Police Discretion

1
Police Discretion

• Jerome Skolnik

2
Visibility of Police Discretion

• What is police discretion?
• Discretion relates to police decision making
  within the law.
• Should we be overly concerned about discretion
  outside the law?
• How do we know when the police are using
  discretion or just doing what they want?

3
Types of Discretion

• Delegated
• Unauthorized

4
Two Types of Delegated Discretion

• Policy determines how a law is to be enforced.
• Police can digress from the law, but not from the
  policy
• Police can determine for themselves how to handle
  specific situations

5
Criteria for Discretion

• When should discretion be used?
• What conditions must be present before discretion
  is authorized?
• What guidelines should a police officer keep in
  mind when using discretion?

6
Inevitable Discretion

• Policy fails
• The law is not applicable in the given situation
• Every situation cannot be explicitly covered by
  the law or policy
• Lack of discretion would also promote
  inflexibility it the system

7
Mechanical Justice

• Why do attempts to have rigid rules fail?

8
Real Life

• Skolniks example of real life parking tickets
  demonstrates the inevitably of discretion
• Can you think of a real life example?

9
What Does This Means?

• Because discretion is inevitable, does this mean
  that discretion should be encouraged?
• Give an Example