Nothing in “the law” or my policy manual explicitly allowed us to arrest someone and then release them with a warning. Nor did it allow me to invent a graffiti diversion program. But nothing prohibited it either, and I would maintain that these solutions were the best way to solve these particular problems. Could I have done less? Yes, but then I wouldn’t be doing my job. Could I have booked all these people into to jail and asked for charges? Yes, but what would be the point? For the most part, these situations required a brief coercive intervention to resolve a public disturbance or prevent harm. Our power to arrest was not primarily a way to start the machinery of the criminal justice process. It was a means by which we solved social problems.
Many lawyers, whether they are prosecutors, public defenders, judges, or law school professors, have come to view the police solely as an extension of the criminal justice system. This is also true of many academics and criminologists. To them, police action is merely the first step in the prosecution process as spelled out in the criminal procedure textbook: Police apprehend Defendant, then Defendant goes to court. But this view fundamentally misunderstands the actual role of police in our society.