Discretion in Criminal Justice: Factors, Examples, and Impact

This assignment examines the concept of discretion within the criminal justice system, analyzing its various facets and implications. It delves into the factors influencing discretionary decisions, including the nature of the crime, the relationship between the criminal and the victim, and the relationship between the police and the victim. The assignment also considers the impact of race/ethnicity and governmental policies on discretion. Furthermore, it highlights the role of prosecutors in initiating and terminating criminal prosecutions. The use of discretion is illustrated with examples like drawing a weapon, issuing traffic tickets, and making arrests. The assignment underscores the importance of balancing the rights of the accused, prison capacity, and the feelings of criminals and victims when determining appropriate punishments. This analysis provides a comprehensive overview of discretion's role in shaping legal outcomes.

Using Discretion

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The factors involved in using discretion comprises of crime’s nature, the association
among the criminal in addition to victim, prelateship among police and victim, race/ethnicity and
governmental policy. The crime’s nature reflects that less serious is the crime towards the
public, then the officers receive more freedom for ignoring it (Myhill & Johnson, 2016). Next is
the connection amongst the criminal with victim, which reflects that if the relationship is more
personal, then more flexible is discretion’s use. The next is the relationship amongst police
besides criminal/victim where a polite complainant is considered serious than respectful suspect
is less chance to get arrested. The next is race/ethnicity where some officers are found to stop the
youth, men and poor people whereas they are more lenient to the elderly, women and affluent
people. The governmental policy reflects that policies of department either encourage more or
less discretion.
Prosecutors retain a huge discretion role in the process of criminal justice. They retain the
ability to initiate as well as terminate all the criminal prosecutions (Hartley & Tillyer, 2018).
Moreover, the use of discretions is for weighing the desired rights of the accused, the capacity of
the prisons, the feelings of the criminals and victims while determining an appropriate
punishment.
Examples, the examples can be like drawing/firing a weapon, giving a ticket in traffic,
arresting, searching for someone and stopping/assisting any people. The use of discretion
provides the opportunity and right for acting according to the desired discretion to stop people,
arrest them and for forcing them to execute the procedure of an arrest.

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References
Hartley, R. D., & Tillyer, R. (2018). Examining prosecutorial discretion in federal criminal
cases: Legal and extra-legal determinants of declination and charge change
decisions. Justice Quarterly, 35(7), 1195-1225.
Myhill, A., & Johnson, K. (2016). Police use of discretion in response to domestic
violence. Criminology & Criminal Justice, 16(1), 3-20.