Summary Of State-Created Danger By Jeffrey J. Noble

Summary

In the journal article, “State-Created Danger” leading author Jeffrey J. Noble discusses the controversial issue of whether or not police officers should be held accountable for reckless actions. Noble begins his essay by explaining how police officers often encounter dangerous scenarios with “little or no warning, and no opportunity to develop a comprehensive plan. The police are expected to intervene quickly and make what are often citical decisions” (p. 481). Officers have such a challenging task when dealing with split-second decisions and the author points out that it is difficult to scrutnize the actions of an officer who is expected to produce nothing short of perfection in these kind of circumstances. Nonethless, Noble acknowledges

He emphasizes how unsound tactical decision-making usually accompanies every situation that produces negative or harmful results. Nevertheless, although it is frequently possible for others to identify the officer’s mistake upon review of an incident, Noble explains how this fails to consider the context and complexity of the entire situation. As an example, the author uses the idea of a courtroom judge critically examining the decisions of an officer who was involved in a failed situation. The judge has no insight on how the officer was feeling, what he was thinking, etc… in a dangerous and traumatic situation. Therefore, Noble describes the trouble involved in holding officers liable for an event in which the accuser has never personally experienced. The author concludes by putting less emphasis on blaming police officers and more on the need for departments to implement more realistic training exercises, that will more effectively prepare officers for situations that demand tactical

As Noble points out, many different aspects are involved in judging whether or not an officer surpassed the fine line of just simply making an accident or if he/she committed an action that would be considered reckless. In my opinion, because officers are allotted so much personal discretion, one cannot judge whether or not the way in which they go about resolving an issue was correct, seeing that there is a very limited amount of procedural guidelines. I admit that there have probably been circumstances where an officer blatantly commits a reckless action and should, therefore, be held responsible for this blatant disregard for the safety of other individuals or propery. However, when considering cases in which the officer’s intentions is a little more difficult to determine, implementing universal punishment then becomes a detriment to law enforcement