Discretion provides freedom to make decisions, specifically it is the power to make decisions on issues within legal guidelines. kid gloves. While capital punishment is quite a step separate from punishments handed out for theft of a loaf of bread, that these two examples help to illuminate how discretion can be used in a way that improves society, as well as acts as a detriment. Some people can commit blatant crimes without consequence due to this disadvantage. Discretion is defined as the right of someone to make choices or the quality of someone who is careful about what they do or say. You can get a custom paper by one of our expert writers. The Evidence Act . In Bowers 1983 article, he provides a different picture of discretion. From beginning of the 19th century to nowadays, Napoleon codified a . It is not unusual for an official to be performing their work alone, so situations can arise when this topic can come into play. Law enforcement behavior is monitored and evaluated by almost every citizen. Thats why it is up to the general public to be observant of their surroundings at all times. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Discretion exists at every level of the criminal justice system. Criminal cases are brought by the government through the criminal justice system. Change), You are commenting using your Twitter account. Again, we refer to our earlier example of a thief of bread and diapers. It also allows the police officer to quickly interpret the applicable statutory law and then act upon the determination. whether to issue a traffic ticket or other violation. For example the police come across two young girls in a park smoking marijuana. Get your custom essay on, Discretion in the Criminal Justice System , Get to Know The Price Estimate For Your Paper, "You must agree to out terms of services and privacy policy". Choosing to engage will place anyone in the way at a greater risk of harm since the suspect and officers may go through intersections or drive in unauthorized areas. Decision making in criminal justice: Toward the rational exercise of discretion. In addition, many decisions are heavily influenced by the internal values, goals, and purposes of the various units within the system. The Department awards $6000 annually, up to a lifetime maximum of $60,000. It is extremely important for a police officer to make the decision of introducing a juvenile to the justice system. In the context of policing, discretion means that officers are given some leeway on which they can rely as they make choices that impact the people they are policing. That means police discretion does an excellent job of streamlining our criminal justice system when it is correctly applied. Click to reveal Discretion or prudence is the power or directly to choose or act as per ones own judgment in the criminal equity framework. Clearly, University of Cincinnati police officer Ray Tensing didn't use discretion. It is useful as a tool to be proactive in jurisdictional issues, creating initiatives, or working with the average person on the street. Police officers often act as a gatekeeper to the juvenile justice system in the developed world. Indigenous Australians are being unfairly sentenced for their crimes because of the racist and prejudicial views held by some members of the judicial system, research led by the University of . Cloudflare Ray ID: 7a14eff5c9562bab To additionally muddle matters, inside policing explicitly, sergeants have an expanded job in organization, which has restricted their capacity to give supervision in the city. In my opinion, depending on the severity of the crime discretion should or should not be used. tact, tactfulness, diplomacy, delicacy, sensitivity, subtlety, consideration, prudence, judiciousness, judgement, discrimination, sense, good sense, common sense. Workplace discrimination is another type of occupational offense. Discretion involves the power of Judges and magistrates to determine the most appropriate sentence for a case. 2 : the quality of having or showing discernment or good judgment : the quality of being discreet : circumspection especially : cautious reserve in speech. Snow, William & Briar, Katharine. Discretion. Additional materials, such as the best quotations, synonyms and word definitions to make your writing easier are also offered here. In the case of sentencing, disparity involves the application of different punishments to cases that appear to be identical on the merits, or alternatively, the application of same punishment to cases that appear different. Discretion is defined as the right of someone to make choices or the quality of someone who is careful about what they do or say. The power of the street-level bureaucrat in public service bureaucracies. Discretion is (in the minds of many) a necessary feature of the criminal justice system because not all crimes and not all criminals are exactly alike. 1-45). Cloudflare Ray ID: 7a14efeb6bc31cd4 When police discretion gets abused at local precincts, it can result in softer law enforcement mechanisms. If a criminal matter occurs, then a persons observations can encourage them to stay out of the situation as best as possible. 6. Street level bureaucrats are defined as: public service workers who interact directly with citizens in the course of their jobs and who have substantial discretion in the execution of their work (Lipskey, 1980). All rights reserved. While do further reading, I had reasons do doubt why discretion may become problematic in some cases. This principle allows an officer to pick and choose their enforcement opportunities. Disparities can be the product of biases in the exercise of discretion by system actors, including police officers, prosecutors . For example, discretion should be used for a first time offender for speeding but should not be used for a first time offender of rape. An updated version of the chart can be found on the Bureau of Justice Statistics website. Such structures are governed by formal rules which tend to be informally implemented. maintaining an ethical lifestyle outside of work. Discretion is available for offenders of all ages. The judge is in a position with the most knowledge of the law and the situation, so they have a unique opportunity to decide on the sentencing. Discretional decision making is the power or the right to decide on the particular issue using reason and judgment among the many available alternatives. The use of police discretion can put the public at risk. Again, we can look to Prottas (1978) for illumination here. In a law enforcement context, discretion only concerns decisions that are made in a legal setting. The initial stage in which discretion is applied in the system of criminal justice is where police officers make a decision on whether a suspect should be arrested for a particular offense or not. As a result, the objective ideal gives way to individual personal judgment, both in a collective sense and in an organizational sense. 4. Disparity in this framework takes on a different meaning, and refers instead to the fact that individuals with a given characteristic are over- (or under-) represented in the criminal justice system relative to their representation either in the population or in the commission of a type of crime. When police officers perform their official duties, then there is a particular level of discretion they must use when interacting with the public. It infers that the person who acts in an egotistical manner does so because it is natural to act in this way, and therefore . Another reason that the American criminal justice system finds itself so pervaded with discretion is due to the contingent nature of the issues that those within the system often find themselves in. Teplin (2000) discusses this, explicating on the discretionary role that police have in whether to hospitalize, arrest or otherwise deal with mentally ill individuals that they encounter. the authority to decide. State Dependence and Population Heterogeneity in Theories Technology and the Criminal Justice System, Terrorism, Criminological Explanations for, US War on Terrorism, Legal Perspectives on the. Discretion refers to an official action that is taken by a criminal justice official i.e. Indeterminate sentencing is a system of sentencing in which a legislature establishes maximum and minimum terms for each crime and a judge makes a discretionary decision as to what the maximum and minimum sentences should be for each convicted offender. 15.147162.10.1080/10509674.1990.9963957. (2018, Sep 23). Prosecutorial discretion also allows prosecutors to secure the cooperation of witness defendants by allowing them to offer reduced sentences or charges in exchange for testimony against another defendant. This framework crystallizes the importance of rules in the empirical analysis of discretion. To begin this piece, Rosett quotes: If every policeman, every prosecutor, every court, and every post-sentence agency performed his or its responsibility in strict accordance with rules of law, precisely and narrowly laid down, the criminal law would be ordered but intolerable. Keeping the Peace: Police Discretion and Mentally Ill Persons. Because of the definition of police discretion, these issues can get written off without a beneficial outcome. An example of discretion is the ability of a juror to determine a verdict. They describe the CJS as a complicated set of interdependent actors who act on cases involving individuals accused of crimes. Discretion has been instrumental in delivering policing and is integral to policework and police identity. It can lead to soft law enforcement mechanisms. Being autonomous in these situations and away from immediate access to supervision creates an inherent and often immediate need for discretion to be employed by these workers. For crimes such as rape, murder, sexual assault, arson and the like, I do not believe that discretion is appropriate. Detectives can use police discretion as a way to allocate resources to specific activities. It plays a key role in multiple processes, including the investigation, bail, trial and in sentencing. It can be an invitation for cronyism. Prosecutors can choose not to prosecute a crime for which someone is arrested. Discretion plays an indispensable role in the criminal justice system (CJS). This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks. Don't use plagiarized sources. Theft is an easy enough example for us to use; the classic example of a single mother, currently unemployed, stealing diapers and bread in order to care for her children is rather different than petty theft by a college student, from the same store (and even, perhaps, of the same items, given the pettiness), for no reason other than that they wanted to. Discretion refers to an official action that is taken by a criminal justice official i.e. Judicial discretion plays a pivotal role in the sentencing process. As an elected or appointed official, the prosecutor is the most powerful official in the criminal justice system. Employees may also be victims of fraud, which includes deception and making false statements in order to obtain something of value. 7. Punitiveness is not something that I believe in as a generality, but when something so heinous as rape is committed, the room for discretion flies out the window. At last, this does not take into consideration close supervision of junior officers who are compelled to practice their circumspection frequently without the advantage of the shrewdness of experienced chiefs. It is up to each official to balance the rights of individual suspects with the needs of the overall community. In my opinion, judges should have more discretion in sentencing. Some argue this discretion can be a source of disparities within the criminal justice system. 2 : the quality of having or showing discernment or good judgment : the quality of being discreet : circumspection especially : cautious reserve in speech. Rawls (1971, p.71), in his seminal theory on justice, observes that "the principle of efficiency cannot serve alone as a conception of justice.". Type your requirements and Ill connect you to Discretionary power within the criminal justice system can be a rather powerful force for good. In an effort to explain this pattern, Levine returned to the tapes of his Trivia Experiment participants. In theory, the criminal justice official considers the totality of circumstances before determining whether or not legal action . You may use it as a guide or sample for Discretion is available for offenders of all ages. Palermo, G. B., Gumz, E. J., & Liska, F. J. While using prudence, the individuals who work in the criminal equity framework regularly result in the casual equity process. Police discretion can sometimes cause law enforcement officers and the general public to believe that unlimited authority exists in the application of statutory or common law. Discretion allows an officer to determine what charges to file against suspects. Vol. Diversion of a juvenile offender away from the criminal justice system to community support services is the optimal response to the problem of juvenile crime. Collateral Consequences of Felony Conviction and Imprisonm Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children, Communicating Scientific Findings in the Courtroom, CompStat Models of Police Performance Management, Crime Prevention, Voluntary Organizations and, Criminal Justice System, Discretion in the. Well occasionally send you promo and account related email. 1992. That means police discretion does an excellent job of streamlining our criminal justice system when it is correctly applied. Discretion is the latitude granted officials to act under a formal set of rules and in a public capacity. That means each officer has the flexibility to handle a situation in the manner that they feel best meets the needs of the individual and their overall community. Another reason that discretion finds itself so intractable within the American criminal justice system is due to the increasing interconnected nature of the American criminal justice system and mental health treatment; in many ways, jails have become the de-facto mental health system for many Americans (Johnson, 1984; Snow & Briar, 1990; Palermo et al., 1992). Ch 1. The public service paradigm is predominant in Europe. We apprehend, try, and punish offenders by means of a loose confederation of agencies at all levels of government. 1 an insufficiency, shortage, or absence of something required or desired. Accountability requires discretion. 4. Police officers often act as a gatekeeper to the juvenile justice system in the developed world. Central to the criminal process is the exercise of by police officers, prosecutors, defence Change), You are commenting using your Facebook account.