Local Law Enforcement Involvement in Joint Terrorism Task Forces - Research Paper Example

?Local Law Enforcement Involvement in Joint Terrorism Task Forces Introduction Law enforcement agencies refer to the government facilities that deal with the management of peace and order in a society. Among the most common law enforcers are the police, the sheriff departments among many other legally recognized entities with such mandates. The police service for example is a national outfit with adequate state resources to maintain law and order in the country. The role of the police force is governed by the constitution of the country and their role in effective governance of a state is integral. The police thus have adequate resources to monitor the activities of the illegal groupings in the country including such groups as the terrorists (Dyson, 2012). This implies that the law police service is an important stakeholder in the creation of a task force to investigate terrorism activities in a country. Terrorists are widely connected individual with equally large pool of resources with which they harm unsuspecting citizens. Such networks are effectively coordinated; they continue to recruit their members from the society thereby building their network to facilitate their illegal activities in the country. The nature of their operations makes them the most lethal group since they target governments. Terrorists inflict fear on the citizens by executing mass murders and destruction of property as a way of proving to the citizens that their governments are ineffective in creating a safe and secure society. They kill, maim and destroy indiscriminately and often use the locals to carry out such grotesque activities. The infiltration of a terrorist group in a society has several economic, social and legal implications on the society since it is an indication of an expanding discord between the society and its norms. Task forces on the other hand are special groups created by laws of the country to investigate the prevailing feature of insecurity and the rising cases of terrorism in the society. The task forces thus consist of different stakeholders to the security of the country. The task force on security will therefore include the local community, lawmakers and the local law enforcement possibly the police force. Each of the parties in the task force has a relation to the issue; they all feel the negative effects of terrorism thus conjoin in the process of determining effective means of eradicating the menace in the society in order to make their society and safe and secure place to enable growth. The police are integral in the task force, they have adequate information on the terrorism and will therefore inform the task force on the nature and the efforts they make in containing the situation. Additionally, the police service is the sole force mandated with the investigation and apprehension of criminals. Terrorists are among the primary criminals that the police handle, their contribution is therefore integral. The police will implement the policies that the task force will create, the presence of the police in the task force is thus important since their will take part in the formulation of the policies. This way, the formulate policies that they can easily implement thus upholding the security situation. For the law enforcers to understand their role in the task force, they must understand the operations of terrorisms. Terrorists are complex and have many resources, which they invest in recruiting personnel, purchasing weapons, managing information and transporting the weapons to the respective countries. The essay below discusses these and the effects of terrorist activities in the local community. Terrorists operate confidentially to their partners through effective and secretive mechanisms. To ensure this, most of such groupings use religion as a means of coercing followership. When recruiting members into the outfits, they target vulnerable members of the society whose faith is largely questionable. People with no or minimal faith are more susceptible to such social groupings as the terrorist seek to fill the religious void with their ideas and the promise of a more stable social life and financial rewarding. Most of the people they target are always destitute in different viewpoints. They spend time in studying their subjects thereby planning an effective scheme of recruiting them (Howard, 1992). To net some of the most powerful people in the society, terrorists use such unorthodox schemes as kidnap and blackmail thereby forcing the individual to aid them in transporting or even detonating their bombs in strategic locations within the country. Additionally, terrorists are inhumane groupings with effective mechanisms of brainwashing their subjects thus succeeding in instigating hate in the people. They target the poor and systematically turn them against the rich and the wealthy in a society most of which are government employees. The groups provide their subjects with financial support thus validating the hatred they instil in them. The poor in the society are among the most vulnerable group since they equally lack adequate education thus capable of believing anybody who presents a lucrative idea (Mitchell, 2012). With this knowledge, terrorists recruit their subjects widening their networks globally. The infiltration of terrorists group in a society is thus an indication of the discord between the governments at its populace. Most of such subjects believe that the government officials are corrupt, inhumane and do not care to contain the rising cost of life in the economy. This way, terrorists succeed in turning citizens against their nations. Terrorist activities vary in scope and may include such simple atrocities as kidnap, blackmail and secretive murders of individuals. Such actions are simple since they do not result in the deaths of many people of large casualties. However, they are acts of terrorists since they torture their victims with the aim of weakening the government. Additionally, terrorisms also involve major atrocities that result in the deaths of hundreds of people. Such include bombing and explosion of public places with large populations or government structures thus compelling the government to lose vital assets. Terrorist activities in a country thus have several economic implications. Terrorists target public places in their bombing in order to pass effective message to the government. In doing this, they target such social gatherings as public companies, market places or any other densely populated place. By killing people and destroying property, the country incurs financial loss as the business activities slow. Increasing terrorism in a country discourage investments. Most investors prefer peaceful environments where their assets are safe and thus promise longer profitability. Additionally, terrorists attack such social places indiscriminate of the nationality of the people (Boger, 1996). By doing this, they kill people from different regions thereby sparking diplomatic rows between the countries. Because of such activities, the foreign governments become wary of the security status in the other country thereby placing travel bans for their citizens. Travel bans discourage economic growth since it discourages foreign investing and discourage the service industry in the country. Terrorism is a threat to economic development. It has discouraged the development of tourism in several countries thereby discouraging the growth of the service industries as such services as hotels, car rentals and flight become redundant. The growth of tourism relies on the existence of peaceful and secure societies. Terrorists discourage the developments of these by killing indiscriminately. Most terrorist groups target the developing countries since they lack adequate security apparatus to protect their societies. Owing to this, terrorists targeting such large economies as the United States of America opt to trail the American citizens in the developing countries from where it is easier to kill. American embassies in the republic of Kenya and Tanzania became victims of such incidents in 1998 since the host countries lacked adequate security facilities to survey the terrorist activities in the country. Such acts of cowardice destroy the relations between the United States of America and the developing economies as it later imposed travel suctions thereby affecting the tourism industries in these countries. Terrorists thrive on the lapses of the law enforcement agencies. They transport their weapons into the country following weaker travelling regulations. Cross border movement of people and weaker security, features at the entry points have enabled terrorists to sneak weapons of mass destructions into the country. An effective government monitors entry points such as the seaport, airports and the road networks to ensure that the country is safe from foreign infiltration. The law enforcement agencies mandated with the management of the entry points and the registration of persons in a country must have adequate resources to ensure that they monitor the activities of every citizen in the country (Houle, 2005). With effective registrations and the provision of valid travel documents, it becomes easier to monitor the activities of the people in a country. Additionally, terrorists take advantage of the weak laws government the possession of firearms and weapons of mass destructions. Such artillery as bombs and grenades are property of the military. It is therefore lapse in the operations of the country law enforcers to find any other person with such weaponry. However, most of the terrorist groups transport the weapons from other countries a feature that indicates that terrorists indeed exploit weak traveling laws in the country. America is one of the countries with the most advanced security systems in the world. The country has several law enforcement agents all of who have adequate resources to investigate operations of terrorists in the country. However, the numerous law enforcement agents often conflict on jurisdictions since they all claim capability to handle the security lapses. The coordination of the different law enforcement agencies is necessary to ensure that each force operates within its jurisdiction in a complementary manner. In most of the occasions they insubordinate themselves thereby making the investigations more complicated. However, the country has effective surveillance of the activities and movement of people. The government is capable of accounting for every citizen at any moment. It is therefore possible to carry out faster investigations into any act of terrorism (Law, 2009). Legally terrorism amounts to a capital offense; engagement in such acts is a crime similar to treason. The government has stringent legislations to ensure that it instils discipline, fear and patriotism in the people in order to create a peaceful society for everyone. Additionally, terrorism is an international crime against humanity. The Rome statute for example explains that terrorism is a crime against humanity since it seeks to maim, harm and kill innocent people. Furthermore, terrorists kill in masses a feature that makes the effects of terrorist activities more devastating. The fact that some of the terrorists are always international citizens validates the clarification of terrorism as an international offense tried at the international criminal court. Foreign citizens take advantage of the weak travelling laws to gain entry into foreign countries where they kill unsuspecting citizens before sneaking back into their countries. The Rome statute thus provides for effective mechanisms of apprehending the suspects and trying them at The Hague especially should the victim countries lack effective facilities to apprehend the persons (Dyson, 2012). Terrorism further affects the diplomatic relations and legal ties between countries. Terrorists are criminals even back home in their mother countries. However, after the execution of such a crime, the ensuing war of words is always against the two countries with most of the victim countries accusing the other nations of laxity in investigating and apprehending their citizens associated to the terrorist activities. Such speculations led to the American Iraqi war since most of the terrorists attacking the United States of America were Iraqi nationals. The Iraqi government had purportedly provided the individuals with secure environment thereby complicating the investigation and apprehension of the individuals by the international community (Mitchell, 2012). The law enforcement agent in this context is key in understanding the operations of the terrorists thereby formulating effective policies to contain the aggravating condition. The police service is wide enough and has adequate resources with which to investigate and apprehend the culprits. There are different types of police officers in the country with some such as the Counter Terrorist Unit specifically dedicated to monitor terrorist activities within the country. Additionally, among the resources of the law enforcement agents is the wide database in which they file past terrorist suspect, the police have effective surveillance equipment to monitor the activities of terrorists throughout the world. The police force has access to communication equipment that monitor the communication between people thereby capable of intercepting a terrorist plane before its execution. The police service has effective investigators who look into occurrences to ensure that they apprehend criminals. The police have effective databases in which they file every criminal thereby making their investigations easier. Through the integration of the surveillance cameras into their databases and the complementary registration of people through their social security’s number or their driver’s licenses, the police have adequate information on anybody in the community. The police are therefore capable of intercepting on visitors and investigate their reason for being in the country. Owing to its numerous functions in the process of maintaining law and order, the police force is capable of ensuring the safety of the country from acts of terrorism. Additionally, the police work in close relations with the public prosecutor; they therefore arraign most of their criminals in court from where their face charges of criminal or civil offenses. The relationship between the police service and the legislation makes it possible for the police to arrest international terrorist and hand them over to the international criminal court at The Hague. The local community on the other hand is in every way affected by the acts of terrorism. It thus becomes the greatest stakeholder in the task force. Firstly, the police officers are members of the society. Most of the police officers are drawn from the local community in order to make them have adequate information on the nature of the society. This implies that they have an effective understanding of the security factors affecting the society and are capable of addressing them. This also ensures that they understand the location adequately and can move throughout the region freely without resistance (Dyson, 2012). The interaction between the police and the society makes it easier for the police to obtain information from the public easily. An effective government must understand this and give the local community as much consideration as possible. In order to develop safe and secure communities, the police must work closely with the local community. This is only possible if the police have an enabling rapport with the community. The government develops this by hiring from within the community. Additionally, terrorism takes place in the local community and therefore affects the local community first hand. The destruction of property is a primary loss to the local society and so is the death of people. All the effects of terrorism have a primary effect on the local community. The government must therefore ensure that it develops and sustains effective societies that permit peaceful coexistence. Those recruited into terrorism are always members of the society. This implies that the terrorist groups exploit the weakness of the local society to turn the embers of the society against each other. A society whose members have joined terrorist groups exhibits several features that portray social, economic and political weakness coupled with a religious void. Such a county has a weak economy that makes it easier for the terrorists to recruit members by promising the economic security. To avoid such, the government must provide incentive to the populace to ensure that they access economic opportunities. This way, the members became capable of affording quality education thus developing strong personal and social values among themselves. The government must supervise the religious belief of her citizens to ensure that they have beliefs that uphold the value of humanity thus the need for peaceful coexistence. In a summary, terrorism is a threat to social, economic, political and spiritual development in a society. The practice undermines the value of humanity thereby promoting the appreciation of vices among people living in the same community. It results in economic stagnation as it results in the destruction of social amenities and the death of unsuspecting citizens. Terrorism results in more orphans in a society, such children cannot thus seek effective education thereby developing into weak and poor adults (Boger, 1996). This way, terrorism triggers a series of events that sustain the vicious cycle of poverty. In devising a lasting solution to the menace, the government requires the contribution of every stakeholder since terrorism affect them differently. The police service is the integral stakeholder in developing policies that redress the menace. The police are mandated with maintaining law and order in the society. They have the resources to do this and therefore simply require effective policies to govern their relation with the society. References Boger, J. C. (1996). Race, poverty, and American cities. Chapel Hill [u.a.: Univ. of North Carolina Press. Dyson, W. E. (2012). Terrorism: An investigator's handbook. Cincinnati, Ohio: Anderson. Houle, M. E. (2005). Terrorism. Farmington Hills, MI: Greenhaven Press [u.a.. Howard, L. (1992). Terrorism: Roots, impact, responses. New York: Praeger. Law, R. D. (2009). Terrorism: A history. Cambridge: Polity Press. Mitchell, D. (2012). Right to the City: Social Justice and the Fight for Public Space. New York: Guilford Publications. Read More