Police Discretion and the Use of Force Essay -- Socia Issues, Discrimi

Discretion is define as the authority to make a decision between two or more than choices (Pollock, 2010). More specifically, it is defined as the capacity to identify and to document criminal and noncriminal events (Boivin & Cordeau, 2011). Every police force officeholder has a great deal of discretion concerning when to use their authority, power, persuasion, or force. Depending on how an incumbent chaffers their duty to society will determine an military incumbents discretion. Discretion leads to selective enforcement practices and may result in contrast against certain groups of people or select individuals (Young, 2011). Most police officer discretion is exercised in situations with individuals (Sherman, 1984). Discrimination can lead to legal problems for an officer of the fairness. If discrimination due to an officers use of discretion results in a violation of due process it is a violation of the law (Young, 2010). Due process is the constitutio nally mandated procedural steps designed to authorize error in any governmental deprivation of liberty, life, or blank space (Pollock, 2010). One of the main concerns with using discretion is the possibility of it leading to a violation of due process by racial profiling. Types of Negative legal philosophy DiscretionRacial profiling occurs when a police officer uses a profile as reasonable suspicion to stop a somebody with the intent to obtain consent to search their belongings (Pollock, 2010). These stops ar usually traffic stops and the officer is looking to obtain consent to search the individuals automobile. The profile used is based on race. In these cases, an officer is using their discretion to target minority groups because they opine they are involved in criminal activities... ...rsation among questioners. The problem I see with the issuance of conversation is there is not a lot of enquiry done on the actual affects of the individual discretion of each officer compared to a department that has been educated in following policies more than face-to-face discretion. In fact, from what I saw there is not much research on the effects of discretion at all. It seems like it is a topic that is overlooked when researching the effectiveness of a department. I feel like in front more solutions are found on how to make the problem of discretion, more research needs to be done on how discretion plays a role in every day policing. Until this research is conducted, all the articles publish are on theories of discretion causing problems, and all of the solutions mentioned are methods to correct a problem that has not even been proven to be an recognize yet.