Special Problems and Challenges and the Future of Policing In America - Assignment Example

 With a long and rich history since the enactment of the Judicial Act of 1789, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) has continued to offer vast contribution in the law enforcement efforts. The DOJ is an agency of the US cabinet whose mandate is the enforcement of the laws of the US federal governments. The US Attorney general, who is the top law enforcement officer and the president’s chief legal advisor, leads it. The primary or key four agencies particularly in the law enforcement include the Federal Bureau of investigation (FBI), the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), US Marshals, and Bureau of Prisons (Allgov.com, n.d.). The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) The FBI is the pinnacle law enforcement agency in the US’s federal government. It is the agency with the extensive role in the DOJ, whose activities range from investigation of organized crime to probing terrorism assails and operations of foreign intelligence. The FBI also dispenses its authority in helping the federal, local, state, and international associates in combating white-collar crimes, significantly violent crimes, as well as cybercrimes (Kooi and Symonds, 2006). The white collar crimes include those of fraud, money laundering and personality theft whereas cybercrimes include internet sexual predators, internet fraud, and child pornography (Kooi and Symonds, 2006). Other roles include formulating and publishing the UCR reports and the NCIC database data collection and making it available to other agencies. Bureau of Prisons This is the agency in charge of prison’s human resource administration, whose focus is on inmate issues in terms of the transition from the free world into prison life (Kooi and Symonds, 2006). Their duties include the assessment of the inmates by screening and interview when putting them in prison and during imprisonment period. All through this initial step, prisoners are screened on three dissimilar accounts: case managing, medical fitness, and mental fitness. The managing of cases facilitates the understanding of the severity of crimes committed, gang affiliation, drug use, and threat to facility staff or other inmates. This is to ensure that the prisoners are put in the right facility. Another duty played by the Bureau is to ensure all prisons are operating at the acceptable national standards and all operations adequately controlled. Consequently, the agency formulates plans to reintegrate detainees back into society after completion of their prison term (Kooi and Symonds, 2006). US Marshals Service The oldest of all federal law agencies, the US Marshal has been in existence from as early as 1789 when it started offering services to the people of the United States to date. Currently, it directs 94 distinct federal judicial districts in the US. Among the primary roles of the agency are apprehension of over half federal fugitive, fortification of the federal judiciary, the Witness Security Program supervision, the federal prisoners’ transportation, and seizure of illegally acquired property held by criminals (Allgov.com, n.d.). The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) The DEA is the top agency in the operations to combat the sale and circulation of narcotics and any other banned drug substances. The DEA, therefore, enforces anti-drug laws, for instance, a controlled substance law, which deals with the manufacture, supplying, and circulation legally produced substances (Allgov.com, n.d.). The agency investigates violators of the anti-drug acts operating in the US and the global levels. It also works with federal, state and foreign enforcers to collect, examine and disseminate tactical and operational intelligence information. DEA, in line with its main law enforcement process, also initiates non-enforcement techniques such as illegal crop eradication, substitution, and guiding of foreign representatives (Allgov.com, n.d.). Agency with Greater Responsibility Conversely, out of the four principal agencies concerned with the law enforcement in the US, I sustain that the FBI is the agency with the enormous responsibility. The FBI is not only the agency with largest budget share, but also its extensive duties. Currently, the FBI’s jurisdiction is in more than 200 categories of federal law breaches, a gigantic base of operations the FBI has right to investigate (Kooi and Symonds, 2006). These jurisdictions encompass the most important law enforcement departments and therefore playing an important role in protecting Americans. Another reason is its ability to create new technologies to not only facilitate its operation, but of other agencies as well. For instance, the DEA depends on its technologies like lab techniques for identifying substances such as drugs and biological crops and so forth (Kooi and Symonds, 2006). Despite these vast duties, the FBI continues to sustain its operation self-sufficiently bearing in mind that it doesn’t depend on contracts for its operations, save for supplies only. The agency also depends for information such as the UCR and NCIC information for other agencies to use in criminal justice dispensation. Uniform Crime Reports and the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) National Crime Information Center (NCIC) NCIC is simply a database or computerized directory of criminal justice information. The records include the history information about fugitives, missing children, and stolen properties among other records. The purpose of having the NCIC catalog is to make available a computerized database ready for access by criminal justice bureaus when making inquiries and for rapid disclosure of information. Through the NCIC, other criminal Investigating agencies can get information about crimes and the records of criminals or wrong-doers (Pike, 2008). The available information assists these agencies in their objectives such as the apprehension of fugitives, identifying and returning stolen possessions, locating missing children, as well as in the fortification of the law enforcers encountering the persons described in the NCIC system (Pike, 2008). The authorizing agency for this access is the FBI. Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) The UCR reports contain statistical information currently issued twice annually, therefore representing the only data source regarding the magnitude and trends of criminal activity in the United States (Geis, 2012). The preliminary of the two reports is a prelude statement of the level of particular crimes that police had knowledge of during the previous year, and this report is released either in the spring or in early summer (Geis, 2012). The second is issued early the subsequent year. The purpose of the UCR report is to give account crimes committed based on the submission of the figures by county, city and state law enforcement bureaus all over the US. Another purpose is that the interpretative responses by law enforcement bureaus are used to gauge if there is a rise in the rate of crime. Weaknesses of UCR Notwithstanding, since inception, the UCR has faced a number of challenges particularly skepticism about legitimacy of its accuracy. One of the weaknesses noted as early as 1930 is that the report is often disorganized and inaccurate. For example, Wickersham commission established and reacted sharply by describing the report as inaccurate and unsystematic. They further rated it as incomplete statistics that is unfortunate to be relied upon by the country (Geis, 2012). Another weakness is that it uses unreliable measuring procedures. Thirty-six years later, the President’s sponsored commission on law enforcement also showed almost exact pessimism. It established that UCR failed come up with reliable techniques for measuring crime trend (Geis, 2012). Another suggested weakness is that the UCR reports are often influenced by politics. A study by George Washington University’s William Chambliss made this reality check on the crime statistics where he established that though widely used by criminologists, it is often motivated by political and executive consideration. From this stance he further remarked that without even doubting its accuracy, the UCR reports are dependable in just one thing: the propensity to distort and misinform (Geis, 2012). Mintzberg’s Model of Police Executives as CEOs: While considering the exposure, complexities, and public expectations, the position of police administrator or supervisor is ultimately one of the most important and challenging in our contemporary society. With this acknowledgment, Henry Mintzberg depicted three primary roles of police CEO: the interpersonal role, decision-making role, and the informational role (Education-portal.com, n.d.). About interpersonal role, Mintzberg describes the police sheriff as figurehead whose duties includes attending gatherings, swearing-in ceremonies, civic functions, and the leaders who inspire and coordinates subordinate. While aiming at accomplishing the goals and mission of the department, the CEO interacts with other departments to coordinate all assignments (Education-portal.com, n.d.). Second is the information role, where the CEO engages in tasks such as inspection, dissemination, and representative duties. The third role is a decision-maker, who Mintzberg portrays as an entrepreneur whose functions include conflict manager and head of negotiations. Thus, of Mintzberg’s three functions of police executives, I think the interpersonal role is the most important as far as the success of the Police CEO is concerned. This is because if he is just a decision maker, his decisions can be futile if he doesn’t interact with other heads of departments in the police ranks. Similar is for informational role, where the CEO can inspect, disseminate and is their representative, all good, but he may not inspire all subordinates because of lack of involvement. That is why I sustain that the interpersonal role. Because, the CEO will still represent the department in several function as noted above, but more importantly is the regard to achieving the policy goals. The level of coordination is massive with this role due to one-on-one interaction that will not only inspire juniors’ but boost their morale as well. Legislation to Combat Terrorism There are quite a number of legislative enactments over time to combat terrorism; here I consider President Bush’s 2001 USA PATRIOT legislation and president Obama’s 2011 PATRIOT sunsets legislation (Liu, 2012). The 2001 Act contains ten titles with each subsection describing particular area of combating terrorism. In describing the first four titles, the 1st and 2nd sections are the enhancement of domestic security and the enhancement of surveillance procedures respectively. The third and fourth facilitate terrorism combat through money laundering prohibition and provision of border security respectively (Liu, 2012). The 2011 legislation also is aimed at the fight against terrorism, and is an extension of the PATRIOT Act. It added three primary provisions; it permitted wandering wiretaps, seizure, and search of business records, and surveillance conduction of lone wolves- persons alleged of terrorist-related actions not connected to terrorist gangs (Liu, 2012). These two acts are particularly significant for the fact that they give comprehensive provision in detecting and seizure of terrorists and thus providing security. Hate Crimes Challenges: Three of primary challenges facing the hate include in areas of investigation, prosecution and mistrust from the victims. As provided by the US office of the Attorney General (Eastern District of California), victims subjected to hate are often afraid to come forth and lack self-assurance that law enforcers will robustly bring offenders to book (Wagner, n.d). The same difficulty is experienced during the prosecution. There is reluctance from victims to support the investigators and prosecution to expedite their cases, for some, are never comfortable with revealing their immigration status, and this strains justice delivery (Wagner, n.d). Trust of the victims is crucial for success of the prosecution of hate crimes, but the attorneys have continued to work hard to gain this crucial element. These three are some of the challenges that make hate crimes unique, especially the fear associated with it. In other cases, plaintiffs are glad and appreciative in cooperating with attorneys to see that justice prevails, a situation that is entirely different with hate crimes. References Allgov.com, (n.d.). AllGov - Departments. Retrieved 8 December 2014, from http://www.allgov.com/departments/department-of-justice?detailsDepartmentID=573 Education-portal.com. (n.d.). Henry Mintzberg's Managerial Roles. Retrieved from http://education-portal.com/academy/lesson/henry-mintzbergs-managerial-roles.html#lesson Geis, G. (2012). Newspapers, criminologists, and crime statistics. Crime, law and social change, 58(2), 131-138. Kooi, N., & Symonds, B. (2006). Overall Mission of the Department of Justice. Uiowa.edu. Retrieved 8 December 2014, from http://www.uiowa.edu/~c030001/executiveagencies/Department%20of%20Justice/american_politics_doj.htm Liu, E. C. (2012, September). Reauthorization of the FISA Amendments Act. Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress. Pike, J. (2008). National Crime Information Center (NCIC) - FBI Information Systems. Fas.org. Retrieved 8 December 2014, from http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/doj/fbi/is/ncic.htm Wagner, B. Civil Rights Prosecutions: Hate Crimes | USAO | Department of Justice. Justice.gov. Retrieved 8 December 2014, from http://www.justice.gov/usao/civil-rights-prosecutions-hate-crimes. Read More