The Police Discretion And Criminal Justice System Essay

Reforming the Police Discretion Criminal justice system has three main subsystems: police, courts and corrections. Each subsystem has its particular duties, but they work together to meet the goals: doing justice, controlling crime and preventing crime (Cole, Smith, DeJong, 2015). Although this system had been built for a long time ago, continuously, some of its policies need to be reconsidered and reformed to suit the society with various situations. One of the characteristics that exercised by different levels in the criminal justice system, from police to correctional officials, is discretion. This characteristic also receives both supports and oppositions. In this paper, I will focus on an aspect of discretion in police. I believe that police discretion is very important, hence, it needs to be reformed by expanding its level. Police discretion is a freedom in decision-making, allows a police to judge, decide and treat an individual case without strictly following the rules or la ws. Police discretion is influenced by five factors: the nature of crime, the relationship between the alleged criminal and the victim, the relationship between the police and the criminal or the victim, race/ethnicity, age, gender, class, and departmental policy (Cole, Smith, DeJong, 2015)/ (subsequent citations: (Cole et al., 2015) . In the first factor, a police pays more attention to serious crime or areas with high rate of crimes, and vice versa. In the second factor, a police appliesShow MoreRelatedPolice Discretion And The Criminal Justice System Essay2078 Words   |  9 Pages Police discretion is widely considered a vague term that has an appropriately vague definition. 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