Question

Police officers are required to make split-second decisions that may be a life or death decision. Why is it important for police officers to use discretion?

What types of instances may discretion be used? please explain in detail.

Answer 1

• Discretion means, in this context, being able to make decisions based on the individual circumstances.
  If officers do not have discretionary decision-making powers, they can’t let a guy off with a warning at a traffic stop.
• Discretion also gives police the ability to take alternative action with some minor matters such as public disorder offences. When circumstances surrounding offences are taken into account, discretion can and should be considered in many of these cases.
• To explain some of the issues surrounding public order offences let's consider this scenario. A young male is in town with some friends. He has recently come "of age" and is quite intoxicated by alcohol. As often happens with young males, the alcohol causes him to lose inhibition and he gets a bit noisy, possibly a bit aggressive and is bringing attention to himself with both other members of the public as well as Police. He is seen by Police and taken aside. He is cooperative with the officers and subsequent checks revealed that the young man has not come to police attention before but is far to intoxicated to remain in the current situation.
• At this point the officer has two options, Either arrest him and make him sleep it off in the cells, possibly leaving him with a criminal record, or they could put him in a taxi and get him home, leaving him with nothing more then a hangover and a bit of a wake up call for his behaviour.
• Research has suggested that Police are more likely to use discretion a lot less often in situations like these. According to Edwards (1998), Police officers have greater freedom with public offences in that they are often the witnesses and sole evidence suppliers. This means that, while others who are drinking alcohol in town may not be offended or simply don't care about the young man's behaviour or they don't see the behaviour of an individual as disorderly, a police officer may see otherwise. The subjective view of the officer will come into play and the offender will likely be arrested.
• Police discretion is a constant consideration within Police services. It is seen by many to be both an essential part of policing as well as a constant source of issues. Issues such as the potential for racism, sexism and socialism are ever-present in everyday policing.
• The ability for Police to use discretion has a lot of positive aspects. According to Reiner (2000), the lack of resources in some situations mean that not every infringement on the law will be enforced and that even if the relevant law was precise there would still be variations in the interpretation. This makes discretion an important and inevitable part of modern policing.
• Family violence situations often fall prey to relaxed decision making with regard to using discretion. Often times when police were called to such an incident it was commonly thought to be someone else's responsibility and not "real" police work.
• Most domestic violence callouts are a result of the victim or a witness calling police instead of Police actively seeking and patrolling. This is the reason that this type of crime generally goes under policed as opposed to more commonly found crimes such as street disorder and traffic related matters. Edwards (1989) also says that Police will often not make an arrest in a Domestic violence matter regardless of the facts that it may be warranted and prudent in the situation.