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Law Enforcement Jurisdiction & Authority
Law Enforcement Jurisdiction and Authority
As with many governmental agencies, law enforcement is partitioned by agency type, organizational mission, overall size, and jurisdiction. The law enforcement agency spectrum is broad, spanning a range from small town police departments to extensive federal agencies. The brief descriptions below correspond to the categorical jurisdictions and authority of U.S. law enforcement agencies.
Federal Law Enforcement Agencies
The Bureau of Justice Statistics reports that the largest employers of Federal officers are as follows: Federal Bureau of Prisons, the FBI, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Each of these agencies has over 10,000 officers authorized to carry firearms and make arrests ("Discover Policing," 2015). The duties and responsibilities of Federal officers include corrections, court operations, criminal investigation and enforcement, inspections, police response and patrol, security and protection ("Discover Policing," 2015).
State and Local Law Enforcement Agencies
Several types of law enforcement agencies make up the more than 17,000 U.S. state and local law enforcement agencies, including municipal police departments, state police and highway patrol, special jurisdiction police, and deputy sheriffs ("Discover Policing," 2015). Agencies at the state and local law enforcement level range in size...
A fairly large proportion of agencies at this level are local police departments, with divisions that include municipal, county, tribal, and regional police -- each of which derives authority from the local governing entity through which it was established. Local police are dedicated to upholding jurisdictional laws, providing patrol, and investigating local crimes. State police and highway patrol extend police duties to wide-scale emergencies, highways, and statewide investigations, all beyond the resources and jurisdictional boundaries of the local agencies. Special jurisdiction police exhibits considerable variety as police services are provided for discrete entities or jurisdictions, such as airports, hospitals, government buildings, housing authorities, parks, schools, and subways. Special jurisdiction police are fundamentally indistinguishable from local police and are staffed as full-service departments. Deputy sheriffs enforce state law at the county level. Their duties generally are to provide service in areas outside local police jurisdictions, run the local county jail and serve warrants and court summons.
Select U.S. Supreme Court Cases That Changed Law Enforcement Protocol
Racial profiling is the practice of focusing stop and search or security detention on individuals from certain minority groups who are perceived to more frequently engage in unlawful behavior. Recent…
References
____. (2015). Types of law enforcement agencies. discoverpolicing.com. Retreived from http://discoverpolicing.org/whats_like/?fa=types_jobs
Feder, J. (2012, April 16). Racial profiling: Legal and constitutional issues. Congressional Research Service. Retreived from https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL31130.pdf
Guidance Regarding the Use of Race by Federal Law Enforcement Agencies, U.S. Dept of Justice, Civil Rights Division (2003, June). Retrieved from http://www.justice.gov/crt/about/spl/documents/guidance_on_race.pdf
Detroit has also joined Los Angeles and Chicago in having such a regulation. A similar bill was attempted unsuccessfully thus far in Texas (2001). Responding to the concerns of organizations that represent Hispanics, Muslims and individuals of Arab descent, the Detroit City Council unanimously recently approved an ordinance that prohibits city officials from profiling people based on their appearance, race and similar factors. The regulation also bans city officials from
Ramirez et al. explains this clearly stating "when law enforcement practices are perceived to be biased, unfair, and disrespectful, communities of color and other minority groups are less willing to trust and confide in law enforcement officers and agencies, to report crimes that come to their attention, to provide intelligence and information, and to serve as witnesses at trials (Ramirez et al., 1996)." The author further explains that as
A poll conducted by the Gallop group and published in the journal Public Administration Review (Ward, 2002, p. 726) shows that 59% of adults surveyed agreed that "…some police officers stop motorists of certain racial or ethnic groups" simply because the officers guess that those certain groups "are more likely than others to commit certain types of crime." Of the African-Americans that were surveyed, 78% agreed with that statement; 56%
Stop and Frisk: The Efficacy of This Technique Stop and frisk is one of the most controversial techniques used by the NYPD to reduce crime. Stop and frisk, as its name suggests, is when police officers stop pedestrians on the street and frisk them for drugs, weapons, and other illegal substances. On the surface, it might seem as if this is a violation of the Fourth Amendment which prohibits searches and
A judge's discretion can mean the difference between a young African-American person going to jail and having his or her life irreparably damaged or being placed in a program that might have a chance to save a human being. While judges cannot be caseworkers, they can look at the circumstances of a young offender's life to make rational and reasoned evaluations of someone's risk to society. This can be demonstrated
Baker reviewed three landmark Supreme Court decisions on capital punishment and concluded that the death penalty is capriciously imposed on Black defendants and thus serves the extra-legal function of preserving majority group interests. He viewed discrimination in capital sentencing as deliberate and identified the primary reasons why Black defendants with white victims have been denied fairness in capital sentencing. These are prosecutorial discretion in the selective prosecution of capital