Why are legal rules insufficient to guide police actions? What might offer them proper guidance?
What will be an ideal response?
There are a dizzying number of court cases that attempt to balance the line between private rights and public safety. The Fourth Amendment governs stops and frisks, along with searches and seizures. The Fifth Amendment and the Miranda case address custodial police interrogations. The legal rules regarding reasonable suspicion, probable cause, and custodial interrogation are often based on a totality of circumstances in each specific case. Thus, not all possible factual scenarios have been addressed by the courts. In fact, they never will be. Ethics becomes a useful guide because laws can never anticipate the innumerable variations in circumstances that police will face. Court decisions are of little value to police in making current decisions or to the public who are the subjects of police action. Ethics offers an objective standard by which officers may go a step further in following the law. It provides clear guidance, in advance, in cases where the law's application is still unclear, undecided, or unknown.
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The most common reason for decertification of police officers is ______.
A. a misdemeanor conviction B. a felony conviction C. a summary citation D. gross negligence
The Supreme Court of the United States has held that the right to counsel attaches when there is a custodial interrogation.
Answer the following statement true (T) or false (F)
You are a bailiff and the judge you work for releases a defendant on her own recognizance. What should you do?
A. take the defendant back into custody until the judge makes a further determination B. tell the defendant that she must post a specified amount of bail C. tell the defendant that she is free to leave the courtroom D. inform the defendant that the charges against her are dismissed
Eventually, correctional philosophy shifted from punishment to ________, characterized by changing individuals from offenders into law-abiding citizens.
A. incapacitation B. retribution C. deterrence D. rehabilitation