Discretion is defined as the power to make a decision between two or more choices (Pollock, 2010). More precisely, it is defined as “the ability to identify and document criminal and non-criminal events” (Boivin & Cordeau, 2011). Each police officer has wide discretion in when to use their authority, power, persuasion or force. How an agent perceives his duty to society will determine his discretion. Discretion leads to selective enforcement practices and can result in discrimination against certain groups of people or selected individuals (Young, 2011). Most police discretion is exercised in situations involving individuals (Sherman, 1984). Discrimination can lead to legal problems for a court officer. If discrimination due to an officer's exercise of discretion results in a violation of due process, it is a violation of the law (Young, 2010). Due process refers to the procedural steps prescribed by the Constitution and designed to eliminate errors related to any governmental deprivation of liberty, life, or property (Pollock, 2010). One of the main concerns with the use of discretion is the possibility that it could lead to a violation of due process through racial profiling. Types of Negative Police Discretion Racial profiling occurs when a police officer uses a "profile" as reasonable suspicion to arrest a person with the intent of obtaining consent to search their property (Pollock, 2010). These stops are generally traffic stops and the officer seeks consent to search the individual's automobile. The “profile” used is based on race. In these cases, an agent uses his or her discretion to target minority groups because he or she believes they are involved in criminal activity...... middle of paper ...... rsation among researchers. The problem I see with the topic of conversation is that there isn't a lot of research done on the actual effects of each officer's individual discretion versus a department that has been trained to follow policies more than the personal discretion. In fact, from what I've seen, there isn't much research on the effects of discretion. It seems to be an overlooked topic when researching departmental effectiveness. I feel like before we find more solutions on how to fix the discretion problem, more research needs to be done on how discretion plays a role in everyday policing . Until this research is conducted, all published articles have focused on problematic theories of discretion, and all solutions mentioned are methods of correcting a problem that has not yet even been proven to exist. was a problem..