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Essay / Police Discretion Essay - 940
This research proposal seeks to establish the level of police discretion used on duty. It aims to understand when it is appropriate for the police to use their discretion and to provide reasons for abusing their decisions. It focuses on issues related to police discretion and maintaining ethical accountability, such as racial profiling, socioeconomic status, and excessive force. Although police discretion can have positive factors, it is also difficult to determine whether it is fair for police to make a decision in certain situations. Police officers are judged excessively on the use of their discretion. Depending on the situation, it can be difficult to determine whether an officer is abusing their discretion without detection. This is a concern. Their proposed study focuses on citizens' opinions on the degree of discretion granted to police in conducting criminal investigations. They believe that this study can be useful since discretion is a necessary but difficult aspect of police work since discretion is part of the system granted to police officers, judges and prosecutors. Cihan and Wells (2011) wanted to study public opinion on the idea of giving individuals involved in the criminal justice system the ability to make decisions using several variables such as victimization attitudes towards rights minority civilians, arrest experiences, and race. Based on their data collected from 1,300 American households, almost half of the participants believe that police have some latitude in conducting criminal investigations. However, these results may vary if they survey individuals based on race, age, and socioeconomic status, as well as combining other variables such as traffic violations rather than variables surrounding fear of crime with the police. However, Finckenaruer (1976) used a series of common incidents such as gambling, drinking, etc. He used situations that were vague and did not require a plan of action to see if it influenced police discretion based on aspects of his own description. Its goal is to discover whether police officers impose their own justice, established from their judgment influenced by experience or street wisdom, versus the community's expectations of appropriate police discretion. It used 209 participants who were all police recruits undergoing basic training at one of New Jersey's police training academies. Fickenaruer (1976) found that the use of discretion appears to result from street wisdom where stereotypes are produced and learned by police officers from their field experience.