Law enforcement agencies tend to tug of war over controlling the crime for the good of society. To maintain peace, order and a high quality of life with freedom attached. Then the other side of the rope is law enforcement tends to use the power delegated to control society as to how those in the high positions of power dictate. Public safety may take precedence over individuals’ rights at times. For example, a curfew being in effect can be a disadvantage because this is more of a mass punishment procedure. Obviously not everyone involved is guilty but that is the way public order works at times. With the ever-present need to
For better or worse, there is a link between crime and society. Society is strongly affected by crime due to the cost and the decline in the quality of life that citizens face as a result of criminal activity. Since there is a relationship associated with crime and the quality of life, then reducing crime is one of the top priorities of a police department. However, reducing crime is a major challenge for any police department around the world. Staffing shortages are one of the biggest challenges facing police departments while attempting to reduce crime. Many agencies across the United States are having trouble recruiting new police officers and keeping experienced, seasoned officers on the police force. Staffing shortages are due to low pay, a cut in benefits, and the national anti-police sentiment being broadcasted across many news organizations daily. The Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) in 2015 publicly released that there was an average of 2.3 officers per 1,000 inhabitants within cities that had more than 10,000 residents (The Federal Bureau of Investigation 's 2015). An average of 2.3 officers per 1,000 residents is not enough to deter or prevent crime. In a preliminary report for 2015 crime stats, the FBI noted, there is an overall increase in violent crimes. Based on data provided by 12,879 law enforcement agencies throughout the United States, murders have increased 6.2 percent and aggravated assaults have increased 2.3 percent since
As with anything, there are advantages and disadvantages of public order. Unfortunately, we do not live in a perfect society and criminal behavior is something our society faces on a daily basis. If law enforcement personnel do not control public order, society loses respect for individual departments and agencies, as well as the judicial system as a whole.
The Police Department serve many roles and purposes in the community as previously discussed and in doing so they efficiently take care of issues that arise in the public concerning their safety. The specialized concentrations of officers and their functions for crime prevention and patrol deter criminal activity. Jurisdiction does not bound any criminal so there are many different law enforcement agencies to help with these issues and conduct investigations to enforce laws based on these special needs. The United States mission of law enforcement is to maintain its public safety and with so many agencies, trained officers and ever evolving goals; they do reduce the crime occurrence
Pollock (2014) states the crime fighter view, using the crime control approach, places law enforcement in an adversarial role to criminal violators. In this view, law enforcers are the direct opposition to criminal violators and the role of “law enforcers” is to enforce the law by catching violators and bringing them to justice. One may view the term “law enforcement” itself as an indicator of the crime fighter view where police and criminals “fight” figuratively, against one another. This is essentially establishes the view of criminals as the enemy to law enforcement (Pollock, 2014). It is much likening to the roles of enemy combatants in war or heroes versus villains. Interestingly, while anecdotally, depending on which side one is on, either side could be considered the hero or the villain. Some criminal violators live by a code of ethics in going about doing what they do, and
1. Law enforcement agencies seek for lawbreakers to create problems in which they are fined for crimes they have committed. They want this to happen in order to create fines for these criminals in order for the agencies to make a certain amount of revenue from the fines that the lawbreakers pay as a consequence of their actions. Some laws that law enforcement agencies set up in order to create this type of revenue off of lawbreakers include speeding tickets. The action of speeding can cause more good than harm because of the amount of revenue that speeding tickets can produce, compared to the amount of speeding related automobile accidents that people who
Law enforcement is a career that is both violent and rewarding in many capacities. Justice needs to be served in law enforcement and they have a responsibility to uphold the law and serve the people in the community. Law enforcement is crucial in the world today as a global realm as life continues to be more complex and law enforcement struggles to combat many aspects of crime. In order to combat these problems and have a positive future in the criminal justice system, everyone must work together on a bigger scale.
The purpose of law enforcement is to stop, prevent, and uncover people who violate the laws that are put into effect by the government, but in the United States there is a long and well documented
Other criminal acts are due to how much will power and individual has to obey the law which is known as the Social control theory. Social theorists claim that a person’s actions and feelings of strong emotions are influenced by internal and external forces. People who do not have well valued morals and lack self control are more likely to commit a crime. Individuals that are poor, do not have a good job, and or do not have a close and respectable support system of friends and family, do not have much to lose. Everyone needs to obtain some sort of social tie or bond in their life otherwise the person has no boundaries for themselves. Travis Hirschi states, “Lawbreaking is often the most immediate source of gratification or conflict resolution, and no special motivation is required to explain such behavior” (Hirschi, 1969). If a person has nothing else going
For instance, a strength is the idea that individuals who commit minor offenses potentially drug related or vandalism, may have a higher chance of going onto committing more serious crimes if they believe that they will not get caught for it. Therefore, catching those who commit minor offenses early will show criminals that the system of law and order works efficiently and deter higher crime. However, the author Aleszu Bajak from Daily News, explains that since the Atlantic article first emerged, thousands of studies carried out in U.S. cities have analyzed this theory-focused law enforcement strategy and if it reduces criminality, but the quality of the studies, along with their result, have been mixed. Therefore, more conclusive data needs to be found in order to determine if this policing strategy is effective. Nevertheless, the logic of the theory is not flawed, yet the idea in practice has unintended
Individuals in poverty stricken communities are more likely to embark on a criminal path than those in wealthier communities due to the lack of opportunities presented to them. Poor communities are usually composed of single parent households with low levels of education. The need for money and closing doors presented to them when applying for jobs lead many to turn to a life of crime. A life of crime where money is obtained by selling drugs, theft, and fraud. As more of those homes emerge, communities are left divided. While some rise up to the challenge to combat crime, others ignore the situation. Many law enforcement agencies benefit from the social control created by crime. Some police officers are given arrest quotas to meet. Social control provides a justification for the large number of arrests. Justifications vary from keeping the streets crime free to holding the individual accountable for their crime. As crime rates increase, law enforcement is seen by society as a necessity thus keeping them
In the year of 2015 there was an attack in San Bernardino, California that was deemed as a terrorist attack. Since: this attack was deemed a terrorist attack, the FBI investigated the scene and was able to find one of the terrorist’s cell phone which was an iPhone. The FBI thought of going through the information in the cell phone, but they could not access the information until they found a backdoor into the iPhone. Because the FBI found a way to go through the information stored in the iPhone, they believe that they also should be able to go through computers, other cell phones and other devices by using backdoors for investigational purposes. The purpose of this essay is to define a backdoor, and discuss if, backdoors are beneficial, and if law enforcement should be able to use backdoors for investigations.
Throughout the years there has been a decrease in crime in the state of California. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the definition of the word crime is “an act or omission constituting an offence against an individual or the state and punishable by law.” Law Enforcement plays a big role keeping communities safe such as one city, San Diego. San Diego City has been one of the cities were there has been a five percent decrease in crimes within the last four years (Repard 2017). The article, “In 2016, crime in San Diego drops to rates comparable to the late 1950s to early 1960s,” shows that these crimes are compared to the crimes that were happening around the late 1950s to the early 1960s. As soon as one criminal is taken off the
Utilitarianism, this type is very simple and is purely based on happiness, it tends to maximizes all the good in something and minimize all the bad in the act. We all have the desire to be happy and considered this to be the ultimate goal and happiness factor (Arrigo & Williams, 2008, p. 146). Money, most think money tends to bring happiness therefore many in the law enforcement arena attempt to maximize this portion of their life whether its by working extra side jobs or many hours of overtime to bring in extra dollars for family or extra items they feel they have a need or desire
The first concept that impacts the work of law enforcement is ex post facto laws. Ex post facto is Latin for “after the fact” and is used to describe regulations that criminalize a certain type of conduct that was legal when the conduct was originally performed (“Ex Post Facto,” 2007). Because of the United States Constitution, these actions are prohibited from being used by the government. The main reason why this protection is in effect in order to avoid having the government spontaneously create laws just because they deem that the action was wrong in their opinion. An example of this can be seen in a situation where a person hugs a friend and the government spontaneously creates a law that hugging a friend is punishable under law, police officers