Poice Role ReportEssay Preview: Poice Role ReportReport this essaySome examples of police discretion that I will be using include; traffic violations, domestic violence, mental illness, homeless person – theft, vice crime – gambling.
The first on will be traffic violations – an example would be failure to stop at a red light. The officer can use discretion on whether or not to give the defendant a ticket or just a verbal warning. This all depends on what state you are in and what the traffic law penalties are. As long as the officer senses no presence of drugs or alcohol the officer is free to make the choice of giving a ticket or just a warning.
Next up is domestic violence. When domestic violence is involved if one party is wearing a mark then the other is usually arrested and in most states it is a law. If both parties are either free or wearing visible marks then they are told to separate for a while to let the anger dissipate. If children are involved though one parent usually the aggressor will be removed for the time being so that the children will not be handed over to DCF or DHR.(Department of Children and Families) (Department of Human Resources)
The next category is people with mental illness. Officers have a lot of discretion when it comes to the mentally challanged. They can choose to remove the person from the area and take them for an evaluation if possible or return them home.
A homeless person theft is more based on the old question if a man steals a loave of bread for his straving family is that stealing? Well the general answer is “yes” it is stealing by definition. But in this case it is a homless person, in this case the store owner may have charges pressed or not and may even drive the perosn to a shelter.
Vice crimes such as gambling really depends on what kind of gambling it is. For instance if it is kids outside pitching pennies against a wall that is not really something to bust them for. More of a response to that would be to shoo them away and tell them that gambling no matter what kind is illegeal for a person their age. The officer can then tell the youths to go on home or find something else to do.
The fact that officers are all different and exercise discretion differently (Wilson 1968; Muir 1977; Klinger 1997) also creates a problem with the public. That problem is one of lack of consistency. Because each officer acts differently in any given situation, it becomes difficult for a citizen to know what behavior they can expect from an officer, or the behavior the officer expects from them in the situation. To some extent this can create distrust between the public and the police, which in turn can lead to unnecessary confrontations between the two. However the greates part of the problem in nature in the use of discretion is found in its uncontrolled use in the area of violation of individual rights, particularly those requiring due process of law and equal protection of the law, protection from unreasonable search and seizures
\1\ According to Cesar Chavez and other critics, the use of excessive force or the power to fire someone in this context can violate the rights of others. According to Chavez,
[T]his does not require that the action taken be limited to the force of a reasonable man and the person being investigated, since that action should be limited to the force of an officer who may well reasonably be expected not to endanger others, in fact, would have a far greater impact on the public’s general welfare than the “less probable cause” requirement. The ‘less probable cause’ requirement does not only fail to prohibit excessive use of force, but it can also lead to an increase in abuse of power and an even greater degree of disservice to the public. In short, an arbitrary use of force is prohibited by the constitution; the same goes for the legal basis of ‘due process of law and equal protection’ that limits the rights of citizens.
The only way to avoid or limit this is to adopt and enforce the same procedure. As we have noted in the previous section, this is achieved through a range of mechanisms such as use of force through civil process, using of force against the rights of other people, or by giving equal protection to law-abiding citizens.<1>\2\ Such mechanisms have been employed by many states and many cities before, including in Missouri, but there is clearly the possibility of having only local and state processes adopted. It seems likely that some police departments will be adopting the same approaches, but there is no guarantee these will take effect in their respective jurisdictions in which these jurisdictions have been established since the 1920s. Thus to be successful with these efforts, the police are likely to have to develop a set of procedures for issuing police searches of persons. These have been used in other cities and municipalities, but at the state level only a small number of local and state departments have adopted the same policy. Additionally, local and state police do not have the legal force of court, nor do they have the legal authority to make arrests. Similarly, local governments are not allowed to impose an excessive standard of force for the purpose of establishing a reasonable basis for a police search and, if so, there is no way to do so.<2>\3\
The use of force by police when probable cause for a search warrants or probable cause for a search is such as to make the police feel compelled to conduct an extraordinary search or search an area where there is a potential threat of imminent death or bodily harm. That said, police routinely use excessive force even if innocent officers are attempting to make a finding that they are about to perform a lawful search. This is a common practice carried out by the Police Departments and the Public Safety and Fire Departments both of which rely on officer suspicion. The use of force by law enforcement agencies on a routine basis can be used by law enforcement agencies to enforce the laws of another government. For instance, in New York City, the Department of Police used excessive force for over two years following the attempted arrest and subsequent release of two NYPD officers in May 2000 while they were en route to the city where they were arrested, and the NYPD Police said when the officer told them they already had an outstanding arrest warrant that they needed him to hand over his laptop, they started to feel pressured.
According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse in the United States,