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Discretionary Power

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Nancy Scheper-Hughes Death Without Weeping, she states that “even the most ‘advanced’ state can resort to threats of violence or to open violence against ‘disorderly’ citizens” (Fassin 2013). This quote suggests that the state uses its discretionary power to maintain the order of society. This discretionary power applies to the police as well. Baldwin’s “A Report from Occupied Territory” provides examples of a state using violence against citizens that society perceives to be disorderly. Baldwin criticizes this use of violence. This criticism provides key claims, that along with other articles provide insight in the relationships between law, coercive force, and discretion. Using Baldwin’s “A Report from Occupied Territory”, as well as a few …show more content…

As mentioned above, the Rule of Law grants the police the legitimacy to use coercive force. Klockars would argue that this is a form of legal legitimacy, and it is important not to equate legal legitimacy to moral legitimacy (Klockars 1985). Although the police may claim to have legal legitimacy for beating up the salesman, but they certainly did not have the moral legitimacy to act in such a brutal manner. Legal legitimacy becomes gray over the manner of violence. How much violence is legally acceptable? As mentioned earlier, the law has granted a flexible answer to that question. The wider expansion of the discretion of violent measures to coercive force, the more blurred the lines become between moral and legal legitimacy. Baldwin states that “the law is meant to be my servant and not my master, still less my torturer and my murderer” (Baldwin 1966). This statement emphasizes the relationship between law and violence. To Baldwin, the law is designed to save him from violent actions has disappeared, and it has been replaced by one that inflicts harm. For Baldwin, the law is no longer legitimate because it does not function in the manner in which the law is intended to act. The violent maintenance of order draws into question the legitimacy of law. Therefore, the relationship between law, legitimacy, and violence is quite complicated. The law legitimizes the police use of discretionary coercive force, and it provides a wide application of this power. This in turn can cause some people to question the legal and moral legitimacy when the use of coercive force becomes too

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‘The Tampa Decision: Examining the Australian Government’s prerogative power to detain and expel unlawful non-citizens in 2001’ The executive power of the Commonwealth has largely been neglected, both by the High Court and by commentators, receiving scant attention in comparison with the Commonwealth 's legislative and judicial powers. However, it was just fourteen years ago, in 2001, when a Norwegian cargo vessel MV Tampa being denied entry into Australia after rescuing 438 asylum seekers sparked one of the most controversial yet illuminating civil cases in Australian legal history. The result was a civil suit (Ruddock vs Vadarlis 2001) in which the Federal Government successfully appealed the initial ruling to the Full Court of the Federal Court of Australia, where it was found that the government does indeed possess a prerogative power to prevent the entry of non-citizens into

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A discourse community has yet to have a solid definition; though some have come close. One of the people who have attempted to define discourse community is John Swales. Swales, rather than use a standard definition, chose to create a set list of criteria. With the help of the criteria and my interview of Dane (a member of my chosen discourse community) I will discuss how my chosen group, Communications 101, is a discourse community. Communications 101 (Comm. 101) is a college credit class that helps the students in the class learn the “fundamental principles of verbal, nonverbal, written, and visual communication with an introduction to relational and organizational communication, public communication, and media studies.

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In the letter from Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King Jr addresses his audience by defining what qualifies an action or law to be just and unjust. He describes a just law as a “code that squares away with the moral law or the law of God” (King). Then he describes the unjust law as being “a code that is out of the harmony with the moral law” (King). Kings definitions compare well with the dictionary definitions because both agree that just laws are based on a moral code. He uses the strategy of examples and counter examples in order to define both of the words and give his audience a clear understanding of their meaning.

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One common opinion is that officers should not use more force than is necessary or reasonable, and even then, that force should be used only as a last resort. “Police use force to affect civilians’ conduct. On a day-to-day basis, they do so most often by employing the least degree of force available to them, their mere presence. Cops wear uniforms and drive distinctly marked cars so that, without saying a word, they may have an effect on citizens’ behavior” (Fyfe, 38). When an officer’s presence fails to fulfill the desired conduct, the next course of action for said officer would be verbalization.

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The struggle between law, order and justice has led to conflict and terrorism all over the world. Some of those struggles have been represented in the books The Lottery by Shirley Jackson and A Hanging by George Orwell.

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As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. states, "it is rather strange and paradoxical to find us consciously breaking laws;" this statement corresponds with Dr. King Jr.  agreeing with St. Augustine’s statement that "an unjust law is no law at all." In 1954 during the

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It is asserted by James Currun and Jean Seaton in ‘Power without Responsibility’ (1981) that the radical news press in the 19th century Britain was predominantly owned by the working class and news content was generated for a working class audience which effectively evoked their class consciousness. Whereby, the radical press created papers that “promoted a greater collective confidence by repeatedly emphasising the potential power of working people to effect social change” (Curren and Seaton, 1981). However, due to the rising costs of the media production, the radical press was deteriorating and thus was eventually replaced by the popular press which was owned by the ruling class as they could afford to maintain the production costs of the

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Often times, mindless conformity leads to senseless violence that could have been avoided with just a little more thought. In order to justify hateful and exclusive acts, the actions of people in minorities are often taken

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Law enforcement agents are should behave to a standard that is greater than the average civilian. Police brutality comes from an abuse of power granted to the police. Police brutality is often drawn on by overreaction in certain situations drawn on by panic. Police using excessive force in the United States is a crucial dilemma and must be stopped.

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