Policing functions across local, state, and federal organizational levels

Police Function

The Functions of Policing at the Local, State and Federal Levels

The functions of police work are highly complex and filled with myriad unpredictable challenges. Officers must place their safety and their lives at risk every day in the interests of maintaining order, protecting the pubic and apprehending law-breakers. The result is an occupation that is filled with stressors, pressures and dangers. One way that the structure of modern police-work helps officers to contend with these conditions is through the division of jurisdictions. American law enforcement is a sector comprised of many interdependent and overlapping agencies. And correspondent to the broader structure of American governance, this overlapping is somewhat hierarchical in nature, with jurisdictions generally determined by the unit of civil incorporation with which a precinct or department is affiliated. Therefore, at the local, state and federal level, responsibilities are generally divided among these different types of policing agencies even as interaction between them remains high.

Local Policing:

The functions of local or municipal policing are highly contingent upon the type of community within which police operate. The experience of policing will be considerably different for the officer working in a small rural town than it will be for the officer who is part of a mini-station in a larger urban center. At the root of it, their functions are essentially the same. Police officers will be charged with the basic duties of monitoring and maintaining traffic order, collecting municipal revenues through the distribution of violation citations, apprehending those in the act or criminality or locating those suspected of committing crimes under investigation. That said, the frequency and proportion of these functions will vary a great deal based on the demographic, geographical and civilian characteristics of the locality. Particularly for those localities which are more populous, the pressure and peril associated with these functions is likely to be greater. As the text by Kappeler & Gaines (2009) indicates, "fear of crime is to be found among distinct populations and activities, that this is the best measure of police productivity; and that solutions to social problems should be enforcement-based. People are to interpret the causes of police-represented problems as stemming from local disorder, the circulation of drugs, violent gangs, unsupervised youths, and community outsiders." (Kappeler & Gaines, p. 373)

The degree to which these types of matter impact the community will typically indicate the preponderance of attention to such matters where police department functions are concerned. In such communities, the functions of enforcement and apprehension must also be supplemented by various levels of involvement with the community itself. Indeed, such functionalities must be in place in all manner of community but with foci of this involvement, again, varying based on factors such as population density. Such involvement will usually include some level of direct engagement with schools in the community, so that officers can take part in campus educational programs and drug prevention programs. Additional interaction with community agencies, neighborhood watch groups and others dedicated to the prevention of crime can significantly help to increase the trust reciprocated between police officers and members of the community. The opportunity is a stronger network of prevention and enforcement that begins with those that have the most direct interest in the vitality of the locality in question.

State Policing:

The focus of officers at the state level will typically be less interactive and familiar at the community level and will therefore more generally dedicate the majority of its functionality to enforcement. Perhaps the most visible example of this is seen in the area of traffic enforcement. State Trooper forces will most often focus their operations on areas owned and maintained by the state. This will include regional and interstate highways and will also function as a backup source for resources and manpower in the face of expanding community challenges or matters of statewide or multi-state concern. These functions align with what Gaines & Kappeler (2011) identify as the original intention of the evolving state police agency. According to Gaines & Kappeler, "historically, state police agencies were created for a number of reasons: (1) to assist local police, which frequently did not have the adequate training or resources; (2) to investigate criminal activities that transcended jurisdictional boundaries; (3) to provide law enforcement in rural and other areas that did not have local or county police agencies; and (4) to break strikes and labor movements." (Gaines & Kappeler, p. 39-40).

Federal Policing:

The role of Federal Policing more than that at any other level is intended to one end to serve as tactical support for field officers at the state and local level but, more importantly, is often the arm intended to deal with broad level threats to security and stability. A wide variance of agencies maintain their own investigatory departments comprised of specialized federal officers with training specific to their selected area of enforcement. According to Gaines & Kappeler (2011), "there are more than 65 federal law enforcement agencies. Although most people are familiar with the law enforcement agencies in the Departments of Justice and now Homeland Security, many other policing agencies exist in other departments of the federal government." (Gaines & Kappeller, p. 37)

Because officers operating at this level have access to a great many more resources and procedural latitudes, federal agencies can typically act with a freedom from local restraint that can render them a more powerful force in the performance of police intelligence and the construction of sweeping investigations designed to address threats at the macro-level.