Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984

Police makes the decision whether to investigate a crime based on the likelihood of success, available resources and priorities or the severity of the offence. Police can use several methods and authorised powers to assist their investigation. Most of NSW Police’s powers are listed out in the Law Enforcement (Powers and Responsibilities) Act 2002 (NSW). Law Enforcement (Powers and Responsibilities) Act 2002 (NSW) is an act introduced in 2001, which outlines police powers and authority. Main police powers in investigating crime are: arrest, search and seizure, access to information (computerised operation policing system), interrogation and use force is necessary to carry out duties.

Police officers use search and seizure as a tool to ensure their safety, gather evidence, and arrest suspects. In police training, a search is defined as an examination of a hidden place, i.e. a person or their property, whose purpose is to find contraband (DOCJT, 2014, p. 10). A seizure is defined as the capture or arrest of a person or the confiscation of property (DOCJT, 2014, p. 10). Depending on the individual situation, a warrant may or may not be required to conduct searches and seizures. The exclusionary rule, which states that illegally seized evidence is inadmissible in court, has guided the definition of search and seizure, specifically as it pertains

The pre-trial powers which the state are provided with lie with the police force. They are empowered with the authority to arrest, interrogate and detain suspects. If the police see a person and suspect the are someone who is committing a known crime then, under s.13(1) of the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995, they can either ask for an

Police forces or Law enforcers have been used for centuries all around the world but America took particular interest in the English’s policing system. America’s policing ideas and process began

What if police could barge into any house whenever they feel like it? In a world like this, citizens would have no privacy. People would have to be on alert 24/7 in case any unwelcomed visitors invited themselves inside without permission. The Background Essay: Search and Seizure: Did the Government Go Too Far? notes that the British government would inspect colonists’ houses for certain goods. In order to avoid such circumstances, the Fourth Amendment was added to the Constitution of the United States. The Fourth Amendment states that a search warrant and a reasonable cause is required before any government official is allowed to search another’s belongings. However, in some dire situations, a search warrant is not necessary. The Background Essay gives the examples, “…hot pursuit, public safety, danger of loss of evidence, and/or permission of the suspect,” for when police do not need to worry about taking the time to receive a search warrant. The Fourth Amendment is open to interpretation. As a result, there is a collection of various cases that need to be addressed that involve search and seizure. Such as the case of DLK. In this case, DLK’s house was searched by federal government officials with a thermal imager, which senses warmth, because he was suspected of growing marijuana. The question proposed is whether the use of such high-tech tools, like the thermal imager, count as a “search”. In a situation such as this, it is safe to say that the government went too

“The police have a number of powers of stop and search. When using any power they must always have regards to the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE) codes of practice.” The effectiveness of the police stop and search procedures being used as a valuable tool in the detection of crime can be measured by looking at the role that stop and searches play in policing and the arrests they lead to. However their impact on the community and the negative image it has given the police force outweigh the results generated from stop and searches. It has been found through various reports such as one by The Equality and Human Rights Commission, arrests for serious offenses are less likely to follow from stop and searches however they do play

There has always been the thought that police can abuse their power especially when it comes to collection of evidence that could incriminate someone for something that was illegally obtained. The exclusionary rule was put in place to counteract evidence that may have ben illegally obtained to be inadmissible in a court of law with few exceptions to the rule.

probable cause or a warrant. Before 1968 the police could search a suspect only if they had

Bulsey & Anor v State of Queensland [2015] QCA 187 signified the requirements of legal justifications when conducting unwarranted arrests, and further expresses the importance of the right to personal liberty as it is ‘the most fundamental of the human rights recognised under the common law.’ It was evident to the Judges that at least one officer held reasonable suspicion that “the suspect” had committed an indictable offence, but the lawfulness of the arrest was inevitably questioned as to whether an officer with reasonable suspicion was the arresting officer. The judgements in favour of the appellants heightens the need for officers to use their powers within the ‘confines of the law’ when ‘forcibly arrest[ing] and detaining’ a person as to preserve the right to personal liberty, for once this right is left in the power of any authority, to imprison arbitrarily whomever they suspect, ‘there would soon be an end of all other rights and immunities.’

The year, 1984 saw the introduction of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act, also known as the PACE codes. The PACE codes were an act of parliment, the introduction of these codes was to standardise and proffessionalise police work. It basically provides a core framework of police powers and safeguards around stop and search, arrest, detention, investigation, identification and interviewing suspects. Official dissatisfaction with the rules of the criminal process goes back to the mid 1960's when the Home Office asked the Crimial Law Revision Committee to look into the rules of evidence in criminal cases. After their ill fated 11th Report the Home Office shelved the issue until 1977 when the labour government announced that it was to set

Facts: The Fourth Amendment prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures and states that an officer to have both probable cause and a search warrant in order to search a person or their property. There are several exceptions to this requirement. One exception to this is when an officer makes an arrest; the officer can search an arrestee and the area within his immediate control without first obtaining a search warrant. This case brings forth the extent of an officer’s power in searching an arrestee’s vehicle after he has been arrested and placed in the back of a patrol car. On August 25, 1999, the police responded to an anonymous tip of drug activity at a particular residence. When they arrived on scene, Rodney Gant answered the door

The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit holds that when officers receive consent to search with no limitations, only spaces and containers that appear to “obviously” not belong to the consenter are excepted from their search. See, e.g., Synpe, 441 F.3d at 136-37. The Seventh Circuit holds similarly that if officers do not have “positive knowledge” that the consenter does not have authority over the space or container prior to the search, then the search is reasonable. See, e.g., Melgar, 227 F.3d at

Safety is a fundamental right that we all deserve. Most of us rely on the government to provide this security. We pay for this through taxes, but the question that we must ask ourselves is are we getting what we are paying for? By paying our taxes to the government we are giving it the authority to choose the service we are getting back. The Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE) is an Act of Parliament which instituted a legislative

Although people in the United States are entitled to privacy and freedom there is a limit to that privacy. State or federal officers are allowed where justified to search your car, house, property in order to seize illegal items such as drugs, illegal weapons, stolen goods just to name a few. When the police do searches it can be for various reasons it depends on the situation. They can have a search warrant to go into a premises and confiscate illegal paraphernalia or when doing a routine traffic stop an officer might become suspicious of activity that is not normal and conduct a search of the vehicle to see why the driver is not acting normal. When conducting searches it is required sometimes to get a warrant which is a document

Section 24(3) of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (henceforth, the PACE 1984) provides where an offence has been committed (as in this case, with the theft of £5,000 from Mr and Mrs Smith) it is possible for a police officer to arrest Bill without a warrant where they have reasonable grounds to suspect he is guilty (see Shields v. Chief Constable of Merseyside Police [2010] EWCA Civ 1281 and Richardson v. Chief Constable of West Midlands [2011] EWHC 773). This provision of the PACE 1984 should then be read with sections 24(4) and 24(5) (Wilson, et al., 2014). The reason for this is that section 24(4) of the PACE 1984 provides summary arrest under section 24(3) of the Act may only be exercised if the police officer had reasonable grounds