Criminal Justice and Policing Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Criminal Justice and Policing - Essay Example you are a police officer from another state) or the police department’s off-duty powers of arrest policy, you may be permitted by law to conduct an arrest or not. As an officer of the law you will be obligated to follow the due process of the law. However before you make the actions specified above, you will need to first talk to your friend, telling him your concern and finding out whether he was privy to the cocaine snorting by his other friends. You should make it clear to him the consequences of cocaine possession and use with regards to the law. In reality, though, you will probably find cause to disassociate him from culpability. The issue raised here is a moral problem because it involves a difference of belief. Coleman (2004) says that the issue of police accepting small gifts has long been a source of contention the fear being that it could influence an officer’s judgment while dispensing his/her duties. The moral question here is whether gratuities affect an officer’s decision making or not. There is no policy or law that governs this issue and professional discretion has been used to determine which gifts an officer could accept and which ones he/she should not accept. It is this professional discretion that Kania (2004) refers to as a slippery slope. Kania (2004) further states that though the fruit basket for your family, Christmas card, and $30 gift certificate could be innocent with no expectations attached to them nevertheless they would increase bias to the officer. The rationale behind my action here would be that any officer who receives a gift would be inclined to spend more time on the merchant’s premises thereby providing the merchant a few extra minutes of private security. This would cause an imbalance in provision of services to the community which does not appeal to the professionalism required from a police officer. Moreover, in a perfect world, which is what we are striving for, there would