Peer response DB 150-200 words each NO REFERENCES ARE REQUIRED 

 

1. Police corruption can be defined as the misuse of authority that is used for personal gain. There are many reasons why an officer may engage in corruptive behavior. One reason why a department may experience corruption is when an officer begins to feel more than comfortable with their environment and department. This means that they might use their discretion to their advantage.  A serious form of police corruption would be when an officer steals. Raids where officers find large amounts of money and drugs can be a temptation for some officers to steal. An example would be the River Cops case in Florida, where police officers were involved with the stealing and selling of cocaine (Walker & Katz, 2013). Nineteen officers were arrested and sentenced to prison and seventy officers were fired because of their actions. I think that the root cause of this type of corruption may be because they had no remorse and didn’t think about the repercussions of what this situation may have. Miller (2009) said that the officers were not interested in making any arrests that night. There only focus was to capitalize and seize 350 kilos of cocaine for themselves. The police organization theory best explains this type of corruption because they thought they would remain undetected. An officer that engages in this type of correctional theory thinks that they can freely do this without getting caught and receive no punishment for their wrong doing (Walker & Katz, 2013). 

 

2. Discretion, as defined by Walker & Katz, can be described as an official action by a criminal justice official based on that individual's judgment about the best course of action. My own definition of discretion is the collection of individual choices by a criminal justice official. Police officers should carry enough discretion to do the job correctly. There is no set-in-stone amount they need to have. Obviously, they need to carry a good deal of proper discretion, such as the use of good judgment, exercise use of scarce police resources, individualized justice, and sound public policy. On the other hand, if police officers had too much discretion, it could start to become an abuse of discretion. Abuses such as discrimination, denial of due process, and poor personnel management (Walker & Katz, 2013.) I would ensure that officers do not have discretion in the negatives by incorporating better leadership and management. A solid, fundamental work ethic should be carried out by each and every law enforcement officer.