Police Disretion Essay examples - 1128 Words

POLICE DISCRETION Police officers are faced each day with a variety of situation in which they must deal; therefore we should ask ourselves the following questions: Should police officers enforce the law equally in all situations? In what situations should police officers be allowed to not enforce the law? What types of situations would they be required to fully enforce the law? Why does police discretion exist? What are its strengths and weaknesses? And what is the relationship between police discretion and police ethics? When enforcing the law, for police officers not two situations they encounter are ever the same, even when examine a large number of situations over an extended period of time. The officers are usually in the†¦show more content†¦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. Police officers should be allowed to use their own discretio n in petty circumstances such as children writing on walls. Police use their discretion all the time to prioritize and to be efficient. If a cop pulled over every single person who had a headlight out or gave a ticket to every jaywalker, they wouldnt have time to catch real criminals. Police officers are always allowed to enforce the law when they are in their own jurisdiction. They can decide not to enforce certain minor crimes and misdemeanors but they have to enforce felonies. The use of discretion is real just. With such a broad volume of discretion apparently in nearly every aspect of police decision making what strengths does this level of discretion have? Police work and the work environment require the use of discretion. Decisions must be made very quickly, usually without time for input from another source. This is despite the fact that a bureaucratic structure exists for the department as a whole. Moreover, communities cannot agree on what constitutes criminal behavior or the level to which criminal behavior should be sanctioned or ignored. A prime example is that of the skid-rows areas. The approach taken by most police in dealing with the skid-row â€Å"problem† or