Exam 3.2

Question 1

What is police discretion?

Answer 1

Exercising of individual choice/judgement that concerns potential courses of action

Question 2

What are elements of police discretion?

Answer 2

• Sense of autonomy, common sense, and interpretations of the law
• Personal biases, prejudices, and values kept aside

Question 3

Why is police discretion important?

Answer 3

• Necessary for law interpretation
• Helpful in consideration to limited capacity of components of criminal justice network
• Law enforcement and policing selective processes require discretion

Question 4

What are factors that influence police discretion?

Answer 4

• Situation, setting, and suspect
• Departmental policy and culture
• The law
• Political/Economic pressure

Question 5

What are quotas in police discretion?

Answer 5

Fixed numbers of citations/stops that officers are required to meet on a periodic basis

Question 6

What is biased enforcement in police discretion?

Answer 6

The policing practice that results when the enforcement of the law is based on any personal/occupational-based biases

Question 7

What is ethics?

Answer 7

• Study of right and wrong, duty, responsibility, and personal character
• “Moral” as an implicit modifier to what is studied in ethics
• Concerned with moral duty, what is morally right and wrong

Question 8

What are grass eaters?

Answer 8

• Coined by Knapp Commission
• Officers who engage in minor acts of corrupt practices and passively accept the wrongdoings of other officers
• Ex. accepting gratuities

Question 9

What is nonfeasance?

Answer 9

• Reluctance of officers, who are generally honest, to report peer misconduct
• A factor perpetrating the issue of police misconduct
• Often result of police subculture’s influence

Question 10

What is police code of conduct?

Answer 10

• Formed by International Association of Chiefs of Police
• Establishes standards of conduct for police officers while on and off duty

Question 11

What are police ethics?

Answer 11

Standards of conduct based on moral and professional principles that influence actions taken/not taken by police officers while on and off duty

Question 12

What is racial profiling?

Answer 12

Occurs when an officer considers a person’s race when deciding to take/not take law enforcement action

Question 13

When is a police officer allowed to consider race of a person?

Answer 13

Only when it is part of a specific, reliable description of a suspect connected to a particular crime