Chapter 4 Law Enforcement Today

4 Basic Resposibilites

1.Enforce Laws.

Crime Fighters.

2.Provide Services.

Most time providing service.

3.Prevent Crime.

Hard to quantify, why is there an absence of crime?
Proactive policing.

4.Preserve the Peace.

Handling the situation.
Intelligence-Led Policing

Predictive Policing Measures the risk of criminal behavior associated with certain individuals or locations-

Allows predicting when and where criminal behavior is most likely to occur in the future
Relies on previous crime patterns
Requires deploying small forces in areas where the most crime occurs
Biometrics- Methods to identify a person based on unique physical characteristics. This gives Police tech ability to ID possible suspects.
Requirements for Becoming an Officer
Background Checks and Tests
Drug tests
Review of applicants' educational, military, and driving records
Credit checks
Interviews with spouses, acquaintances, and previous employers
Background search to determine any previous convictions for criminal activity
Law Enforcement Agencies
Municipal law enforcement agencies
Apprehend criminal suspects, maintain order, and provide services to the community
Sheriffs and county law enforcement
Sheriff: Primary law enforcement officer in a county elected by popular vote
State police and highway patrols
Federal Law Enforcement Agencies: Department of Homeland Security
United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP)
Federal agency responsible for protecting U.S. borders and facilitating legal trade and travel across borders
United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)
Enforces the nation’s immigration and customs laws
Federal Law Enforcement Agencies: Department of Homeland Security
United States Secret Service
Protects the president, the president’s family, the vice president, and other important political figures
Federal Law Enforcement Agencies: Department of Justice
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
Responsible for investigating violations of federal law
Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)
Enforces laws and regulations regarding narcotics and other controlled substances
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF)
United States Marshals Service
Federal Law Enforcement Agencies: Department of the Treasury
Internal Revenue Service (IRS)
Investigates violations of tax laws and regulations
Private Security
Services provided by private corporations or individuals rather than police officers
Guards and patrol services
Private Investigation
Challenges of Counterterrorism
Scarce resources to prevent and fight terrorism
Major domestic terrorist attacks despite several assessments of terrorist suspects

Responsibilities of the Police

Intelligence-Led Policing
Measures the risk of criminal behavior associated with certain individuals or locations
Allows predicting when and where criminal behavior is most likely to occur in the future
Relies on previous crime patterns
Known as predictive policing
Requires deploying small forces in areas where the most crime occurs
Challenges of Counterterrorism
Scarce resources to prevent and fight terrorism
Major domestic terrorist attacks despite several assessments of terrorist suspects

Requirements for Becoming an Officer
Background Checks and Tests
Drug tests
Review of applicants' educational, military, and driving records
Credit checks
Interviews with spouses, acquaintances, and previous employers
Background search to determine any previous convictions for criminal activity
Training
Probationary period: Time at the beginning of a police officer’s career during which he or she may be fired without cause
Recruits are taught the basics of police work and are under constant supervision by superiors
Field training: Officer is placed on the beat under the supervision of a senior officer

Challenges Faced by Women in the Police Force
Prejudice against female officers denies them the opportunity to prove themselves
Tokenism is a belief that one has been hired only to satisfy diversity requirements
Sexual harassment: Repeated pattern of unwelcome sexual advances and/or obscene remarks

Challenges Faced by Minorities in the Police Force
Double marginality: Double suspicion that minority officers face from their white colleagues and their community
White officers believe that minority officers give better treatment to members of their own race

Minority officers face hostility from their own community

Law Enforcement Agencies
Municipal law enforcement agencies
Apprehend criminal suspects, maintain order, and provide services to the community
Sheriffs and county law enforcement
Sheriff: Primary law enforcement officer in a county elected by popular vote
Coroner: Medical examiner of a county elected by popular vote
State police and highway patrols
Federal Law Enforcement Agencies: Department of Homeland Security (Slide 1 of 2)
United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP)
Federal agency responsible for protecting U.S. borders and facilitating legal trade and travel across borders
United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)
Enforces the nation’s immigration and customs laws
Federal Law Enforcement Agencies: Department of Homeland Security (Slide 2 of 2)
United States Secret Service
Protects the president, the president’s family, the vice president, and other important political figures
Federal Law Enforcement Agencies: Department of Justice
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
Responsible for investigating violations of federal law
Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)
Enforces laws and regulations regarding narcotics and other controlled substances
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF)
United States Marshals Service

Federal Law Enforcement Agencies: Department of the Treasury
Internal Revenue Service (IRS)
Investigates violations of tax laws and regulations

-Criminal investigation division investigates cases of tax evasion, tax fraud, prosecuting identity theft, and public corruption

Private Security
Services provided by private corporations or individuals rather than police officers
Guards and patrol services
Intends to deter crime rather than stop it
Each state has its own rules for private security employment
Factors Driving the Growth of Private Security
Workplace crime
Budget cuts in states and municipalities that have forced reductions in the number of public police
Raised the demand for private ones
Increased awareness of private security products

Key Terms

Intelligence-led policing (ILP)
Militarism
Recruitment
Probationary period
Field training
Sexual harassment
Double marginality
Sheriff
KEY TERMS (continued)
United States Secret Service
Infrastructure
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)
Private security
Secondary policing

Summary

Four basic responsibilities of the police are to enforce laws, provide services, prevent crime, and preserve the peace
Two components of a training period of a police recruit are police academy and field training
Challenges faced by women in law enforcement careers are added scrutiny, tokenism, and sexual harassment
Summary (Continued)
The Department of Homeland Security oversees three agencies that play an important role in counterterrorism and fighting crime
Private security refers to services provided by private corporations or individuals rather than police officers

Chapter 4

Law Enforcement Today

What do Police do?

Enforcing Laws

In the public mind, the primary role of the police is to enforce society’s laws—hence, the term law enforcement officer.
Police officers also see themselves primarily as “crime fighters,” a perception that often leads people into what they believe will be an exciting career in law enforcement.

Providing Services

The motto “To Serve and Protect” has been adopted by thousands of local police departments, and the Law Enforcement Code of Ethics recognizes the duty “to serve the community” in its first sentence.
The services that police provide are numerous—a partial list would include directing traffic, performing emergency medical procedures, counseling those involved in domestic disputes, providing directions to tourists, and finding lost children.
Many police departments have adopted a strategy called community policing. This strategy requires officers to provide assistance of a sort that is not, at first glance, directly related to law enforcement.
Police officers often find themselves on the front lines when it comes to dealing with substance abuse and mental illness.
Law enforcement agents in numerous jurisdictions carry naloxone, a drug that can instantly alleviate the effects of an opioid overdose.

Preventing Crime

According to Jerome Skolnick, co-director of the Center for Research in Crime and Justice at the New York University School of Law, there are two predictable public responses when crime rates begin to rise in a community. These are as follows:

The first is to punish convicted criminals with stricter laws and more severe penalties.
The second is to demand that the police “do something” to prevent crimes from occurring in the first place.
On a limited basis, police can certainly prevent some crimes.
If a rapist is dissuaded from attacking a solitary woman because a patrol car is cruising the area, then the police officer behind the wheel has prevented a crime.
In general, however, the deterrent effects of police presence are unclear.
One study found no relationship between the size of the police presence in a neighborhood and the residents’ perceived risk of being arrested for wrongdoing.

Preserving the Peace

Police have the legal authority to use the power of arrest, or even force, in situations in which a crime has not yet occurred but might occur in the immediate future.
The same principle is often used in dealing with domestic disputes, which, if they escalate, can lead to homicide.
Such situations, to use Wilson’s terminology again, need “fixing up,” and police can use the power of arrest, or threat, or coercion, or sympathy to do just that.

Policing Today

American law enforcement today faces challenges that would have been unfamiliar even fifteen years ago, and it has had to develop new areas of expertise to meet these challenges effectively.
In particular, the process of collecting, analyzing, and mapping crime data has become a hallmark of law enforcement in the twenty-first century.

Intelligence-Led Policing

Police departments across the nation are increasingly relying on technology to put this knowledge to good use.
Thanks to data gathered by its Real-Time Analysis Critical Response Division, for example, the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) recently was able to determine that its Newton division was a “hot spot” for drug crime and gang activity.
In response, the LAPD launched Operation LASER, which flooded the Newton area with more patrol officers.
Over a ten-month period, Operation LASER resulted in a dramatic decrease in gun-related murders and other crimes, including robbery and aggravated assault.
The LAPD’s approach to crime in Newton is known as predictive policing, or intelligence-led policing (ILP), because it relies on data—or intelligence—concerning past crime patterns to predict future crime patterns.

The Warrior–Guardian Split

Some law enforcement veterans are wary of the influence that ILP has gained within the profession.
The continued importance of the human factor within law enforcement culture is, however, confirmed by what Samuel Walker calls the “war going on for the soul of policing in America.”
One side of this war promotes protecting law enforcement officers and citizens through aggression and use of force.
The other side concentrates on de-escalation and avoidance of conflict.

The Warrior Mentality

In the summer of 2016, a police officer named Jeronimo Yanez shot and killed an unarmed African American driver named Philando Castile following a traffic stop in St. Anthony, Minnesota.
In the public uproar that followed, some pinpointed a training course entitled “The Bulletproof Warrior” that Yanez had completed two years earlier.
The course advocated an aggressive approach to policing while emphasizing the constant dangers of police work.
This hyperaggressive style of policing is often referred to as militarism, as it meshes military training and weaponry with traditional law enforcement strategies.

The Guardian Mentality

To counterbalance militarism and the warrior approach, many law enforcement agencies across the country are turning toward a guardian mentality of policing.
As the name implies, the guardian approach stresses nonconfrontational tactics to strengthen the bonds between police officers and the communities that they “guard over.”

The Challenges of Counterterrorism

Since 2001, the Department of Defense (DOD) has donated billions of dollars worth of military equipment to local police departments in all fifty states.
In addition, the DOD distributed more than $34 billion in “terrorism grants” to local departments to purchase military gear between 2001 and 2014.
More than one hundred local and state police organizations now operate intelligence units, with at least one in each state.
Most local police departments, however, do not have the resources to make counterterrorism a priority.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), even with its significant resources, also struggles in this field.

Law Enforcement 2.0

The FBI has been successful in uncovering and preventing domestic terrorist plots. Nearly every one of these successful antiterrorism investigations has relied on information gathered by federal agents on the Internet.
Social media is a crucial public relations tool, as well. To build bridges with the public, the FBI operates a Facebook page and an official Twitter account.

How Does Someone Become a Police Officer?

In 1961, police expert James H. Chenoweth commented that the methods used to hire police officers had changed little since 1829, when the first version of the modern police force was created in London, England.
The past half-century, however, has seen a number of improvements in the way that police administrators handle the task of recruitment, or the development of a pool of qualified applicants from which to select new officers.

Basic Requirements

The selection process involves a number of steps, and each police department has a different method of choosing candidates.
Most agencies, however, require at a minimum that a police officer:
Be a U.S.
Not have been convicted of a felony.
Have or be eligible to have a driver’s license in the state where the department is located.
Be at least twenty-one years of age.
Meet weight and eyesight requirements.
In addition, few departments will accept candidates older than forty-five years of age.

Background Checks and Tests

Beyond these minimum requirements, police departments usually engage in the following background checks:
Extensive background checks, including drug tests.
A review of applicants’ educational, military, and driving records.
Credit checks.
Interviews with spouses, acquaintances, and previous employers.
A background search to determine whether applicants have been convicted of any criminal acts.
In some departments, particularly those that serve large metropolitan areas, applicants must take a psychological screening test to determine if they are suited to law enforcement work.
Generally, such tests measure applicants’ ability to handle stress, follow rules, use good judgment, and avoid off-duty behavior that would reflect negatively on the department.

Educational Requirements

One of the most dramatic differences between today’s police recruits and those of several generations ago is their level of education.
In the 1920s, few had attended college.
In the 2010s, 84 percent of all local police departments require at least a high school diploma, and 10 percent require a degree from a two-year college.
Although a four-year degree is necessary for certain elite law enforcement positions, such as a Federal Bureau of Investigation special agent, only about 4 percent of large local police departments have such a requirement.
Those officers with four-year degrees do, however, generally enjoy an advantage in hiring and promotion, and often receive higher salaries than their less educated co-employees.

Training

If an applicant successfully navigates the application process, he or she will be hired on a probationary
During this probationary period, which can last from six to eighteen months depending on the department, the recruit can be fired without cause if he or she proves inadequate to the challenges of police work.
Almost every state requires that police recruits pass through a training period while on probation.

Academy Training

The police academy, run by either the state or a police agency, provides recruits with a controlled, militarized environment in which they receive their introduction to the world of the police officer.
They are taught the laws of search, seizure, arrest, and interrogation; how and when to use weapons; the procedures of securing a crime scene and interviewing witnesses; first aid; self-defense; and other essentials of police work.

In the Field

Field training takes place outside the confines of the police academy.
A recruit is paired with an experienced police officer known as a field training officer (FTO).
The goal of field training is to help rookies apply the concepts they have learned in the academy “to the streets,” with the FTO playing a supervisory role to make sure that nothing goes awry.

III. What is the Status of Women and Minorities in Policing?

For most of this nation’s history, the typical American police officer was white and male. As recently as 1968, African Americans represented only 5 percent of all sworn officers in the United States, and the percentage of “women in blue” was even lower.
Only within the past thirty years has this situation been addressed, with many police departments actively trying to recruit women, as well as African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, and members of other minority groups.
Hence, there has been a steady though not spectacular increase in the diversity of the nation’s police forces.

Gender and Law Enforcement

In 1987, about6 percent of all local police officers were women.
By 2013, that percentage had risen to 12.2 percent—17.6 percent in departments serving populations of more than one million people.
That increase seems less impressive, however, when one considers that women make up more than half of the population of the United States, meaning that they are still severely underrepresented in law enforcement.

Added Scrutiny

There are several reasons for the low levels of women serving as police officers in the United States.
First and foremost, the American culture generally sees policing as “man’s work.” For that reason, many qualified women never consider entering the field.
According to the National Association of Women Law Enforcement Executives, only about 220 women hold top leadership positions in America’s approximately 14,000 local police agencies.
Consequently, female police officers have few superiors who might be able to mentor them in what can be a hostile work environment.
Many male police officers feel that their female counterparts are mentally soft, physically weak, and generally unsuited for the rigors of the job.
At the same time, male officers often try to protect female officers by keeping them out of hazardous situations, thereby denying the women the opportunity to prove themselves.

Tokenism

Women in law enforcement also face the problem of tokenism, or the belief that they have been hired or promoted to fulfill diversity requirements and have not earned their positions.
Although overall arrest rates were similar, female officers were much more likely than their male counterparts to arrest suspects who were “non-deferential” or hostile.
Such patterns, the researchers concluded, show that female officers feel pressure to demonstrate that they are “good cops” who cannot be intimidated because of their gender.
Similarly, women who rise through the law enforcement ranks often face questions concerning their worthiness.
In fact, most of the negative attitudes toward women police officers are based on prejudice rather than actual experience.
A number of studies have shown that there is very little difference between the performance of men and women in uniform.

Sexual Harassment

According to a female officer interviewed by researcher Teresa Lynn, “The guys can view you as a sex object.”
Anecdotal evidence suggests that this attitude is commonplace in police departments and often leads to sexual harassment of female police officers.
Sexual harassment involves a pattern of unwelcome sexual advances or obscene remarks.

Race and Ethnicity in Law Enforcement

Members of minority groups have been slowly increasing their presence in local police departments since the late 1980s.
A closer look at the statistics shows that the percentage of African American police officers has remained relatively stable since 1993, while the numbers of Latino Americans and Asian Americans on police rolls nearly doubled during that same period.

Double Marginality

During a protest outside Fourth Precinct police headquarters in north Minneapolis, a young African American woman turned her attention to a black police officer guarding the station.
“[You’re] helping them kill us, your own race!” she shouted, calling the officer an Uncle Tom and encouraging him to commit suicide.
The woman’s insults highlight the problem of double marginality.
This term refers to a situation in which minority officers are viewed with suspicion by both sides:
White police officers believe that minority officers will give members of their own race or ethnicity better treatment on the streets.
Those same minority officers face hostility from members of their own community who are under the impression that black and Latino officers are traitors to their race or ethnicity.

The Benefits of a Diverse Police Force

In 1986, Supreme Court justice John Paul Stevens spoke for many in the criminal justice system when he observed that “an integrated police force could develop a better relationship [with a racially diverse citizenry] and therefore do a more effective job of maintaining law and order than a force composed of white officers.”
Despite the effects of double marginality, African American officers may have more credibility in a predominantly black neighborhood than white police officers, leading to better community-–police relations and a greater ability to solve and prevent crimes.
In the Mexican American communities typical of border states such as Arizona, Texas, and California, many Latino officers are able to gather information that would be very difficult for non-Spanish-speaking officers to collect.
Finally, the best argument for a diverse police force is that members of minority groups represent a broad source of talent in this country, and such talent can only enhance the overall effectiveness of American law enforcement.

What are the Different Kinds of Law Enforcement Agencies?

Municipal Law Enforcement Agencies

Of the three levels of law enforcement, municipal agencies have the broadest authority to apprehend criminal suspects, maintain order, and provide services to the community.
Whether the local officer is part of a large force or the only law enforcement officer in the community, he or she is usually responsible for a wide spectrum of duties, from responding to noise complaints to investigating homicides.

Sheriffs and County Law Enforcement

A sheriff is a very important figure in American law enforcement.
Almost every one of the more than three thousand counties in the United States (except those in Alaska and Connecticut) has a sheriff.
As elected officials who do not necessarily need a background in law enforcement, modern sheriffs resemble their counterparts from the political era of policing in many ways.
Simply stated, the sheriff is also a politician.
When a new sheriff is elected, she or he will sometimes repay political debts by appointing new deputies or promoting those who have given her or him support.

Size and Responsibility of Sheriffs’ Departments

Like municipal police forces, sheriffs’ departments vary in size.
Police departments, however, are generally governed by a local political entity, such as a mayor’s office, while most sheriffs’ departments are assigned their duties by state law.
About 80 percent of all sheriffs’ departments are responsible for investigating violent crimes in their jurisdictions.
Other common responsibilities of a sheriff’s department are as follows:
Investigating drug crimes.
Maintaining the county jail.
Carrying out civil and criminal processes within county lines, such as serving eviction notices and court summonses.
Keeping order in the county courthouse.
Enforcing orders of the court, such as overseeing the isolation of a jury during a trial.

The County Coroner

Another elected official on the county level is the coroner, or medical examiner.
Duties vary from county to county, but the coroner has a general mandate to investigate “all sudden, unexplained, unnatural, or suspicious deaths” reported to the office.
The coroner is ultimately responsible for determining the cause of death in these cases.
Coroners also perform autopsies and assist other law enforcement agencies in homicide investigations.

State Police and Highway Patrols

Historically, state police agencies were created for three reasons:
To assist local police agencies, which often did not have adequate resources or training to handle their law enforcement tasks.
To investigate criminal activities that crossed jurisdictional boundaries (such as when bank robbers committed a crime in one county and then fled to another part of the state).
To provide law enforcement in rural and other areas that did not have local or county police agencies.

Federal Law Enforcement Agencies

Employees of federal agencies do not make up a large proportion of the nation’s law enforcement personnel.
Unlike local police departments, which must deal with all forms of crime, federal agencies have been authorized, usually by Congress, to enforce specific laws or attend to specific situations.

The Department of Homeland Security

Comprising twenty-two federal agencies, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) coordinates national efforts to protect the United States against international and domestic terrorism.
While most of the agencies under DHS control are not specifically linked with the criminal justice system, the department does oversee the following three agencies that play an important role in counterterrorism and crime fighting:
S. Customs and Border Protection.
S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
S. Secret Service.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP)

The federal government spends about $20 billion annually to enforce immigration law.
A large chunk of these funds go to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), which polices the flow of goods and people across U.S. international borders.
In general terms, this means that the agency has the following two primary goals:
To keep undocumented immigrants, illegal drugs, and drug traffickers from crossing our borders.
To facilitate the smooth flow of legal trade and travel.
CBP officers are stationed at all 328 ports of entry to the United States.
The officers have widespread authority to investigate and search all international passengers, whether they arrive on airplanes, ships, or other forms of transportation.
The officers also have the responsibility of inspecting luggage and cargo to ensure compliance with immigration and trade laws.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)

The CBP shares responsibility for locating and apprehending persons in the United States illegally with special agents from S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
While the CBP focuses almost exclusively on the nation’s borders, ICE has a broader mandate to investigate and to enforce immigration and customs laws.
ICE is also responsible for investigating and preventing human trafficking.

The U.S. Secret Service

When it was created in 1865, the S. Secret Service was primarily responsible for combating currency counterfeiters.
In 1901, the agency was given the added responsibility of protecting the president of the United States, the president’s family, the vice president, the president-elect, and former presidents.
In addition to its special plainclothes agents, the agency also directs two uniformed groups of law enforcement officers.
The Secret Service Uniformed Division protects the grounds of the White House and its inhabitants.
The Treasury Police Force polices the Treasury Building in Washington, D.C.

Additional DHS Agencies

Besides CBP, ICE, and the U.S. Secret Service, three other DHS agencies play a central role in preventing and responding to crime and terrorist-related activity.
The S. Coast Guard defends the nation’s coasts, ports, and inland waterways.
The Transportation Security Administration is responsible for the safe operation of the U.S. airline, rail, bus, and ferry services.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency is the lead federal agency in preparing for and responding to disasters such as hurricanes, floods, terrorist attacks, and infrastructure
The national infrastructure of the United States includes all of the facilities and systems that provide the daily necessities of modern life, such as electric power, food, water, transportation, and telecommunications.

The Department of Justice

With the responsibility of enforcing criminal law and supervising the federal prisons, the Justice Department plays a leading role in the American criminal justice system.
To carry out its responsibilities to prevent and control crime, the department has a number of law enforcement agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the U.S. Marshals Service.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)

Initially created in 1908 as the Bureau of Investigation, this agency was renamed the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in 1935.
One of the primary investigative agencies of the federal government, the FBI has jurisdiction over nearly two hundred federal crimes, including white-collar crimes, espionage (spying), kidnapping, extortion, interstate transportation of stolen property, bank robbery, interstate gambling, and civil rights violations.
With its network of agents across the country and the globe, the FBI is also uniquely positioned to combat worldwide criminal activity such as terrorism and drug trafficking.

The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)

The mission of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is to enforce domestic drug laws and regulations and to assist other federal and foreign agencies in combating illegal drug manufacture and trade on an international level.
The agency also enforces the provisions of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA). The CSA specifies five categories of drugs based on the substances’ medical use, potential for abuse, and addictive qualities.
It also sets penalties for the manufacture, sale, distribution, possession, or consumption of these drugs.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF)

As its name suggests, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) is primarily concerned with the illegal sale, possession, and use of firearms and the control of untaxed tobacco and liquor products.
The Firearms Division of the agency has the responsibility of enforcing the Gun Control Act of 1968, which sets the circumstances under which firearms may be sold and used in the United States.

The U.S. Marshals Service

The oldest federal law enforcement agency is the U.S. Marshals Service. In 1789, President George Washington assigned thirteen U.S. Marshals to protect his attorney general.
That same year, Congress created the office of the U.S. Marshals and Deputy Marshals.
The relationship between the U.S. Marshals Service and the federal courts continues today and forms the basis for the officers’ main duties. The duties are as follows:
Providing security at federal courts for judges, jurors, and other courtroom participants.
Controlling property that has been ordered seized by federal courts.
Protecting government witnesses who put themselves in danger by testifying against the targets of federal criminal investigations. This protection is sometimes accomplished by relocating the witnesses and providing them with different identities.
Transporting federal prisoners to detention institutions.
Investigating violations of federal fugitive laws.

The Department of the Treasury

The Department of the Treasury, formed in 1789, is mainly responsible for all financial matters of the federal government.
It pays all the federal government’s bills, borrows funds, collects taxes, mints coins, and prints paper currency.
The bureau’s criminal investigation division focuses on various forms of tax evasion and tax fraud, as well as prosecuting identity theft and public corruption.
Each year, the IRS’s criminal investigation division gains about 2,800 convictions in cases involving these types of wrongdoing.

Private Security

Learning Objective 5: Analyze the importance of private security today.

Even with increasing numbers of local, state, and federal law enforcement officers, the police do not have the ability to prevent every crime.
In fact, according to ASIS International, an industry-research firm, demand for private security generates revenues of approximately $377 billion a year.

Privatizing Law Enforcement

As there are no federal regulations regarding private security, each state has its own rules.
In several states, including California and Florida, prospective security guards must have at least forty hours of training.
As a rule, private security is not designed to replace law enforcement.
It is intended to deter crime rather than stop it.

Secondary Policing

As mentioned, although some states have minimum training requirements for private security officers, such training lags far behind the requirements to be a public officer.
Consequently, there is a high demand for secondary policing, an umbrella term that covers the work that off-duty cops do when “moonlighting” for private companies or government agencies.
Off-duty police officers commonly provide traffic control and pedestrian safety at road construction sites, as well as crowd control at large-scale functions such as music festivals and sporting events.

Continued Health of the Industry

Indicators point to continued growth for the private security industry. In general, three factors drive this growth:
The problem of crime in the workplace. According to the National Retail Security Survey, American retailers lose about $45 billion a year because of shoplifting and employee theft.
Budget cuts in states and municipalities that have forced reductions in the number of public police, thereby raising the demand for private ones.
A rising awareness of private security products (such as home burglar alarms) and services as cost-effective protective measures.
Another reason for the industry’s continued health is terrorism.
Private security is responsible for protecting more than three-fourths of the nation’s likely terrorist targets such as power plants, financial centers, dams, malls, oil refineries, and transportation hubs.

Lecture Notes

This chapter begins by outlining the responsibilities of the police: enforcing laws, providing services, preventing crimes, and preserving peace. The chapter examines the requirements for a police officer in the United States and also probes the challenges faced by women and minorities within the law enforcement setup. In addition, the benefits of a diverse police force within the police department are also outlined.

There are various types of law enforcement agencies in the United States. Municipal law enforcement agencies, sheriff’s departments, state police and highway patrol, and federal law enforcement are all discussed along with the various responsibilities of each of these types of agencies.

Federal agencies are discussed in depth, and those pertaining specifically to law enforcement are delineated: CBP, ICE, the U.S. Secret Service, FBI, DEA, ATF, and the U.S. Marshals Service. Finally, the role of the Department of the Treasury in combating tax evasion is discussed. The chapter goes on to discuss private security in the United States and the reasons for its continued growth.

Key Terms

Coroner (p. 81): The medical examiner of a county, usually elected by popular vote

Double marginality (p. 79): The situation in which minority law enforcement officers face suspicion both from their white colleagues and from members of the minority community to which they belong

Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) (p. 86): The federal agency responsible for enforcing the nation’s laws and regulations regarding narcotics and other controlled substances

Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) (p. 85): The branch of the Department of Justice responsible for investigating violations of federal law

Field training (p. 77): The segment of a police recruit’s training in which he or she is removed from the classroom and placed on the beat, under the supervision of a senior officer

Human trafficking (p. 84): The practice of illegally transporting a person from one country to another for the purpose of forced labor or sexual exploitation

Infrastructure (p. 84): The services and facilities that support the day-to-day needs of modern life, such as electricity, food, transportation, and water

Intelligence-led policing (ILP) (p. 74): An approach that measures the risk of criminal behavior associated with certain individuals or locations so as to predict when and where such criminal behavior is most likely to occur in the future

Militarism (p. 75): The use of military training, tactics, and weaponry in policing

Private security (p. 87): The provision of policing services by private companies or individuals

Probationary period (p. 77): A period of time at the beginning of a police officer’s career during which she or he may be fired without cause

Recruitment (p. 76): The process by which law enforcement agencies develop a pool of qualified applicants from which to select new employees

Secondary policing (p. 87): The situation in which a police officer accepts off-duty employment from a private company or government agency

Sexual harassment (p. 79): A repeated pattern of unwelcome sexual advances and/or obscene remarks. Under certain circumstances, sexual harassment is illegal and can be the basis for a civil lawsuit

Sheriff (p. 81): The primary law enforcement officer in a county, usually elected to the post by a popular vote

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) (p. 82): The federal agency responsible for protecting U.S. borders and facilitating legal trade and travel across those borders

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) (p. 83): The federal agency that enforces the nation’s immigration and customs laws

U.S. Secret Service (p. 84): A federal law enforcement organization with the primary responsibility of protecting the president, the president’s family, the vice president, and other important political figures