Homeland security and local law enforcement costs

Political Science

Homeland Security and Local Law Enforcement Costs

Throughout the past fifty years, federal disaster approaches in the United States has been fashioned by a continuing disagreement between supporters who favor federal involvement following a disaster and those who consider disaster reply should be the accountability of state and local governments (Moss, Schellhamer and Berman, 2009). Some of these issues have been addressed with the implementation of several federal regulations addressing many areas of interest.

The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 may have made the biggest impact on law enforcement in the nation in the last fifty years. Put into place in reply to the disastrous events of September 11, 2001, the act shaped an interactive intelligence community that reaches from the community and state all the way up to the federal law enforcement level. As a consequence of the act, over eighteen billion has been given by Congress to state and local governments in an attempt to augment local awareness and national safety. The grants integrated an additional one billion for defending mass transit, port facilities, public power plants, public stadiums, dams, and other critical facilities likely susceptible to disasters or attacks. At the local level, the augmented financial support has resulted in amplified police and law enforcement tasks (Homeland Security and Law Enforcement, 2011).

In 2001, Congress also put into place the controversial Patriot (Provide Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism) Act. The conversion to complete collaboration between local and federal agencies has met with its share of involvedness. Local police have condemned the FBI for keeping back intelligence that materialized to be critical to putting together services across all levels. Other obstacles to law enforcement competence at state, local, and federal levels since the Patriot Act comprise aging gear that cannot keep up with new technology (Homeland Security and Law Enforcement, 2011).

Another regulation is that of the Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act of 2002. This legislation necessitates the condition of effectual assistance to State and local governments in the occasion of bioterrorism or other public health crisis and making sure that State and local governments have suitable competence to become aware of and react successfully to such emergencies, including capabilities for: successful public health observation and reporting mechanisms at the State and local levels, suitable laboratory eagerness, appropriately trained and prepared emergency reply, public health, and medical personnel, health and safety defense of workers reacting to such an emergency, public health agencies that are equipped to manage health services throughout and after such emergencies and involvement in communications systems that can successfully distribute pertinent information in an appropriate and protected way to suitable public and private entities and to the public (Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act of 2002, 2002).