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Homework answers / question archive / With the current threat of terrorism and other dangers to the United States, should the United States combine all the police agencies into one national police organization? 2

With the current threat of terrorism and other dangers to the United States, should the United States combine all the police agencies into one national police organization? 2

Law

With the current threat of terrorism and other dangers to the United States, should the United States combine all the police agencies into one national police organization?

2. For example Federal, State, Local, and County. If you consolidate the police, would you have to do the same to the criminal justice system?

Points to include: The role of police in U.S. society involves jurisdictional issues, duplication of laws (between state and federal statutes), local control of police function, training and education of officers' issues, discretion issues, and corruption issues.

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RESPONSE:

Let's look at the last question first - if you consolidate the police, would you have to do the same to the criminal justice system? It could be argued from the 'no' stance ... mainly because, at the National level of control, it would perhaps be less community based and more formal. It might take away the trust of the people in the community to have police instated at the national level. It might also impact training as the focus would be less on the state, local and county levels of law enforcement, and more on the national level of enforcement - terrorism is important to weed out and protect the citizen's safety, but there are other just as dangerous criminals committing other crimes that also need to dealt with.

However, you could argue either way (with the current threat of terrorism and other dangers to the United States, should the United States combine all the police agencies into one national police organization) ...but combining the police agencies into one national police organization would need a major re-structuring. One national police organizational might also loose its overall power as well. It could increase corruption having fewer levels of quality control than it is currently (federal, state, local and country), leaving more room for corruption at the top. This corruption could also trickle down.

The role of the police might change and compromise some other areas of law enforcement. For example, the police power is the right of the state to take coercive action against individuals for the benefit of society. The role of police is about enforcing the laws and catching people who commit crime for public safety. In terms of health care, Potterat et al. states that "Invoking, monitoring, and relinquishing a public health power: the health hold order," is a classic use of the police power in the control of a communicable disease. Reaching an acceptable balance between the rights of society and those of individuals is the central issue facing public health in the next millennium, and the police power is at the center of this balance. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=10417024&dopt=Abstract If the police agencies joined at the national level because of terrorism and new threats to public safety, where would the police powers go in terms of health care? Would it take away from health care and other important public safety issues, if it were a national organization?

This type of consolidation into a national organization is different than having a national police organization that works in conjunction with the other components of the criminal justice system (Federal, State, Local, and County), which could be specialized for specific tasks, such as the International Criminal Police Organization (ICPO). For example, the International Criminal Police Organization (ICPO) in LYON, France - Interpol's global DNA database has recorded its 100th hit, enabling police in three different countries to link previously unconnected crimes to the same individual. An anonymous DNA profile linked to a series of burglaries in Austria was sent to Interpol's General Secretariat in Lyon, where a positive match was made via the Interpol database with a DNA profile submitted by Croatia two years earlier. This information was then combined with the suspect's fingerprints at Interpol, tying him to burglaries in Germany. Within a relatively short period of time, one suspect using multiple aliases was tied to three different crimes in three different countries. http://www.interpol.int/ This type of global information could also be used in the United States, for example.

In fact, part of the United States FBI Mission is "to provide leadership and criminal justice services to federal, state, municipal, and international agencies and partners." That means many things, from fingerprint and DNA analysis to professional training to reports and statistics. You can learn a lot about how law enforcement partnerships work on terrorist, spy, and criminal cases just by clicking on the links at (http://www.fbi.gov/lawenforce.htm). Thus, like ICPO mentioned above, the FBI's Criminal Justice Services (CJS) represent several programs within the FBI, mainly in the Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) and Laboratory Divisions that are dedicated to supporting state and local law enforcement efforts. The specific purpose behind most of these programs stems from legislation, and is further defined in the FBI's strategic plan. Major programs included are 1) fingerprint services (IAFIS); 2) criminal information services (NCIC); 3) national crime statistics (UCR); 4) handgun control background checks (NICS); 5) national DNA database management (NDIS). http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/expectmore/detail.10002204.2005.html

However, re-vamping the complete police forces locus of control by combining all the police agencies into one national police organization would involve jurisdictional issues (e.g., local police understand the issues specific to their community versus have national controller, etc), duplication of laws (between state and federal statutes) (e.g., there would be duplication of laws as the CJS presently sits, so how would the restructuring re-assign the laws, and to whom and for what? Would power and organization be lost in the perhaps "too extensive" national organization?), local control of police function (e.g., would there be abuse of power form the top? Would there be the potential for local police to retaliate, when orders are given at the national level of control, and so on), training and education of officers' issues (e.g., would training be focused on national issues only? What would happen to state and local issues? Would they take back seat to the terrorist focus and would the safety in other areas be compromises?), discretion issues, and corruption issues (e.g., at the national level of control perhaps corruption might be harder to detect, than when there is de-centralized control at the federal, state, local and county level).

In other words, we need to ask if this would this lead to a greater focus on terrorism or take away from the effort? It would be a matter of restructuring the present system... e.g. who does what, when, and where... instead of at the federal, state, local, or county level of enforcement...it would all be at the national level? Or, would it? There would perhaps be duplication of laws as the CJS at present, if it were to move to a national organization, so how would the restructuring re-assign/re-legislate new laws, and to whom and for what? It could mean the focus would be taken away from the terrorists and instead aimed at restructuring and re-assigning tasks, legislating new laws, to name a few. And, what would training look in this National Criminal Organization? As mentioned above, it would perhaps change the focus so much to the national level, that state and local jurisdictional safety might be compromised.

For example, in the present CJS, in order for police officers to do their job well, they are vested by the state with a monopoly in the use of certain powers. These include the powers to arrest, search, seize, and interrogate; and if necessary, to use lethal force. In nations with democratic systems and the rule of law, the law of criminal procedure has been developed to regulate officers' discretion, so that they do not exercise their vast powers arbitrarily or unjustly. Could these powers just as easily be vested to the policers at he national level (assuming that there is one national orgnaization)? In U.S. criminal procedure, the most famous case is Miranda v. Arizona which led to the widespread use of Miranda warnings or constitutional warnings. U.S. police are also prohibited from holding criminal suspects for more than a reasonable amount of time (usually 72 hours) before arraignment, using torture to extract confessions, using excessive force to effect an arrest, and searching suspects' bodies or their homes without a warrant obtained upon a showing of probable cause. Using deception for confessions is permitted, but not coercion. There are exceptions or exigent circumstances such as an articulated need to disarm a suspect or searching a suspect who has already been arrested (Search Incident to an Arrest). The Posse Comitatus Act prevents the use of the U.S. military for police activity, giving added importance to police SWAT units. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police.

So, where would you position yourself? What do you think about having a national organization...or, perhaps it would be too much of a stretch...both of control and resources? It seems that specialized agencies should work in conjunction with the present system, such at the FBI (http://www.fbi.gov/lawenforce.htm), the National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism http://www.mipt.org/ and others that could be instituted and specialized in terrorism and other high profile crimes. Then, the police can focus on decreasing crime at all levels.

This is not exhaustive, but should give you some ideas to work with and provide an excellent starting point.

HAVE A GREAT DAY!