course. But this is only a beginning. It takes another three or
four years to produce a useful policeman, most of which time
is taken in learning how to use his 'discretion'. It is a quality
exercised at all levels, from the constable who, as his
Instruction Book tells him, ignores 'idle and silly remarks'
on the street, to the superintendent who decides to prosecute
one man but not another for a driving offence, and to the
Assistant Commissioner (Crime) who decides that this gang
shall be investigated now, whereas that one is to be left until
next time.

It would be easy enough to write a book about what the
police can do. It is all on paper, in Halsbury's Laws of
England, in text books, judgements and their own General
Orders. It would be much easier to say what the police must
do -- which is nothing in particular. A Chief Officer of
Police has a general duty to enforce the law, but neither the
courts nor the government can tell him whom to prosecute,
or, without great difficulty, what laws, even in general terms,
to enforce.

In strict legal theory, discretion does not exist. Laws are
made, the police enforce them, that is an end to it. They are
not supposed to choose which will be enforced and
which not -- that is Parliament's job. But since, in a typically
English way, the police cannot be made to enforce any
law, no one can in practice prevent them from choosing. Still,
they cannot easily admit that a choice is made, or defend
the decisions which they reach.

When a Member of Parliament complains, for instance,
that he saw a constable in his constituency walk past five
untaxed cars in the street and do nothing about them, the
police are adrift on this uncharted sea of discretion. They
exist to prosecute all crime, so they can hardly excuse them-
selves with the truth: that if every PC reported every
untaxed car he saw, policing in London would come to a
stop. They can only admit the fault, trace the PC, and
admonish him. Naturally, he had no orders in writing not to
report too many untaxed cars. He just knew, as one of the

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