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Views on Police Discretion
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Views on Police Discretion
The freedom to make certain decisions while observing the constraints of the law depending on a current situation is what makes a police officer effective. According to McCartney & Parent (2012), discretion is a necessary tool in police work. Discretion allows officers to gauge the best situations when they can make an arrest, assist someone, draw a weapon or even shoot a bullet all depending on positive outcomes.
If police officers were not allowed to use discretion, then there would be too many arrests made for the tiniest of things done that are against the law. A person could be smoking at a no smoking zone because they did not see the no smoking zone sign. If arrested, the person would waste resources that could be used to solve serious cases. Discretion would allow the arresting officer to warn the person and inform them to watch for smoking or no smoking signs in the future to avoid breaking the law again.
However, it is prudent to realize that sometimes officers may use discretion for the wrong reasons. Such occurs when they hide evidence, lie and manipulate to get suspects to cooperate, use force to extract information and other related cases. I do not think that officers have too much discretion but rather the fact that their supervisors do not pay attention to the quality of work that the officers do. This leaves room for the officers to stretch the limi…