ORGANIZATIONS OF POLICING AND COMMUNITY Essays - Law Enforcement

ORGANIZATIONS OF POLICING AND COMMUNITY Prepared By DeWaun O. Bowman JUS 3300 February 1 3, 201 7 Humphrey, Truitt M.S Society as a whole is blind to the facts and reasoning on the subject of law enforcement and its organizations. Most Americans are unaware to the reasons of why we have the different organizations within law enforcement nor the complete knowledge of why they are organized in the manner that they are. In many, if not most countries, the organizational structure of policing is structured on a national level. But in the United States policing is broken down into four combined but separate entities . They are federal, state, county, and local levels of law enforcement. The justification for this separation can be understood because of the two separate principles that America believes in . First, in the early days of policing citizen were terrified of the thought that policing would be under the control of a centralized federal government. Second, there was a shared understanding and acceptance that as Americans, local problems should be dealt with and best managed at the lowest level possible, this means locally . No matter if those issues involved policing, education, or even waste management. Despite the facts that , this division has caused three exceptional problems still happening at this present time. It unquestionably , obstructs the primary mission of the concept of law enforcement. Fundamentally , there is a frugal duplication of effort or lack of any real attempts between the different commands. Additionally , there are a multitude of standards, so no one set standardized requirements for recruitment, initial training, policies, or management throughout all police departments or divisions . And c onclusively, communication and information sharing between and among the different agencies seems to be burdensome and not very efficiently conducted. When discussing any organization especially when it pertains to law enforcement, it is always essential to allocate positions of power or have some type of authoritarian figure. This is to insure order will at all times be maintained and there is a chain of command. Which means the chain of command has the power of authority and responsible for which orders are passed. Local and state law enforcement agencies are comparable to military like based chains of command. Although on the federal level they are more reliant on a director who is ultimately decide on by the United States President. The most significant separation concerning a chief of police and a sheriff is how they obtained their individual titles or positions . Police Chiefs are appointed by a government person such as the mayor, city manager, etc. Sheriffs on the other hand are elected or appointed by the voters of their counties. Regardless of the means by which the leadership is chosen, most law enforcement organizations operate under the same as military model of delegation of authority as well as chain of command. At the local level, city police are assembled under a police commissioner which is in command of the entire police organization. Depending on the size of the police force, there could be commanders of various police units who report directly to the commissioner and individual officers who report directly to those commanders. State police and state patrol will have similar structures. These structures will vary in size based on the mission of the state police and the size of the state and often requires multiple echelons of delegation, and lower levels of command effected to implement command and control over more officers in larger areas . Federal law enforcement agencies are set up in a different way. Unlike the local law enforcement, federal agencies are not meant to deal with general crimes. Instead, the agency organization is designed to enforce policies and carry out a federal operations while using law enforcement procedures at times. Because these agencies are federal, their leaders answer to the President as part of a directed, national objective. Police organizations adopt different structural configurations. Some police forces have up to twelve levels of command, then there are some that could have a minimum of just four. Some are centralized, with decisions flowing down from the top, the police chief office, while others are