Discretion on the Beat: Working in the Best Interests of the Community
The mandate to "protect and serve" is translated in a number of different ways across the country, but in many jurisdictions, community-oriented policing methods are replacing the traditional beat police approach and this shift has had an effect on how altercations and incidents are resolved at the local level. The level of discretion that is available to police officers on the street varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, of course, but there has been an expansion of the concept in recent years that has also affected the administration of law enforcement across the country. For instance, according to Skogan and Hartnett (1999), "Historically, police discretion was misused in many of the situations that officers are now being asked to handle flexibly, creatively and without firm guidance from the laws of criminal procedure" (p. 13).
Although every situation will be unique in some fashion, there are some common factors that should be taken into...
This alternative essentially redistributes some of the power within the department in order to facilitate more successful service in individual communities. This clearly makes discretion appropriate based on the individual needs of the community. Police Chiefs need to develop "new concepts to better satisfy the demands and needs of the citizens they serve," and as such, may have to use discretion in how the approach and interact with unique
Limits to Police Discretion Just as every law environment situation is unique, so too are the police officers that make the decisions concerning how these situations will be resolved. Some police officers appear to have a natural-born knack for knowing how to amicably resolve even seemingly intractable disputes while others routinely incarcerate their suspects with little or no effort made to determine if alternative dispositions might have been more appropriate.
In "Song of Myself," the longest and most complex of the three poems from Leaves of Grass, Whitman celebrates not only the self, but also the self with, and among others. This poem has 52 separate sections, each of them uniquely rich in imagery; theme; setting; sensory impressions, and sensuality. Section 1 of the poem, for example, freely celebrates Whitman's "Self": his essence, health, body, individuality, and joy of living,
Corporate Mergers and the Public Good The United States of America, during the last years of the Nineteenth Century, witnessed a rash of corporate mergers. The Industrial Revolution had taken firm hold, and the nation was changing rapidly. Millions of Americans who had once been independent farmers or tradesmen now found themselves in the position of what some termed "wage slaves." At the mercy of their corporate employers, they worked long
Community Policing Efficacy The Violent Crime Control & Law Enforcement Act of 1994 heralded the beginning of a massive effort to reform policing strategies in the United States, in part through implementation of community-policing programs at the local level. Congress has allocated billions of federal dollars over the years since to support such efforts and by the end of the 20th century, close to 90% of all police departments serving communities
Nor is she eligible to receive Medicaid, based on her minimum wage income. This has put the minimum wage earning single parent in a situation where she must devote her minimum wage to food and healthcare, if healthcare is available to her through her job, and, if it is not, she becomes medically uninsured. TANF now allows states money to.".. spend their share of federal block grant funds ($16.38 billion annually)
Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.
Get Started Now