Research Paper on:
Police Discretion

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
below. Citation styles constantly change, and these examples may not contain the most recent updates.?? Police Discretion Research Compiled By Kathie  Easter - properly! What is police discretion? When police officers use "their judgment in deciding  which offenses to punish and which to ignore, they are said to be using discretion" (Gaines and Miller, 2009, p. 155). For example, it is not even feasible for a  highway patrol officer to ticket every driver who exceeds the posted speed limit. Officers must use their judgment and make a discretionary decision concerning which drivers who have exceeded the  posted speech limit to pursue and ticket. How discretionary power is expressed varies with the area of law enforcement in which the officers is engaged. For example, a vice-squad plainclothes  officer may decide not to pursue action against a tavern where the officer has observed serving alcoholic beverages after hours or a patrol officer may decide between arresting an individual  for disorderly conduct, or simply escorting an inebriated individual home (Siegel, 2010). As this suggests, police officers have a broad degree of freedom in regards to the decisions  they make concerning how to act within the boundaries of any given situation (Banks, 2009). Is police discretion ethically wrong or useful? It is ironic that patrol officers, who  are frequently the lowest paid, most junior officers in a police department and have the lowest degree of authority, have the greatest degree of discretionary power (Gaines and Miller, 2009).  This is partially due to the fact that giving officers this power is highly useful and practical, as these officers spend the majority of their day "on the street, beyond