lastly how the discretion of an officer affects how they perform their jobs. I will discuss these three questions while using three separate situations that…
informed discretion in all activities. Combination of power, authority, and discretion in police work produces great potential for abuse.…
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.…