Police Agencies: Policing in the United States

¶ … Police Agencies:

Policing in the United States has mainly been based and expanded on the ideas of English way of policing. The English way of policing has not only been used as the basis for American policing but it has also been used to commence an era of evolving police agencies. In its early years, policing in the United States was largely regarded as a civic duty or responsibility of community members. The appointed officers were neither trained nor paid for their services to community members. Consequently, the chosen Sheriffs were usually motivated by financial incentives and lost their focus on enforcement of the law, which contributed to the perception that policing was primarily reactive in nature. However, the nature and structure of policing changed significantly following the emergence of urbanization, industrialism, and the society, which resulted in increase in crime. This forced the police or law enforcement officers to adopt a more proactive approach rather than the reactive approach that was traditionally associated with law enforcement. Notably, the history of policing has been characterized by considerable changes from time to time due to several factors like technological advancements and increase in threats to security.

History of Police Agencies:

The modern police agencies have grown and developed since the early 1600s to become an increasingly organized group that endeavors to prevent crime while preserving the rights and professionalism of citizens. Generally, modern policing in the United has been shaped by the early English police styles ("The History of the Police," n.d.). This is primarily because the first organized policing agencies were witnessed in the early 1800s but experienced many challenges. During these early years of policing in England and colonial America, citizens were in charge of law enforcement in their communities. The early English police styles were known as kin police where citizens were responsible for looking after their relatives or kin. This system was used in policing in Colonial America, where a watch system comprising of citizen volunteers was established until the mid-19th century. However, these styles of policing in England and the United States were largely ineffective since they were based on a volunteer system characterized with disorganized and sporadic patrol method.

As the responsibility of law enforcement in England shifted from law enforcement by individual citizen volunteers to groups of men living with the community known frankpledge system, America adopted a similar system where constables, citizen-based watch groups, and sheriffs were responsible for apprehending criminals. The law enforcement personnel were also responsible for working with courts and collecting taxes. However, law enforcement was not a major priority for sheriffs since they could generate more income by collecting taxes throughout the community. This was followed by the addition of night watch groups, which were largely ineffective. The ineffectiveness of these watch groups was associated with the fact that some of their members would socialize or sleep while on duty rather than controlling crime in their community. Since these citizen-based watch groups were not equipped to handle the social unrest and rioting that occurred in England and Colonial America in late 1700s and early 1800s, publicly funded police departments started to emerge in these countries.

Types of Law Enforcement Agencies:

The United States currently has over 15,700 public law enforcement agencies across the local, state, and federal levels of government ("History and Structure," n.d.). However, most of these agencies are local and serve villages, municipalities, counties, and townships. Notably, the authority of each law enforcement agency is carefully limited by the law, which also restricts the territory within which it may operate. This implies that the jurisdiction within which a police agency operates in is cautiously restricted by the law, which provides the right or authority of the agency to act in relation to a specific territory, subject matter, and person. There are various types of law enforcement agencies such as local or municipal, state, federal, county, specialized, and tribal police agencies.

Local police agencies are the most prevalent law enforcement agencies that provide services to an incorporated city. They are established to provide regular patrol of the communities within their jurisdictions, maintain records, perform criminal investigations, provide emergency services, uphold traffic enforcement laws, provide public information and communication, foster community relations, and strengthen internal affairs. State police agencies are made up of state police departments and highway patrols with different roles like keeping the state's highways and rural areas. These agencies have several specialized units including aviation units, investigative branches, and tactical teams (Parfaniuc, n.d.).

Federal police agencies are made of two types i.e. uniformed police departments and investigative units. The uniformed police departments provide specialized uniformed services for a particular location while investigative branches have an allocated section of United States Code that they enforce. Specialized police agencies are departments of special jurisdiction that do not necessarily operate on the state level such as airport and campus police departments. County police agencies are the second most prevalent law enforcement departments while tribal agencies are basically a combination of local and federal uniformed police.