Discretion is an essential aspect of any law enforcement organization. In the police service, most of the police activities are carried out privately in that the public is not engaged and also does not have much information about the operations. The operations help officers get a chance to handle things in the way they see them in their perspective. This is because Discretion also allows anyone with the quality to speak in a way that they do not come out offensively. Valid research carried out over some time on the need for the quality of Discretion by the officers, and why its need in the police service, what advantages it brings to the services and the disadvantages, not forgetting how it influences the making of sound decisions.
Discretion is needed most in the police service because the officers interact with different people daily and people with diverse cultural believes. Without discretion quality, the officer could have a hard time working, because interaction with the public could be a high risk to the police service. (Wagenaar, 2020). This is because the communication skills with the officers without Discretion could cause over communication; by this, it means that the officer gives too much information than they should provide, and this is putting the service in a risky position. With the knowledge of law and Discretion, police can make arrests upon their interpretation of the situation at hand. Due to this fact, Discretion is needed.
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In cases of official rulings, Discretion is so important in that those in the position of passing the ruling like judges or commanders in the police service, have that freedom to discredit and accredit thing that they feel need discrediting or accrediting. These builds confidence and competence in situation handling and those enforcing the law, work confidently without fear of critic. (Evans & Hupe, 2020). The fact that Discretion makes officers hide vital information that should not get disclosed to the public makes Discretion an essential quality to be obtained by every officer in the service. In police services that maintain a high degree of Discretion, the functioning of the post gets smooth since communication is so direct with fewer collisions and the right information gets to the right people and in the right way.
Discretion, when used appropriately, comes along with advantages and disadvantages. In an observation carried out on officers in savanna, Georgia shows that officers debriefed after getting suspicious over an individual or an individual vehicle. Observer followed them in their 8-hour shift and observed that the officers made 174 stops, most of them caused by suspicion by the officer or the police interest in the behavior of a suspect. One hundred ten of the stops were just out of the police suspicion in that they found no offense with the individual, and the questioning just went smooth.
The same way this quality can be of advantage, in the scenario above of an observation carried out for officer in the savanna post in Georgia. Sixty-four stops were positive in that the curiosity or the mistrust that the officers observed on the individuals were correct. It is human that mostly when a person is on the wrong, they seem to behave differently and act so suspicious even though some can try to camouflage the suspicion. The officer's discretion quality leads the to trap them. (Evans & Hupe, 2020). So evaluating the situation that is putting the officers in doubts of a suspect helped them show the excellent use of Discretion.
Officers have built confidence in their work with Discretion quality appropriately used. The officers will always make the right decision because when acting upon a problem at hand, they are not worried that someone else needs to approve their choice. These make the officers come to sound and reliable decisions. Officers, when faced by a specific situation, and bearing in mind that they obtain the knowledge of the law and the Discretion quality they can make a sound decision. In conclusion, Discretion is a quality that should be embraced by every police service.
References
Wagenaar, H. (2020). Discretion and street-level practice. In Discretion and the quest for controlled freedom (pp. 259-277). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
Evans, T., & Hupe, P. (2020). Conceptualizing Discretion. In Discretion and the Quest for Controlled Freedom (pp. 1-13). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
Evans, T., & Hupe, P. (2020). Perspectives on Discretion: An Introduction. In Discretion and the Quest for Controlled Freedom (pp. 113-119). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
