Report on Special Problems, Challenges and the Future of Policing In America

Special Problems, Challenges and the Future of Policing In America

The United States Department of Homeland Security or DHS      

The United States Department of Homeland Security or DHS is a  of the United States Federal Government which has certain responsibilities in the context of public security, coarsely similar to the other countries’ home ministries. The United States Department of Homeland Security or DHS was established in November 2002, making it becomes the youngest  in the United States (IBP, Inc., 2016). The missions stated by DHs are to implicate anti-terrorism, the security of the US border, customs & immigration, cybersecurity, as well as prevention and management of the disaster. Amongst 22 different agencies under the United States Department of Homeland Security, three agencies that related to the Federal Law enforcement are as mentioned below:

1.      Federal Protective Service or FPS

The Federal Protective Service or FPS represented as a division of the DHS uniform security police. FPS has its responsibility of protecting as well as providing incorporated law execution in addition to the security services, with a purpose to facilitate security for around  whether owned or rented by the General Services Administration or GSA along with their entire residents (Reese, 2010). The functions of this Federal Protective Service are included:

·         Performing the Facility Security Assessments

·         Formatting countermeasures for resident agencies

·         Preserving the presence of uniformed law enforcement

·         Preserving fortified contract securities

·         Conducting the environment appropriateness checks meant for the contract employees

·         Observing security alarms throughout centralized communication hubs

2.      The Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers

The Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers or FLETC is an agency that serves as an interagency law enforcement training unit designed for roughly 91 Federal law enforcement agencies in the United States. The FLETC has its clear mission to "...train those who protect our homeland." In addition to this, FLETC also has been providing valuable training to some states, campus, local, group, as well as the international law enforcement agencies. Thus, the main function of FLETC is providing beneficial training sessions in the most common areas for the entire officers of law enforcement such as weapons, tactics, driving, investigations, along with some legal training as well (Centers, 2019).

3.      The Federal Emergency Management Agency or FEMA

The Federal Emergency Management Agency or FEMA was initially established under the  and then realized by two  in 1979. The functions of the Federal Emergency Management Agency or FEMA are mentioned as follow (Kapucu, Arslan, & Collins, 2010):

·         Organizing the response of the Federal Government to disasters

·         Delivering help and assistance to the local, state governments, and citizens both at immediate condition right after a disaster, and also for the longer term as well.

From the three agencies above, the Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers or FLETC can be considered as the one with the greatest responsibility. The reason is due to this agency has its responsibility to provide training for the people who wants to protect the country. For this reason, it is obvious that the Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers or FLETC is the one who actually makes the foundation to secure the country with the trained individuals who will perform well in protecting the country from any hazard.

The Purposes of the Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) and the National Crime Information Center (NCIC)

The Uniform Crime Reports or UCR

            The Uniform Crime Reports which launched by the FBI are typically grounded on data produced at the local stage. The main purpose of the Uniform Crime Reports creation was to measure the statistics for the rate of crimes meant for the national comparison. There are seven types of crimes that have been considered to be fundamental in the context of comparing the rates of crime which are:

·         Murder

·         Non-inattentive man slaughtered

·         Robbery

·         Violent rape

·         Forced physical attack

·         Burglary

·         Vehicle theft

The program of Uniform Crime Reports or UCR was actually based on work through the  along with the . Every single month, the law enforcement agencies regularly report the figure of the identified list of crimes within their authority and send it to the FBI. This mostly integrates the crimes reported by the public to the police officers. In addition to this, the report might also integrate certain crimes that have been discovered by the police officers and also crimes that known from other types of sources (Jamieson, et al., 2012).

The National Crime Information Center or NCIC

Conversely, the National Crime Information Center or NCIC is actually the core database in the United States meant for tracking down the crime-associated information. The National Crime Information Center is preserved by the Criminal Justice Information Services Division or CJIS of FBI, and it is as well interlinked with the state, tribal, federal, local agencies and administrative center. The purpose of the National Crime Information Center creation was actually to generate a centralized data system to facilitate and simplify the flow of information amongst the various branches of law enforcement (Harmon, 2015).

The Uniform Crime Reports have certain particular strengths and weaknesses, which actually depend on how the data is used. Certain strengths can be seen from how the ultimate data is liberated of populace, and will definitely available to the American public. Furthermore, it also places actual crime data into a consumable arrangement. It permits the general public to view the historical crime viewpoint over the years. However, some weaknesses from the Uniform Crime Reports are that it merely establishes crimes that have discovered by police, also, it does not include the greatest aspect that might be reported, and it is not 100% accurate. In fact, some changes in local laws might able to cause information spears. The data is quite slow to have occurred. Weaknesses of the Uniform Crime Reports are that it neglects some crimes that are not reported to police, and thus, it ignores almost drug usage, and frequently contains some errors in reporting.

The Roles of Police Executives

In relation to the Mintzberg Model of police executives, there are three roles of the Chief Executive Officers or CEO which mentioned such as:

·         The interpersonal role which consists of leadership and cooperation obligations

·         The informational role which includes in monitoring or checking and distributing accurate information, while also performing as the representative.

·         The decision making role

Amongst the three roles above, the first one is the most essential to lead the success for the Chief Executive Officers. The reason is due to the interpersonal role which consists of leadership and cooperation obligations will definitely represent how the Chief Executive Officers succeeded to perform all of the responsibilities and duties that he has to complete (Andreescu & Vito, 2010).

Legislative enactments that are in place to help combat terrorism and its effectiveness

Terrorism has defined as a perception that confronts a simple and also direct legal meaning. For this reason, it is not a surprising fact that, up till now, there is no inclusive convention in the context of terrorism which has a universally acknowledged definition of what exactly could be defined as terrorism itself. As a consequence, various different countries across the world have been inventing their own descriptions of what creates terrorism to have appeared in the country, which are normally found in their criminal law. Thus, anti-terrorism legislation is the law that have the main purpose to fight terrorism. These laws are typically not following any particular assassinations or bombings at all times. Instead, the anti-terrorism legislations normally include some particular amendments which sanction the country to bypass its legislation to fight the terrorism crimes under suspected surroundings of requirement.

Two examples of legislative enactments in the United States along with its effectiveness are:

·         The Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989

This legislation was actually a part of the United States legislature which approved into law in the year 1990. This legislation has provided the application of the Biological Weapons Convention, along with the criminal penalties designed for any violation of its requirements. This law was amended in the year of 1996 and also has been utilized as a foundation to take legal action on some criminals. This legislation has stated that it is illegal to manufacture, purchase, or sell any type of biological agent to be used as a dangerous weapon. In addition to this, this legislation also has provided an explanation that in case the amount of biological agent, poison, or toxin which are appeared to have no peaceful objective, then it would be measured and consequently demolished (Martin, 2011).

One of the main preliminary consequences of this legislation was occurred to be the difficulty in attaining successful criminal prosecution. The reason is due to the determination to utilize the biological agents to become a weapon had to be really proven by the prosecutors. For this reason, this situation could be used as a defense by the criminals with the fact that the biological agents were ‘peaceful objectives’ reasonable.

·         The Homeland Security Act or HAS 2002

The Homeland Security Act was established right after the tragedy of September 11. This Act is quite similar with the  or IRTPA in the context of re-organizing and also centralizing the functions of Federal Security, with a purpose to meet the post ‘Cold War’ threats along with its subsequent challenges.

However, there are some characteristic contradictions in this Act that not solved simply by re-organization. These have reflected negotiations along with further committees required to secure the passage. Yet, the outcome is often to be inconsistent or might also be conflicting with the authorities. For instance, this Act has recognized that the first responsibility of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is to prevent terrorist attacks to have appeared in the United States. However, the language of this legislation has eventually made obvious that both investigation and prosecution of terrorism will remain with the Federal Bureau of Investigation which will then allocate DHS as an investigative and consultative role in intelligence accomplishments (Grillot & Cruise, 2016).

The problems related to determining the actual numbers of hate crimes

            Hate crime which is also known as bias crime defined as a prejudgment-motivated crime that appears at the time a criminal targets a victim due to they are members of specific social groups or ethnic. Hate crime is different from other types of crimes since it commonly refers to criminal actions that are observed to have been encouraged by bias in contradiction of one or more of the social group.

Determining the actual number of hate crimes is quite difficult due to the fact that most of the hate crimes’ victims typically do not report the crimes to the authorities. For instance, the gay populations would not report any hate crime performed against them due to they think that it would only be useless and the police officers would not listen or accepting their reports (Herek, 2017). Thus, hate crime statistics are difficult to be recorded if compare with other types of crimes.