The Pros and Cons of Search and Seizure Laws - Research Paper Example

? The Pros and Cons of Search and Seizure Laws Introduction Sometimes, government representatives can search individual’s property usually regarded as private for constitutional reasons. Normally, the search happens when the person possesses or permanently lives in the area of search. When a representative of the government uses control over a person so he feels he cannot liberally leave or end the interaction with the representative there is occurrence of a seizure. However, a seizure occurs only when an individual yields to the government but in case the individual avoids detention or escapes, there is no occurrence of seizure (Johansen, 2011). In the police department, Search and Seizure process is a famous occurrence. Since the process is legal, any official from the law enforcement department can carry out a search on one's individual property in case there is some kind of suspicion on the individual about involvement in any kind of criminal activity. However, several rules to observe when executing a search and seizure procedure. In the United States Constitution, the search and seizure procedure is in the fourth amendment act. However, the society regularly violates this act because it additionally offers the affected citizens the assurance to ask for security against the seizure idea (Agarwal, 2008). This paper will discuss the whole idea of search and seizure laws and particularly there advantages and disadvantages. Pros and Cons of search and seizure laws The main reason for the Fourth Amendment was to shield the personal privacy and rights of American citizens. It states that every person has the right to be safe in their persons, papers, houses, and effects against insensible searches and seizures. In addition, this amendment explains the making and execution of specific warrants. This law is very important when tackling drug cases because the way the police discover and seize the drugs is important in any drug crime case. In addition, after a thorough investigation the search and seizure can be valid admissible evidence in court (California Criminal lawyers, 2010). It is evident that the African Americans experience an uneven share of arrests and prison sentences. Although this could be because of differences in the disparity flows in crime rates across population groups, it could also be because of the discrepancy being an outcome of discriminatory targeting of suspects by the police. Since the fourth Amendment law says nothing about their exercise of enforcement judgment about the pool of potential suspects, the police can target whomever they desire. Consequently, the black drivers have no legal claim in case the police officers stop large numbers of black drivers allegedly for speeding but mainly examine the presence of drugs while stopping few whites (Law.jrank, 2011). The main reason why the courts invalidated vagrancy and loitering is the acts of racism together with broad police judgment. In order to fight these two vices, the modern government is turning its focus on suspects' privacy interests and taking on a fictive view of agreement that permits a good deal of informal coercion to happen. However, this method is not effective because the police have no authority like the one present in the old regime to help them carry out effective community policing (Stuntz, 1999). The major focus of the search and seizure law is to protect privacy. "Privacy" in this case does not mean the generalized right for exclusion but rather, the interest of being free from observation. Additionally, this law helps protect the community from the evil acts in which only the police can reveal and see but the ordinary citizen cannot hence the police are able to incriminate the criminals (Law.jrank, 2011). As Agarwal (2008) affirms, the major purpose of the enforcement of search and seizure laws is to protect the society against all insecurity and delinquency. The law of search and seizure helps to respect and protect the privacy of community members. In this regard, it helps in safeguarding the rights of an individual. When the police implement the search and seizure laws, they establish hidden truths concerning a suspect. In this case, police officers may recover harmful substances under the custody of the suspect. By so doing, these laws helps to protect the whole community against harmful effects that these suspects might inflict. These laws of search and seizure reflect the needs of the society as a whole rather than individual interest. For instance, if a search intrudes the private life of a suspected criminal, who may cause harm to the society, then law, will consider the security needs of the society rather than considering the privacy of one man One disadvantage of search and seizure laws is that there are increased costs for the searches to occur. For instance, the fourth amendment restricts the use of a police approaches for instance house searches. By so doing, this law increases the cost of using that approach, and it reduces the relative cost of using other approaches that may be substitutes. This is disadvantageous since diverse forms of crimes need diverse forms of police approaches to ferret them. Raising the cost of some tactics and lowering the cost of others thus means raising the cost of investigating some kinds of crimes and lowering the cost of investigating others (Stuntz, 1999). Another major disadvantage of search and seizure laws is discrimination in terms of the type of crime committed and the location or neighborhood involved. Sometimes, search and seizure laws target some particular offenses hence an issue of discrimination. In addition, police may fail to conduct search or seizure on individuals living in certain locations while execute the same to persons living in other neighborhood. Moreover, there are certain neighborhoods that the police use excessive force when searching or doing it severely compared to other neighborhoods. For instance, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, urban crack markets received more police interest than uptown markets in cocaine powder (Law.jrank, 2011). The laws of search and seizure help the community in locating harmful drugs used by some individuals in the society. In most legal searches, police always reveal various drugs and arrests the people concerned. In this case, there are those who are the real users of these drugs and those who distribute and sell these drugs. This helps to protect the community against other crimes perpetrated due to influence of the drugs. In such searches, the nature and capacity of the drugs found indicate the gravity of the likely charges. If police find more drugs than one individual can rationally have for individual use, there might be the necessity of filling charges for distribution or possession for sale (California Criminal lawyers, 2010). The laws of search and seizure naturally concentrate on the types of items that the police officers carrying out the operation ought to see or search. However, these laws do not pay more attention to on the approaches that the officers use while searching. Some officers use excessive force while carrying out these searches or seizures, satiations that offend the suspects. In this regard, some police deem the suspect as an already criminal, which makes them carry out their operation in a harsh manner and with excessive force. This becomes very bad since police violence can be very detrimental (Stuntz, 1999). The search and seizure law protects the privacy of individuals only when the police carry out the searches. However, this law does not take in to consideration the many instances that various organizations invade the private information of ordinary individuals. For instance, administrative institutions like the Internal Revenue Service possibly assault people's privacy more compared to the police (Law.jrank, 2011). Another major disadvantage is that these laws allow criminals to walk away from the courthouse. This implies that the rule may do grave damage to the criminal justice system (Stuntz, 1999). Conclusion There is considerable evidence that the laws of search and seizure are useful in the society. In this regard, these laws help to protect the privacy of individuals as well as protecting the society against various harmful deeds. However, these laws are also very discriminative in terms of race discrimination as well as discriminating the types of crimes. In addition, the laws does not protect privacy from other agencies, it only protects privacy because of police intrusion. References Agarwal, A. (2008). Police Search And Seizure: How Does It Help The Society? Retrieved from California Criminal Lawyers. (2010). The Role of Search and Seizure Laws in Drug Crime Cases. Retrieved from Johansen, E. (2011). Definition of Search & Seizure. Retrieved from Law.jrank. (2011). Search and Seizure: Two Problems. Retrieved from Stuntz, W.J. (1999). Privacy Approach to Search and Seizure Would Lead to Police Misconduct. Retrieved from Read More