Essay - Police Discretion the Execution of Discretion in Judgment Among Police...

Police Discretion

The execution of discretion in judgment among police officers has been studied for decades (De Lint, 1998). Before the 1960's,

For some three decades now it ***** been established knowledge that police officers use ***** (De Lint, 1998). Through the *****, officers were expected to use "common sense," with little attention paid to analyzing situations where discretion was called for or ***** applying specific training to improve the kinds of judgments made in such situations. Obviously, ***** will have to use discretion, but one response to the problem ***** *****ary judgments, some of which led ***** clear abuses of police power, was to make the training of police officers more academic. The assumption ***** that better-educated people make better judgments. However, research on the outcome of this approach showed marginal improvement at best (***** Lint, 1998). While no one is opposed to having well-educ*****ed police *****ficers, ***** other approach is to provide structured ***** in d*****cretionary decision-making. Thus, today's police officers have much ***** specific training on when to fire their weapons and how much force to use ***** arresting a suspect. This in turn has reduced incidents that would be considered abusive by today's standards. Situations ***** as the beating of Rodney King stand out because virtually everyone today agrees that no more force should be used than necessary to subdue an arrest subject.

*****re is a mythic ********** to the issue of what police *****ficers ***** and should not do in ***** ***** of their duties. Officers shared tips among themselves, and maintained a code of silence regarding lapses of ***** within their ranks. The "blue culture" remains a problem when investigating instances where an ********** execution of individual judgment may not have been optimal. In addition, the public holds varying views of ***** ***** and the actions they take. Generally speaking conservatives tend to have ***** faith in police ***** the choices they *****, and ***** to support policies that give them the greatest amount of discretion, even though that may lead to excesses (Wu, 2004); while liberals, as a generality, tend ***** distrust ***** more, want more restrictions on what they can ***** can***** do, and sometimes see even ***** police ***** as coercive (*****, 2004). All of this makes an atmosphere that leaves our police force wondering what they ***** do, ***** when, and under what circumstances.

The best solution for police ********** ***** be "judgment drills," (Kelly, 2003), ***** *****ficers consider the set of facts in hypo*****tical circumstances, consider what actions they might take, and discuss and consider the ramifications ***** each choice. These drills should ***** conducted both with students and as refreshers for ***** officers.

***** unrealistic to think that police officers ***** never exercise personal judgment, or *****. Even if it were possible ***** determine all possible circumstances, ***** all possible cond*****ions, no human being could study them all ahead of time, mem*****ize the "right" response based on each variable, and then execute the "one ***** answer," sometimes *****