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There are many areas of police work where discretion is exercised. Whether to lay a charge or deal with the offender personally is a major decision that police officers have to deal with on a day to day basis. The Canadian government has passed a Young Offenders Act legislation in which a police officer has reasonable grounds to believe the youthful offender has committed the offense, the officer has the right to process the juvenile informally; meaning an warning can be issued, or the officer can escort the offender back home to their parent or guardian, rather than docking charges. The Uniform Crime Report data has been used to survey the factors of police discretion with youths. Research suggests that discretion depends on the number of times a youth has been apprehended. Prior contact with police may label a youthful offender a “probable delinquent”, a record of convictions can signify a youth’s risk of being charged.
There are many variables with police discretion among youth and here are a few listed: type of offense; level of injury sustained by the victim; presence of a weapon; number of prior contacts with the police; age of the youth; sex of the youth; whether the youth was apprehended alone or with a someone else; the type of relationship the youth has with the victim; whether the youth offender and victim live together; or whether there were drugs or alcohol involved with the offense. A youth who committed arson or any kind of mischief has one of three chances of being charged, and those who are apprehended for major offenses such as murder, rape etc are sure to get charged. 84% of juveniles were arrested for burglary. This is because older youth tend to have prior contacts dealing with this matter.
The Research paper on Benefits And Problems Associated With Police Use Of Discretion
Benefits and Problems Associated with Police Use of Discretion Contemporary worlds police officers have quite enough discretionary powers and many times those powers are being questioned as to compliance with the rule of law. Walker once talking about police discretion stated: that discretion was discovered only in 1956 and that once discovered there were cries for its abolition (Kleinig, 1997: ...
Police officers implement Discretion when performing common daily duties. Since there is a wide range of police discretion and typologies, a young offenders experience with the law is more like playing the lottery. Police play an immense role in the juvenile justice system; this is because they are
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usually the first ones to make any type of contact with the young offender, in addition, police are in control of the juveniles experience during the justice process. Arresting, reporting, communication with higher intelligence operations affiliated with the department or all contributing factors in the notion of discretional powers.
Very little discretion not to charge you is exercised in incidents involving murder or attempted murder, and administrative offenses dealing with failure to appear in court, breaching probation and bail violations, and also includes drinking and driving.
Apprehended youth with five or more prior contacts with the police are more likely to be charged. The number of prior contacts with police increases with the apprehended youth’s age. The likely hood of a youth that has not had any prior contact with the police decreases by 5%, and the probability of having five or more contacts increases by 2% for twelve year olds and 15% with 16 year olds. Apprehended youth that have five or more prior contacts are more likely to have a firearm, and cause major harm to the victim, and to act alone without any peer pressure. Major injury to a victim is rare in a youth offense, but will increase the likely hood of a non discretional act by the officer. A youthful offender who commits a group crime such as theft is less likely to be charged. Group crimes by youth typically tend to be less serious than a lone act.
The Essay on Examining “Police Discretion” in America
Philosopher, Ronald Dworkin and H.L.A. Hart refers to discretion as "the hole in the doughnut" (doughnut theory of discretion). In this standpoint, discretion is the vacant area in the middle of a ring consisting of policies and procedures. To be able to make choices freely is called a strong sense of discretion. Discretion lies within the hole of the doughnut. Individualized judgments are often ...
The age of the youth plays a huge role in police discretion. A seventeen year old is twice more likely to be charged for an offense than as a twelve year old is. Higher rank and older police officers with experience are harsher with underage drinkers. Studies show that there is a variation of responses of discretion depending on the type of offense that occurred. Over 50% of cases dealing with juvenile shoplifting, police are more likely to issue a formal caution, and less than twenty percent of those cases ended up in juvenile court after arresting the offender. In cases where young offenders are accused of
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burglary, 50% of 992 cases went to court. Few were issued a warning and even less resulted in no police action. In another study 50% of police who responded to the survey indicate they would administer a warning to underage drinkers. (Now understand that I said underage age drinkers not underage drinking and driving).
What I found interesting is that out of 50 percent of officers who administer a warning to the underage drinkers, only 5% indicate that they would make arrest, especially if the juvenile is “mouthing off”. Usually the police officers discretion is influenced by the juvenile’s attitude but in this particular circumstance, and discretion is influenced by the offender’s nature of being intoxicated rather than their attitude. Police officers rank and education plays a role in the discretion of a burglary offense, and the officer’s rank, experience and age plays a discretional role in an underage drinking offense.
There are many reasons why police use discretion regarding young offenders. Suicide attempts by young offenders are prominent in jail. Over 24% of young offenders spent less than 5 minutes between the decision to kill themselves and make the attempt. The high volume of suicide attempts plays a major role in the discretion of young offenders. Also depression is a contributing factor of incarcerated youth, which leads to suicide and reflects the officer’s decision to implement police discretion. Arrest of juvenile offenders may not only lead to confinement, but also a loss of social status, restriction of educational and work experience, and also inflicts future harassment by law enforcement –personnel. The result of apprehending a juvenile can actually reinforce deviant behavior.
The Essay on Degree Of Structuring Officer Discretion
Degree of Structuring Officer Discretion. The problem of the criminality is the key problem of the social security. The main mission of the police is to protect the society and its members from the law violation. This mission of police presupposes not only purely detective measures like crime investigation, arrest of suspects and taking them to a court, but the activity aimed to prevent the crimes ...
9% of officers indicated that they use discretion to avoid “the revolving door syndrome”, 6% said they use discretion to avoid the institutionalization of the young offender in a prison or jail atmosphere, and another 9% off officers use it because there was no point in processing the charge. 17% percent of officers stated that they use discretion to build rapport with the offender. 23% of officers in small towns
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and cities stated they use discretion for rapport, compared to 12% in urban city and metropolitan departments.
Informal warnings involve a officers typically explaining the juveniles offense with his or her parent or guardian, mainly warning them that further breaking of the law will induce to apprehending the young offender. An officer giving a strong verbal warning or lecture to the offender is not unusual, in circumstances dealing with discretion. 93% of law enforcement agencies indicated that they use informal warnings with young people. The persistence of formal warning varies between agencies, it especially varies by province and territories. 91% percent of agencies considers a parents involvement with the young offender mandatory when dealing with a informal situation. A Ontario police officer states “I place a lot of weight on the parents input and it is not only getting the young offender on board, it about getting his or her parents on board as well”. If the police officer feels like the offense can be dealt with by the parent or guardian, they feel more comfortable not lying charges or apprehending the young offender. It can have a large impact on the decision making of that officer if they feel like the situation can get handled properly at home. Sometimes the best punishment is releasing the young offender to the custody of their parents. 75% of officers can law enforcement agencies indicate that they will escort a young person home, but if absolutely unavoidable they will take the offender to the police station and have the parents take control of them.
The Essay on Baby Violence Young Parents
Babies, Frustration, Anger, Death Recently in the news paper in the York area an old distance friend of mine Travis Laugh man is accused of beating his girlfriends baby Kellen Koller 2. Kellen Koller died at Hershey Medical Center. My first reaction was "I can't believe this."It can't be him!" I couldn't come to terms to hear that an old friend of mine was a murder. Many young parents have a hard ...
The use of alternative measures dealing with juveniles is another form of discretion, other than informal and formal decisions. Alternatives measures are used in less serious offenses or first offenders. Forms of alternative measures are community service, working on social skills, an apology, writing a essay or pay restitution or compensation. Discretion is a distinct commonality among law enforcement officers, local, state, or federal.
