ABSTRACT
Discretion is at the heart and soul of policing. In fact, it is the very foundation of our criminal justice system. It is an inescapable part of our justice process. Discretion is when the effective limits on a public official’s power leave him or her free to make a choice among a number of possible courses of action (Davis, 1980). It is virtually impossible to provide employees with rules and regulations governing how every aspect of a job is to be performed except in the most mechanistic, repetitive jobs. Workers on an assembly line have few choices about how to do their jobs, but police officers, prosecutors, and judges deal with human behavior and constantly are encountering new, unique situations. It is impossible to provide criminal justice practitioners guidance in every situation because there are so many potential situations, and to even attempt to do so would result in a set of rules that would be too voluminous to
n Entrapment
n Escort services
n External controls
n Gambling
n Gender and discretion
n Hate crimes
n Homeless
n Human trafficking
n Internal controls
n Judgmental context
n Legislative control
n Mental illness
n Offender variables in discretion
n Pornography
n Prejudice
n Prostitution
n Race and discretion
n Situational variables in discretion
n Socioeconomic status
n Streetwalkers
n System variables in discretion
n Vice crimes
comprehend. Therefore, we must depend on the police and other practitioners to use “good judgment” and exercise discretion.
