¶ … Limits to Police Discretion Just as every law environment situation is unique, so too are the police officers that make the decisions concerning how these situations will be resolved. Some police officers appear to have a natural-born knack for knowing how to amicably resolve even seemingly intractable disputes while others routinely incarcerate their suspects with little or no effort made to determine if alternative dispositions might have been more appropriate. The level of discretion afforded police officers has also been the focus of interest following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and officers on the beat are now expected to be active participants in the war on terrorism as well. In this environment, identifying optimal levels of discretion for police officers who are confronted with an infinite number of different types of threats to their own safety as well as the safety of the general public therefore represents a timely and valuable enterprise. This goal, though, is complicated...

As trained and sworn law enforcement authorities, police officers expect to be entrusted with some level of discretion in the exercise of their duties, otherwise they would just be so many automatons on the street with no ability to make the types of decisions that characterize good community policing. Conversely, police officers who have been afforded too much discretion in the exercise of their duties may intentionally or inadvertently become "loose cannons" who routinely let the bad guys go in return for a good reputation or information. In either extreme, the best interests of the community are not being served, and the individual police officers are being subjected to working conditions that are…