Police Discretion and Race: Inappropriate Use of Power
KaYoung Kim
CRIM 131
March 29th, 2018
Discretion is the power or rights to make certain decisions or acts in accordance of an individual’s own judgement. It is both a necessary aspect in police services as well as a cause of many social controversies and issues. Discretion in policing are showing major need of improvement in protecting rights for different racial minorities. This essay will cover both how police discretion creates benefits, however used as inappropriate source of power to discriminate other racial minorities. Moreover, it will cover why these racial issues are present, and what strategies should be implemented in order to tackle these problems.
“Police discretion characterize a wide array of police action, including lethal force” (Nowacki, 646). Police are given legal rights to demonstrate discretion when they determine an appropriate response of action should be taken in certain situation. It allows police officers to decide the best course of action in different scenarios, as they face different situations every day. Roberts and Grossman (2016) writes:
“Five people may react in five entirely differently ways to a similar set of circumstance, and it is part of police officers’ role to respond appropriately to each”. (Roberts & Grossman, 2016, p. 42)
It is an essential factor for both safety in society and police themselves. Without discretion, all crime will be dealt identically which can result in unstructured social environment, constant law suits, and increase of serious crime. For example, without discretionary decision-making powers, they cannot give warnings to a guy who mistakenly forgot to stop at a stop sign; take him straight to jail. Discretion gives police officers to take alternative actions in minor offences, such as minor public offences. In circumstances where offences are considered as minor, discretion can and should be taken into consideration, which is best for both the offender and for the police officers. Bronitt and Philip (2011) supports, “discretion is necessary because limited resources make it impossible to enforce all laws against all offenders;” (Bronitt & Philip, 2011, p. 324). It is impossible that infringement on law will be enforced in every case due to lack of resources. Even if relevant laws were precise, variations of interpretations will still exist. This make discretion more vital aspect in policing.
Discretion is also beneficial to police officers. As they choose and decide on each case, it can give them strength to make a better, virtuous decisions and eventually develop into good decision habits. They can courage each other to make personal decisions, providing certain suggestions or sharing their own opinions. It inputs an environment where police officers’ gain confidence through their decisions, work with positive mindset, and feel respected by each other even though their choice may be revoked by its superiors. It facilitates a positive workforce and teamwork.
Despite of the fact that police discretion is an unavoidable facet of police work, many issues and controversies arise. These biases can be powerful enough to convince an officer to decide one suspect may seem more dangerous than another, prompting preemptive use of lethal force, and most of these biases are invoked with extralegal factors; race (Nowacki, 2015, p. 646). This act is also known as racial profiling. Racial profiling consists police using their own discretion to provide unfair treatment based on an individual’s race or skin colour. As a multicultural country, Canada has been improving on issues, but it does still exist in modern day policing style.
On October 28, 2016, a disturbing footage was released on YouTube. The footage appeared an officer dragging two elderly Korean couple down the staircase, as they refused to leave a local condo tenant meeting event held in a conference room located at a suburban hotel of Coquitlam, BC. The officers were identified to be a local RCMP officer of Coquitlam, BC. According to an interview from CBC, Myung Ju Lee, the victim described how they were treated by the officers: “He grabbed my arm, twisted it, put it behind my back, then kicked me (down the stairs) from the second floor” (CBC News, 2016). The couple was sent to local paramedics, receiving physical bruises and scrapes in result. This video went viral in a matter of seconds, collecting 10,000 views from many social networking websites. Many viewers of the video commented, ‘disgraceful’, ‘disgusted’, ‘ignorance’ towards the RCMP officers.
The case above thoroughly shows how power of discretion is demonstrated within racial discrimination and lethal force. The elderly couple were not proposing any physical threat to the officers, but simply resisted officer’s orders to leave the conference room. Moreover, they stated they are okay with speaking English as a second language, and was conscientiously awake enough to engage in a normal conversation. However, the police officer allegedly decided to use lethal force to drag the elderly couple out, staying behind the shadows of the ‘official law’. The victims only received minor injuries, but an un-forgetting experience which has left nothing but a huge disrespect towards the police officers of Canada, or maybe the land of Canada entirely.
Power of discretionary decisions is also reflected in black communities. Official statistics recorded by police shows that black people are over-policed than any other visual minorities (Hayle et al., 2016, p. 325). According to the Star, data has clearly shown that
in Toronto, ‘justice is different for blacks and the whites”. In a study examining the percentages of getting releasement in a simple drug possession case, the researchers compared the percentage difference between two different racial offenders: black and white. The data indicated that white offenders were released 76.5 percent of the time being promised to appear while black offenders were only released 61.8 percent of the time. If in certain cases, taken into the department, white offenders were taken into local cell for 7.3 percent of the time while 15.5 percent of black offenders were told to stay behind the bars prior to a court appearance. The offenders were both in conviction of similar criminal cases, no big differences existed (Ron., 2003, p. 349-351).
Unfair use of police officer’s discretionary decisions was also shown when assessing random traffic checks among drivers. Star conducted a different study, examining the rate between Black and White drivers. The study indicated that large rate of Black drivers were randomly chosen for license or insurance checks compared to the rate of choosing white people. Toronto Star commented the modern police officers are stopping disproportionate number of black drivers with their own discretion, which strongly reflects the existence of racial discrimination in society among the modern police and criminal justice system as a whole. Throughout this study, the Toronto Star ignited a true debate among their unfair use of power of discretion (Ron, 2003, p. 349-351).
Based on current research data, racial profiling is proven to be still present and the power of discretion is not used appropriately among police system in Canada. According to Wortley and Tanner (2004), the Canadian law enforcement agencies are still denying the fact of racial discrimination in policing, collecting their own records and data on this phenomenon (Wortley & Tanner, 2004, p. 200). This will cause bad influence not just only to the visible minorities, but to the notion and the reputation of Canadian policing system. Officers’ will gain bad reputation and labelled as ‘racist’ by the public, losing respect from the citizens they serve for. Additionally, simply avoiding this issue will only cause tight tensions among racial minority groups, and Canadian police system will eventually become haunted by a disgraceful tag that writes ‘racist’ throughout the history.
The main goal of this essay was to show that police discretion may can be overused towards racial minorities of Canada, which is considered as complete racial discrimination. Police discretion is an essential factor for enhanced policing, however must not be used as a tool to discriminate other individuals with certain racial standards. In Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Section 15(1) states: “Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age, or mental or physical disability” (Canadian Charter of Rights, 1982, s 15(1)(b)). In order for a more effective, legal modern day policing, discretion must be used fair and acceptable for everyone, in every colour.
References
Wortley, S., & Tanner, J. (2004). Discrimination or Good Policing? The Racial Profiling Debate in Canada. Our Diverse Cities, 1, 197-201.
Hayle, S., et al. (2016). Race, Street Life, Policing: Implications for Racial Profiling. Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice, 58, 322-353.
Ron, M. (2003). Do Toronto Police Engage in Racial Profiling? Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice, 45, 347-366.
Nowacki, J.S. (2011). Organizational-Level Police Discretion: An Application for Police Use of Lethal Force. Crime & Delinquency, 61(5), 643-668.
Bronitt, S., & Stenning, P. (2011). Understanding Discretion In Modern Policing. Criminal Law Journal, 35(6), 319-332.
Roberts, J.V., & Grossman, M.G.(2016). Criminal Justice in Canada: A Reader. Toronto, ON: Nelson Education Ltd, 42.
CBC News. (2016). Video of 2 Senior Dragged Down Stairs by Police Prompts External Investigation. Retrieved from: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/coquitlam-rcmp-officers-1.3827857
Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, s 15, Part I of the Constitution Act, 1982,
being Schedule B to the Canada Act 1982 (UK), 1982