Policing
- Discretion
This is the ability to decide on what ought to be done in some specific situations. This involves the feature of speaking in a way that helps to avoid causing an offence as well as revealing private details of other people (Cole et al 2008). Discretion can be viewed negatively or positively depending on different people. It is used by all levels of criminal justice system including the police officers. Police officers therefore use it to make a decision on whether to arrest or to file charges when enforcing law. Police officers use this conduct to make things easier on their very difficult job requirements and use it also to identify specific individual priorities that each and every police officer has to eliminate the broad as well as contradicting laws that are established by policy makers (Dempsey et al 2013). In most cases police officers are faced with different situations that require to be handled differently and this is where discretion is used.
An example of a crucial situation in which the police officer uses discretion is where an officer might be in patrol n an environment where there is high rate of drug trafficking. At that same time he receives a service call that there is an armed robbery in a bank and the suspect is on foot. In following the suspect, he identifies that he has a gun. The suspect attacks a passer- by along the way and it becomes so crucial that the police officer has to use his discretion so as to make a decision on whether to make an intervention that involves him to draw out his weapon or else to call for back-up for assistance. Using discretion he draws his weapon and orders the suspect to freeze and he makes his arrest.
Cynicism refers to the mistrust of human nature and intentions where man is believed to act mainly according to self interest. This can affect police officers productivity, Influence on the morale of their fellow colleagues and the society relation. This affects the officers in their line of service and with time they lose respect for law and community and their self esteem as they are faced with reality (Barkan et al 2013). As they are bitterer of the reality of things, they nurture their hatreds to the public and therefore end up becoming victims of cynicism. This therefore results to the development of poor relationship between the police officers and the public. This is because the public think of police officers as people who are affected by cynicism hence act in accordance to their self interest.
- Deadly force
This is referred to as the use of a certain level of force that a police officer may use that may cause considerable risks such as death and body injury. This is only justified when other lesser forces have been used with no success especially under extreme circumstances. Some of the situations where this deadly force is permitted include cases where the offence is quite severe such that the suspect poses a greater threat. In this case the suspect runs way and totally refuses to be arrested, and then deadly force can be permitted in this case. Another case where use of deadly force is permitted is when the police officer shoots at the suspect while undertaking self defense against a misdemeanor case. Felony cases permit an officer to use all the available forces even if it means killing the suspect in question (Belur 2010).
However deadly force is not permissible to all cases for instance while protecting or defending a property from being interfered with by someone else even when these interferences are unlawful and there exist no other way to control this interference, one is not allowed to use deadly force. Police officers should not use deadly force in cases where their action is viewed to endanger the lives of the innocent bystanders and passers-by (Belur 2010).
Ambiguity is quite realized by police officers in their daily routine especially in situations that require deadly force. They are regarded as ambiguous since they raise confusion in police officers as they are unsure whether to draw their weapons or to shoot and within this short span some other innocent officers and passersby may be killed by the suspect (Belur 2010). This occurs when the officer has to fight the stress within so as to come up with a final decision that will be safeguard him and others. With this kind of stress the police officer may be triggered to be anxious and thus increasing his heart rate that may affect their judgment at that time. Unpreparedness also causes ambiguity as the police officers are faced with emergency cases where they have no other option of force to use rather than the deadly force.
In conclusion, it is important to note that policing is important in the society and hence proper procedure ought to b e used while making arrests or in using force to ensure that they protect the society from criminal activities. Law should be used to those police officers who violate these standards of using the deadly force that are unjustifiable by law.
References
Barkan, S. E., & Bryjak, G. J. (2011). Fundamentals of criminal justice: A sociological view. Sudbury, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning.
Belur, J. (2010). Permission to shoot?: Police use of deadly force in democracies. New York: Springer.
Cole, G. F., & Smith, C. E. (2008). Criminal justice in America. Belmont, CA: Thomson/Wadsworth.
Dempsey, J. S., & Forst, L. S. (2013). An introduction to policing. Albany, N.Y: Delmar.
