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Police Discretion: The Limits of Law Enforcement
| Article
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15878 |
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Section : |
MODERN THOUGHT
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| Issue
Date : |
1 / 1989 |
10,907 Words |
| Author
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Edwin J. DeLattre
Edwin J. DeLattre is Bradley Fellow in applied ethics at the
Ethics and Public Policy Center. He is president emeritus of
St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland, and Santa Fe, New
Mexico, and a member of the National Council of the National
Endowment for the Humanities. His most recent book is
Education and the Public Trust. |
"You see," he said, "Might is not Right. But there is a lot
of Might knocking about in this world, and something has to
be done about it. It is as if People were half horrible
and half nice. Perhaps they are even more than half
horrible, and when they are left to themselves they run
wild… without references to justice. Then the horrible
side gets the uppermost, and there is thieving and rape and
plunder and torture. The people become beasts."
--King Arthur, in The Once and Future King
Discretion is the authority to make decisions of policy and practice. In policing, discretion can, and often does, include command or patrol authority to decide which laws shall be enforced and when, where, and how they will be enforced. It also includes authority to decide which of the various means of helping the helpless, maintaining order, and keeping the peace are best suited to particular circumstances. Discretion as a kind of authority held by police is a special kind of liberty--the freedom to make decisions that affect the lives of others and which other citizens are not empowered to make. Special liberties entail special duties.
Judgment and Rules
As it is not the purpose of liberty to indulge what is worst in human beings, neither is it the purpose of discretion to indulge the unrestrained exercise of might. Might does not make right; if it did, we would have no reason to object when those who are powerful tyrannize those who are weaker or when evil prevails over good.
Instead, public officials such as police are granted the authority to exercise discretion, to use judgment in the fulfillment of their duties, because it is impossible to build, or to learn, a set of laws and regulations so detailed and specific that they would dictate what to do in every possible set of circumstances. No effort to reduce matters of judgment to matters of rules can succeed because a contingent world is too filled with possibilities for us to anticipate everything that may happen.
Furthermore, trying to make a rule
...
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