Impact Of 9/11 On Law Enforcement

According to Jason Villemez of the PBS News Hour, there were immediate changes to airport security following 9/11. Within 2 months of the attacks, the Aviation and Transportation Security Act was passed. This law requires that every single bag is screened at airports andrequires that certain procedures are followed at every airport (Swickard). Before 9/11, scissors, baseball bats, darts, and 4-inch-long blades were allowed, but these are now illegal under the ATSA (O’Connor). The Aviation and Transportation Security Act also created the Transportation Security Administration known as the TSA (Tognotti). Each airport had to supply their own security before 9/11, but with the creation of the TSA, the government supplied security for airports (Villemez). Gabi Logan of USA Today found that the increase in security including baggage checks caused a six percent decrease in the number of passengers. Passengers chose not to travel at all or found a different way to get to their destination. While security in airports was significantly increased, 9/11 also affected millions of Americans involved in the war on terror”.

September 11, 2001 showed that there were weaknesses in communication and emergency response. It also significantly changed the role police have with the prevention of terrorist acts. As Oliver stated, “... policing in the post-September 11 environment is not only a response to the specific events...but also an amalgam of change brought about by various political, economic, and social factors in the United States...” (Homeland Security for Policing, 2007, p. 43).

Policing has changed since 9/11. They wanted different ways to detect terrorist actions and criminal acts. So community policing was implemented. The government has provided money and has been supportive in agencies efforts to participate in community policing. “For example, the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS), a branch of the Department of Justice, provide funding to local police agencies to hire 100,000 new community policing officers in the 1990s” (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2000 as cited in Chappell, 2009, 6).

The devastating events of 9/11 provided a forewarning to our country concerning the dangers of terrorism. However, it has created a particularly greater impact on the duties and standards expected of law enforcement agencies on all levels (local, state, and national). Law enforcement has begun implementing new tactics in an effort to prevent future terrorist attacks from threatening our national security. One aspect of policing in which terrorism has brought about is the process of information sharing between all levels of law enforcement. Our nation has also witnessed a change from traditional policing to that of a militarized one. Furthermore, after the incidents of September 11th, the

Furthermore, the data from Figures 1 and 2 on drug arrests and government expenditure on prosecution shows that there seems to be significant heightened drug enforcement over the years. According to this data, from 1981 to 2007 there is a significant increase in both the number of drug arrests and the amount of money that the government decided to spend on drug enforcement. However, in order to deduce the effects of 9/11 on drug enforcement, it is necessary to examine and compare data in the years before and after 2001. The arrest rate in 2000 was 559.71, while the arrest rate in 2005 was 622.68. This indicates that over the course of five years, the number of arrests for possession of narcotics increased by almost six million. Likewise, the

During the Cold War era, fallout shelters were an instrumental part of society where the government-sponsored these measures to protect the country and its citizens from nuclear attack. However, the Cold war has past and a new threat has emerged that is unpredictable and seems to appear out of nowhere. Seemingly, the government is trying to secure the critical infrastructure of the United States through internal restructuring, legislation and the private sector.

Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, recently affirmed that the plan demand from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) included extra counter-terrorism subsidizing for "frameworks to improve data offering around elected, state, neighborhood, and tribal law enforcement." Elsewhere Napolitano portrayed associations with state, nearby, and tribal powers as one of the necessities of the DHS and noted that "partnerships with state, nearby, tribal, and regional offices influence DHS's capacity to recognize dangers and reinforce readiness before an occurrence," and that "information offering between DHS and state and neighborhood governments is especially discriminating to our security."

The attacks of September 11th, 2001 in New York and Washington DC shocked and horrified not only Americans, but the entire civilized world. Before that fateful Tuesday, airports had security, though it often was not standardized across airports. Also, the fact that the attackers used knives and box cutters rather than guns or grenades, which are more easily detected, seemingly made the attack more vicious and personal. The attacks did terrible physical damage to the targeted cities, and the loss of life was catastrophic. Pressed by the media and public, the United States government created entirely new departments in the wake of the attack to deal with terroristic activity within the United States, most notably the Department of Homeland Security

The attack on the World Trade Center on 9/11 was the worst terrorist attack in U. S. history. Prior to 9/11, the U.S. had dealt with intermittent attacks on American soil with limited experience on emergency preparedness. Since 9/11, Homeland security was formed within the next year with a goal to safeguard the country against future terrorist attacks. The United States was faced with additional challenges other than just providing a response plan to terrorist attacks. There has been a debate if the United States is better prepared or is in the same position as before the 9/11 attack.

After the incident on September 11, 2001, the attack captured a huge attention all over the world and made others more aware of terror. 1n 1996, terrorism became popular when Osama Bin Laden formed Al-Qaeda network. The attack was a surprised worldwide and it brought a huge affect to the United States government and other countries as well.

Prior to September 11, 2001 security in the United States, physical, technical, have not had any major changes, the changes that were done were subtle. The number one threat were illegal narcotic dealers, which included international and national violators. The US was fighting a war against cocaine dealers originating from Mexico and other Spanish dominated countries. This war caused major threats to law enforcement agencies across the country because these drug dealers were ruthless and carried high-powered weapons. This fight against these dealers prompted police agencies to arm their officers with better weaponry. This armament of the police was not a cheap transition for these state and local police agencies, so the government had to step in with funding for new weapons and equipment. Another problem the police faced were how to stop these dealers, during the early years the police had to attempt to use wiretap techniques to record their conversations, there were no cell phones and during the time when cell phones were used, there were phones that were pre-paid with a street name of a “burner”. The cell phone classified as burners were used to conduct illegal transactions, then they were destroyed and discarded, this made it difficult for the police to track.

The September 11 attacks have had a significant impact on international cooperation in combating terrorism.

Police in the United States has had to deal with terrorism for many, many years. Local organizations within the country have the concepts and the equipment to create security networks and the support to have enough resistances and transgressions. U.S. law enforcement has come a long way in guarding our country and security got even better when all the events from 9/11 took place. According to text “While the Patriot Act may be the most recognizable piece of legislation relating to Sept. 11, more than 130 pieces of 9/11-related legislation were introduced in the 107th Congress in the year after the attacks, with 48 bills and resolutions approved or signed into law” (Villemez,2011). September 11, has had the biggest impact on U.S. police since the day that forced us to change our security measures. Homeland security also has some major changes such as better training. Terrorism has a huge impact on US law enforcement. Since Obama has been in office there have been several disagreements in our system to protect our country from illegal immigrants. With a lot of terrorist groups hiring many types of individuals to work for them one way or another and we also have President Obama protecting the civil rights of illegal immigrants coming into this USA making police officers profession way more hazardous and tougher. The American society are essentially behind letting police officers have more authority to do their work and put an end to the illegal migration problem. However,

The NYPD report completed by McKinsey & Company in 2002 (Haddow, Bullock, & Coppola, 2011), identified 20 areas that the NYPD could do to improve upon. The most glaring areas I read involved the NYPD having a more comprehensive disaster response plan geared specifically towards terrorism, and to clear up the roles of the leaders of its organization. Another study performed was the “Arlington County After-Action Report” (Haddow, Bullock, & Coppola, 2011) . While the exact details of the two reports were different, the Arlington County report did note some of the same issues with communication, coordination, and planning. Looking back I have to say that the coordination and communication between so many differing organizations went about as well as one could expect. Sure there were radio problems, and overwhelmed land lines, and cell lines, but with a large scale event like 9/11 I do not think there can ever be anything to make that a flawless reaction plan. A big lesson learned has to be getting the right information out during the times you actually do have radio/cell communication. Far too often conflicting instructions were passed on to rescuers and victims alike. There is no telling how many people lost their lives or were simply injured because they were not receiving accurate information from all involved operators and planners. To alleviate some of these

Police leaders William Bratton and George Kelling began to argue for a greater police role in fighting terrorism for two reasons: (1) terrorism is not really much different from conventional crime and (2) local police are in the best position to learn about the emergence of local terrorist threats, to know which targets are most at risk ((Newman, 2008. Intro) An example of this would be if chemicals and other fertilizers were stolen from a local shop, local law enforcement officer should treat the incident as theft, documenting the incident thoroughly and accurately, while reporting the suspicious circumstances to the appropriate agency. It is through observant first responders federal authorities can collect the appropriate data to counter terrorist