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June 30, 2020

Law Enforcement Policies

Law enforcement is part of the United States’ criminal justice system primarily responsible for enforcing the laws and regulations in the legal system as well as maintaining social order. It is lawfully mandated by the police power concept. Police power is essentially the government’s legal authority for enactment of laws and regulations. In the United States, police power is exercised by the multijurisdictional levels of government, that is, federal, state and local governments. The enforcement aspect of the law is the purview of the executive branch of all levels of the government, that is, president in the case of federal government, governors in the case of state governments and mayor in the case of local government. The executive uses its governmental authority for the establishment of operational policies and appointment of officials of the law enforcement agencies. Nevertheless, both the legislative arm and judiciary also contribute significantly to the law enforcement. The legislature formulates the statutory legislations under which the law enforcement agencies operate while judiciary offers legal reviews on the conducts of the arresting officers during the enforcement of the laws. Law enforcement is often approached in multiple ways namely systematic, legal, and global and public policy. The focus of this paper is on the public policy approach to law enforcement with the accompanying qualified immunity, at both state and federal levels.

Public policy refers to rules and regulations that are established by the legislative agencies (Conser, Paynich and Gingerich). The main emphasis in the policy approach is on the political process involved as well as on agencies internal operations. This method is principally common in governmental agencies with the executive team having the full mandate to do so. In this respect, law enforcement policy making process often encompasses internal management procedures, various legal as well as political processes, and high expectations of the society. The law enforcement policy making process primarily involves three phases namely the identification of the underlying need for the policies, the implementation of the formulated policy and the evaluation of effectiveness of the policies in satisfying the need. In a nutshell, law enforcement policy puts an emphasis on the systematic method of community policing by leveraging the governmental authority in decision making process.

Primarily, the United States Constitution makes provision for the states’ exclusivity in exercising policing authorities and limits the police power of the federal government. Every state has a mandate to form a police force and delegate its policing authority to any local agency within their jurisdiction (Barkow). The state legislature also has the mandate to come up with law enforcement legislative instruments that are applicable within state’s jurisdiction. For this reason, most states’ law enforcement policies and practices vary from one state to another. However, there three underlining functions of state law enforcement policies and agencies namely investigation and prevention of crime, traffic law enforcement and supporting local law enforcement. In respect to crime investigation and prevention, the state law enforcement agencies majorly exercise their policing authority where there is a crime involving multiple local jurisdictions which imply the local government agencies will be easily overwhelmed. The state law enforcement is also mandated to control traffic within their jurisdiction although they often exercise this authority in state highways and very rural areas. In addition to that, state law enforcement also collaborates with local or municipal law enforcement in some cases where the latter is ill-equipped to deal with. Nonetheless, the local governments under the mayoral leadership also has mandate to investigate and prevent any crime within their limited jurisdiction. They include the county sheriff’s office, city police departments, university police etc.

At the federal level, the agency responsible for the law enforcement duties is the Department of Justice. Under this departmental agency are other agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Drug Enforcement Administration, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, United States Marine Services and the Federal Bureau of Prisons (Conser, Paynich and Gingerich). All these agencies derive their jurisdictional authority from the United States Code depending on their specific roles. Additionally, the U.S. Constitution also gives law enforcement legislative powers to the U.S. Congress under clauses such as the Commerce Clause, Necessary and Proper Clauses, Spending Clauses and some sections of the Civil War Amendments of 1870. However, for effective influence of the law enforcement policies at the local levels of governments, congress can only make use of federal processes of data collection on policing matters as well as through exploitation of the consultative relationship between the Department of Justice and various police agencies in the U.S.

In summation, there are multiple federal, state and local law enforcement agencies all primarily deriving immunity for their activities from the United States Code and the multifarious State enforcement-related legislations. Also, each agency or department is at liberty to come up with their own internal enforcement policy instruments. Nonetheless, there is still considerable collaboration between these agencies at all levels to ensure the social order and public safety for US citizens.

Works Cited

Barkow, R.E. "Federalism and Criminal Law: What the feds can learn from the States." Michigan Law Review (2011): 519-580.

Conser, James A., et al. Law Enforcement in the United States. Burlington,MA: Jones & Bartlett Publishers, 2013.