Controversy Assignment #2

Garrett Franks

University of Houston Downtown

Introduction

Police discretion is defined as the decision making power that is specifically afforded to

the different police officials which permits them to take up the decision whether they wish to

pursue the police procedure in punishing the criminals or they just wish to let things go off with a

simple warning. Also, police discretion allows police officials to have the experience as to how

they would feel when practicing in a different situation. Also, police discretion can be defined as

the decision take to perform or act or not to act depending on the police officers judgment made

regarding the best course of action that is or has already been taken in any particular situation.

Usually, the discretionary decisions are made based on the officers experience, training

the ideology or knowledge that he or she holds. This might also include some situational factors

like types of crimes, size, damage or harm caused to victims. Not just this, at times the

demographic factors are also taken into consideration that like form example gender, race,

ethnicity as well as the communal position of the individual, this is done basically holding some

situational consideration like knowledge of suspect and personal relationship (Mallicoat, 2017).

The second controversy topic chosen is Does Police Discretion Help or Harm Our Criminal

Justice System?. I have chosen this controversial topic to illustrate the fact that discretion is the

realm of policing and this can both be advantageous and risky. Often discretion seems to take

place in the form of biased policing and irrespective of appropriate oversight, police discretion

can break havoc within communities.

Overview of two sides of the Controversy

When discussing criminal justice discretion, several times situations have developed

when conversation initiated with the focus on police. There are many people on one side who
argue that professional command is delivered by police just in order to maintain order and keep

up harmony by enforcing legal rules to order maintenance. On the other side, there are people

who just speculate that enforcing regulations are dominant enough in a police officers job. This

is regardless of which view the individual has subscribed to because each version of policing

holds a very credible amount of discretion interlinked with it.

From my personal standpoint, I believe that positive side of the argument is much more

compelling in comparison to the negative side that is illustrated because all point illustrated in

the positive context seems quite logical and illustrate a proper ideology about the concept of

police discretion. The reason why I find the positive side fascinating enough is that positive

impact of police discretion is comparatively more than its negative impact. Like, Police

discretion provides the police officers with the ability or option to deal with different

community-level issues informally and help the citizens to work through numerous disputes in

order to work on informal resolutions which would prove best for all the parties involved, but it

must be ascertained that this has to be done without swamping the overburdened criminal justice

system (Mallicoat, 2017). At times, the community level official seems to better suit in handling

community-level issues without guiding all issues lawfully into the judiciary system. At times

lack of police discretion results in having a zero tolerance policy for all types of infractions.

Further, discretions permit the officers to deliver a stern warning and counsel a speeding

driver to gradually decrease down, irrespective of the officer receiving a ticket, because this

comes up with additional judiciary cost and a kind of economic hit on the drivers driving

license.
 Police use discretion as supplementary with the order maintenance role that is performed

by the police.

Further, it is necessary to say that police discretion is a technique utilized when mediating

disputes instead of making any kind of arrest or referring other individuals to different communal

service providing agencies instead of bringing them to criminal justice system. Another reason

for which I fascinate more on the positive side of police discretion is because it brings into view

very true and practical facts like for example, the use of discretion can only be seen when a

police officer selects to commit an individual with rational illness to a health facility rather than

imprisoning that individuals to deliver healthy facility, rather than just imprisoning the person

from unsystematic demeanor. Police officers quite often are made obligatory to make flexible

decisions because many there exist several criminal laws which are written quite broadly. Many

a time, lack of specificity seems to exist in several scenarios, but this develops numerous

elucidations and thus helps in flexible decision-making by the police officers. Another reason

why I find the positive side of police discretion more compelling is that it can create more

modifications in the police practice (Mallicoat, 2017).

Discretionary decisions are usually based on the officers experience, training,

philosophy, and knowledge, as well as situational factors such as the type of crime, size and

number of suspects, and damage done or injury to victims. Other factors may come into play,

such as demographic considerations like gender, race, ethnicity, and social status and situational

considerations like knowledge of suspect or victim and personal relationships.

Discretion cannot only be left defined as a useful mechanism for officials who are

effectively doing jobs; on the other hand, it serves as the crutch or a supporting tool that permits
police executives to intrude upon legal rules, laws as well as civil liberties. Its an absolutely true

fact that discretion permits police officers to utilize their power appropriately for reducing street-

level annoyances. On the other aspect, it permits the officials to make use of various

discriminatory practices against individuals on the basis of various extrajudicial factors like race,

gender or class. Research illustrates that police officials do have ample opportunities, especially

for misconduct, whereas on the patrol, basically because of the existence of the large-scale

professional preference and the capability of street-level officers to take up decisions in the

absence of undeviating administration. Various pragmatic researchers seem to deliver a huge

amount of overwhelming support based on the idea that police officers usually have a great deal

of discretion in how they deal with an individuals department and that can only be influenced by

both judiciaries as well as extra-legal criteria. This usually encourages the results of all police-

citizen happenstances. It allows police officers to perform or execute their task in a just manner

within a given situation and it is wise enough to them if they chose to take up discretion because

it helps them in deciding where they should put emphasis upon (Mallicoat, 2017).

Last, but not the least, I support the state police discretion seems to take place in the form

of biased policing and without appropriate oversight, it can severely inflict upon marginalized

communities. Thus, it is clear that where discretion exists there are high chances of

discriminatory practices as well as predisposed supervising. Thus, it is clear from every context

that without police discretion we individuals actually run the jeopardy of moving towards a

situation in which zero-tolerance policing is the ultimate result.

Conclusion
 Hereby, I would like to conclude that police discretion entirely exhibits itself as a form of

racial profiling from the aspects of police officials. According to reports published by American

civil liberties Union (ACLU) of 2014, police officers are often noticed to involve themselves in

prevalent but culturally biased stop-and-frisk practices, usual people of color at far greater rates

than white individuals. Just because police are considered as individuals who act as gatekeepers

for the entire criminal justice system, the use of discretion in such perspective would be

sweeping and its profound impacts can be determined in later parts of the criminal justice

system. While supporting the positive impacts of police discretion, I would lastly like to state

that unlike other things, overuse of police discretion in dealing with individuals is a major cause

of disparity that exists amid the criminal justice system. Although administering laws seems

dominant in a police officers job, regardless of the view it has been subscribed to each and every

version of policing seems to hold an incredible amount of discretion interlinked with it

(Mallicoat, 2017).

Hereby, I declare that as empirical research seems to convey some kind of overwhelming

support based on the chosen controversy statement, and those do not hold much sturdy evidence

as to why police discretion is not considered fair, I support the statement that a police discretion

is a fair practice.
 Reference

Mallicoat, S. (2017). Crime and criminal justice (pg-197).