Discretionary Authority

Discretionary Authority

Introduction

Crime is a disease that is consuming our society and growing exponentially. It is corrupting the mind of people and leading them into actions that disrupt peace and cause harm not only to them but also to people around them and the environment. Criminal activities can be in many different forms such as fraud, murder, rape, smuggling, robbery, assault and deception (Felson, 1998). To ensure peace and harmony in the world, man has set some rules and laws to prevent people from committing criminal activities. These laws are applicable to every human being, regardless of his stature or background. The governments and law enforcement authorities ensure that these laws are not broken and in case a person breaks any of these laws and commits a crime, there is a punishment attached to that crime, depending upon the level of the crime (Miller, 2012).

However, there is dissimilarity between the administration and ministration of justice. No one is looking for an agency that provides justice and religiously follows each regulation and rule to its letter spirit in an assembly-line, recurring, and mechanistic way. Instead, they want accountable administering officers who exercises discretion and good judgment through analyzing the background of each condition. As per definition, discretion is the making of choices among a number of possible courses of action (Davis, 1969). This definition is a modified version of what Kenneth Culp Davis actually interpreted as "free to make choices".

Inefficiency, Discretion and Uncertainty are essential as well as rampant in criminal justice. No one is expected to achieve perfection. It is a generous occasion where fair performance is more vital than winning. Law endorsement, administration and enforcement all occupy adapting the likelihood of best possible options for protection against the worst scenarios. Providing police service is the most observable element, workforce on the lower level has to face more decisions based on judgment than workforce on the upper level. It can be termed as symbolic bureaucracy (Manning, 1977).

An officer encounters several situations during the field which are not purely covered by the Law. They encounter a variety of situations and a wide range of behaviors that still are not considered by the law. Most incredible thing about these people is not how many they hold, but how many they do not hold (non arrest option, under reaction or lenience). Also, task of policing is unsafe, and policemen often consider non crucial circumstances more crucial than reality (deadly force, over reaction, over-zealous, brutality) (Miller, 2012).

Discussion

In case, police officers administer abusive use of their discretionary powers. Then it would result in a situation of chaos and in the form of more civilized crime. Imbalance occurs in the overall law and order situation in a community. People start following such practices with which they can play with law. Level of trust will decrease from law enforcing agencies and rate of crime would increase and committing crime will be considered commendable (Miller, 2012). Sometimes police officers engage in such situations that are not written ...