Law Enforcement and Policing the Courts in the U.S County - Coursework Example

Law enforcement and policing The word sheriff is a contraction of the term ‘Shire reeve’ from old English scirgerefa which meant a royal official responsible for maintaining and keeping peace while reeve meant through out a shire or a county in behalf of the king. Today it means a chief law enforcement officer for the courts in the U.S County. The specific combinations of political, ceremonial and legal duties vary greatly from county to the other (Hogan, 1971). According to the chain of command which is a series of management positions in he order of authority, where each higher level of responsibility. The sheriff is the head of the department-wide authority. Different ranks have the scope of authority in a given county for analysis purpose we shall take an example of Montgomery county in Tennessee. Here we find that the sheriff is the department-wide authority with an insignia having five gold stars arranged in a pentagon, second in command is the chief deputy sheriff with a badge having four gold stars arranged in a line the chief deputy sheriff is responsible with department-wide jurisdiction with the authority to act in the stead of the sheriff. The captain is third in command where he acts as a division commander his badge is a double gold bars. The lieutenant is forth in command whom is the section commander and carries a insignia with a single gold bar (Inwald, 1988). The sergeant is the fifth in command who his responsibility is the unit or the shift commander for identification he has 3 chevrons. Next to him the investigator is basically called school resource officer, their responsibilities are to provide direction for deputies at crime scenes there is no way of identifying them since they do not wear any insignia. The corporal is responsible for field training officer for patrol shift supervisor or detection division, the corporal wears 2 chevrons with FTO notation for patrol. lastly in the basic organizational structure is the deputy sheriff who is the only one whose badge is silver as opposed to others who have a gold badge in color, he has no insignia (Inwald, 1991). The sheriff has is important in every county due to the functions that he is responsible for within the county, the sheriff is the chief law enforcement officer who is charged with the responsibility of policing the county and keeping the peace, he has the power to make arrests and administration of jail and custody of the inmates. The sheriff also serves as the treasurer of the county and is responsible for collecting all taxes which are levied by the county; the sheriff office is also responsible for administering financial matters of adults and the elderly who are unable to do so for themselves. Additionally, he serves and executes all returns, processes and notices issued by courts which must be served within the county (Hogan, 1971). All court orders are enforced by the sheriff’s office who also acts as a bailiff in court proceedings. The administration of transportation of mental patients, prisoners and extraditions are also part of the sheriff’s office function. Additionally, the office is responsible for maintaining all the tax records, enforcing payment of delinquent taxes and collection of all state, county, municipal and school taxes and then disburses the money to appropriate agencies. Citizens who feel they require concealed weapons submit their application to the sheriff office to have a license of permit (Inwald, 1991). The sheriff’s office is responsible in protecting the county citizens against those who riot or endanger the public property, peace or safety, traffic control and snowmobile enforcement. Sheriff’ office is also responsible for ensuring that all school-age children are finger printed. The fingerprint cards are solely given to their parents to give way for future identification in cases of missing children. The sheriff’s office also works with other agencies in law enforcing department who are responsible for the federal government security. This also involves working closely with the federal bureau of investigation FBI (Hogan, 1971). In some counties, such as in California’s San Bernardino, Orange, Riverside and Venture counties, the sheriff’s office is responsible for coroner’s office which is charged with the responsibility of recovering deceased persons within their county and also conducting autopsies. This office under the sheriff is titled sheriff-coroner. Other specialized functions of the sheriff office are underwater diving, piloting, skiing radar technology and piloting among others. In New Yolk city the sheriff office has canine, marine, aviation and SWAT units (Hogan, 1971). The job of a sheriff comes with many responsibilities, sine it’s a professional law enforcement position which is responsible for the enforcement of federal state and local ordinances and the county, the protection of lives and property and preservation of lives. The sheriff should be able to supervise all employees by providing overall direction, evaluation of these units and co-ordination. In addition he is supposed to take the responsibilities in accordance with the county’s policies and applicable laws, among these responsibilities include, interviewing, hiring, and training employees; planning, assigning, and directing work, also conducting appraisal in performance rewarding and disciplining employee. The sheriff should be qualified to direct the operations satisfactory (Inwald, 1991). The sheriff should have a prior police or sheriff’s office experience and desirable trading on the field, connectively, the ability to read and interpret documents such as operating a maintenance instruction, procedure manuals and the ability to write detailed reports and correspondence, also the ability to speak effectively before the employees of the organization, customers and other stake holders. the mathematical skills to add, multiply, divide subtract in all units of measure, using whole numbers, common fractions and decimal and more important the ability to compute rate, ratio, and percent and to draw and interpret bar graphs (Ho, 2001). The personal ability to solve tactical as well as practical problems and deal with different variety of situations where only limited standardization exist. The work also demands that the employee should have vision abilities which include, vision, distance vision, peripheral vision and depth perception and lastly the ability to adjust focus. Since the job requires one t stand, walk, sit talk and hear the employee should be healthy fit. sheriff’s work experience gives one the exposure to individuals who are alleged to have committed crimes hence the work is associated with law enforcement work this means the noise levels are usually moderate (Inwald, 1988). After submitting the application and documentations which should meet the minimum requirements to join the sheriff academy, the recruits are selected and registered as employees of the court service branch of the ministry of justice making them ready to start going trough training where they can start receiving a training wage while completing the SRT, they are taken to the sheriff academy for training. The field training is designed and implemented to meet the some of this objectives, to increase efficiency and effectiveness of the sheriff’s office by enhancing the climate of professionalism and competency demanded by ethical standards of law enforcement, to create an environment where recruits may develop new skills to increase proficiency on those acquired in the academic setting, it also offers the job observance of each recruit performance (Inwald, 1988). Training is also done to produce highly motivated deputy sheriff and trained sheriff with capabilities of meeting or exceeding standards of performance required by the sheriff’s office and encourage foundation of knowledge given at the academy, thereby creating an environment in which the recruit may develop learned new skills and increase proficiency in the acquired academic settings. During this training programs the recruits go through many courses which include firearms, field based training, safety workshops, total control driving, communications, collision avoidance driving, and legal studies for deputy sheriffs (Hogan, 1971). This training programs have their challenges one is that some recruits after joining the academy they quit on the account of hard and much involving training which they terms as unbearable. Indispline and resistance to follow the laid down rules and producers within the academy is also an interfering factor that reduces the ability to run the academy effectively (Inwald, 1988). Being in the law enforcing department is one of the most dangerous job in the surface of the earth, line of duty deaths which occur while officers are conducting their jobs, automobile accidents are the most common cause of officer deaths. When there is a security or a terrorist threat this are the people who shall be left behind evacuating others, sheriffs shall be called when hazardous gas leakage sometimes they end up being exposed to poisonous gases which ruin their lives. when the sheriff are transporting convicted criminals they may be ambushed by heavily armed adversaries seeking to redeem their friend this criminals will leave nothing to chance to safe their friends, the sheriff here may be shot at which may lead to their untimely death (Ho, 2001). During the transportations of valuable packages which sometimes may be money diamond or artifacts, they normally put their lives on line all trying to protect and safe people’s property. The sheriff job is also involved with going to very hazardous places which are haunted by criminal basically called criminal dens, when this people see them the first thing they think of is killing or mauling them. The sheriff are always advised to wear protective gears like body armor, though it may not prevent them from being shot it minimizes the chances of one getting injured (Inwald, 1991). Being exposed to contagious dieses is also part of the job, this mainly happen when they are expected to extradite a sick person it happens by getting into contact with contagious body fluids. responding to fires in collapsing buildings when helping the firemen is also part of their dangerous career, it is usually dangerous when driving that car with sirens and lights but unfortunately you find a driver who does not give you to pass which makes one cause an accident owing to the speed he was driving at (Ho, 2001). Every day should be treated as a bad day when working as a law enforcement officer, when responding to hazardous spills, leaks and other related situations, the sheriff team should ensure that they use protective suits to prevent exposure. Refresher courses should be carried out to ensure continuity of being physically fit this will enable quick response to any threat that comes on the way. The officers should also be concerned of their safety as more as they are concerned on the civilian safety. General combat skills should be made available through training this will help the officers to be well armed with self defense skills (Inwald, 1991). Procedures and the following of the protocol of the set process of doing things should be followed to the very last detail. This includes hostage negotiation details, public evacuation, radioactive material leakage, and fire emergencies. Walking with a loaded cocked gun is also dangerous to the user as it can go off without the intention of the police, this can cause injury to the user or to others that surround them (Inwald, 1988). Different tools are available for use by the sheriff, cars are used for transportation of the officers, chasing and pursuing other vehicles. Fire engines with sirens help put out fires. Aviation tools like helicopters, fitted with a 30 million–candle power searchlight, a camera with forward looking infra red, microwave downlink, digital recording system and Lojack vehicle recovery equipment. Other devices include all terrain vehicles, 6* 6 heavy duty cargo truck, 4 wheel drive truck and patrol vessels (Hogan, 1971). Every operation has its technique in handling it, set procedures are outlined, citizen involvement is paramount since they are the ones with the basic knowledge of the community, other techniques that may be applied include, military experience, sociability, friendliness, and restraint. Military experience and previous experience are the most helpful since they give the officer fast way of dealing with a situation (Inwald, 1984). Reference Ho, T. (2001). The interrelationships of psychological testing, psychologists’ recommendations, and police departments’ recruitment decisions. Police Quarterly, 4(3), 318-342. Hogan, R. (1971). Personality characteristics of highly rated policemen. Personnel Psychology, 24, 679-686. Inwald, R. E., & Brockwell, A. L. (1991). Predicting the performance of government security personnel with the IPI and MMPI. Journal of Personality Assessment, 56(3), 522-535. Inwald, R. E. (1988). Five-year follow-up of department terminations as predicted by 16 preemployment psychological indicators. Journal of Applied Psychology, 73(4), 703-710. Inwald, R. E., & Shusman, E. J. (1984). The IPI and MMPI as predictors of academy performance for police recruits. Journal of Police Science and Administration, 12(1), 1-11 Read More