Police (United States)

The police of the United States consists of many individual police organizations at many different levels of the federal system. Almost 18,000 largely independent organizations exercise police powers in the USA (as of 2016). In total, more than 1.2 million police officers (excluding the Federal Police) are on duty in the United States.

At the federal level, the various federal police forces are responsible for investigating criminal offenses and safeguarding the law. The area of responsibility regulates the competence accordingly. On a state level, there is the State Police ( State Police ), often state for monitoring the highways and the guard is responsible. Most US cities have their own police force . At the county or district level , the sheriffs are responsible for everything that happens outside the cities and incorporated communities. However, there are also cities and municipalities with sheriffs that are located in districts and counties for which their own sheriff or police are responsible and vice versa.

In addition to the fact that every township, city (sometimes even borough), county, and state in the US has its own police force (resulting in around 12,000 local law enforcement agencies in 2013), most are in the business divisions Ministries at the state and federal level other authorities with police powers. City authorities also have additional investigative authorities for certain areas. Fire investigations are carried out in many cities by fire fighters, some of whom are armed (e.g. in Chicago, New York City). In New York City , for example, the investigators are known as "Fire Marshall" and belong to the "Bureau of Fire Investigation". At the federal level, for example, there are investigative officers at the Federal Post Office, finance and customs authorities, the armed forces navy, army, air force, marine infantry, port authorities, the transport ministry, trade ministry, etc.

Police organizations

Local police authorities

However, the term police is most likely to be used for the police officers employed by the municipalities. Occasionally universities or other authorities have been given power by the competent parliament to maintain their own police services. The local police of the cities as well as the sheriffs and the special police of a certain institution have only a strictly bound local authority (e.g. a university police only on the campus of the respective university, the city police only within the city limits etc.). These ties can be loosened by special agreement (e.g. if a city and a university grants the other contractual partner the right to act in the other area in justified cases).

Because of the distributed responsibilities, there is no uniform structure of the local police organizations.

Structure and responsibilities

In rural areas, the elected sheriff usually heads the police; all police officers are called deputy . Where, as in many cities, there is a separation between the police and the criminal police , the police officers are usually called officers and the police officers are called detective ; the ranks are usually denoted by military ranks: Lieutenant , Captain . The chief police officer usually has the title of chief .

In cases where the local police does not have the necessary resources or skills, they can competence ( jurisdiction ) for the case or individual tasks to the police of each state post. This applies in particular to major events or criminal cases in which special investigative methods are required. In the case of crimes that cross state borders or that come from a catalog of particularly serious crimes, the FBI can take jurisdiction.

Special tasks

Depending on the state, the investigative authorities are also subordinate to special institutions and units. All states, the federal police authorities and some large local police forces have forensic laboratories , and in about a third of all regions the police also report the medical examiner , responsible for investigating unnatural or unexplained deaths.

All supraregional and now many local police authorities maintain one or more special units, known as SWAT teams (Special Weapons and Tactics), for particularly dangerous situations. They are specially equipped ( weapons ) and trained ( tactics ) for special missions with which the general police force would be overwhelmed. Since 2001 all police units and especially the SWAT teams have been increasingly geared towards counter-terrorism. This trend accelerated with the withdrawal of the US Army from Iraq and Afghanistan. Since then, the army has provided unused equipment such as weapons, armored vehicles, but also communication and monitoring equipment free of charge to all police units and trains them in their use. As a result, police authorities across the country are accused of carrying out their work increasingly from a military point of view and treating the police counterpart as a military enemy. This disproportionately affects minorities, especially blacks and Latinos. Minor drug searches are conducted by SWAT teams with armored vehicles and heavy weapons.

The FBI maintains national databases, for example for fingerprints, DNA traces and other forensic information. For traces of paint and varnish, forensics in the USA use the Paint Data Query database of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police .

State and Federal District Police Departments

The only USA-wide standardization in the police force is the police emergency number 911, which can be called toll-free from almost any public telephone and from almost any cellular network.

The tasks of the police in a state are mostly in the traffic control of high-ranking roads and in the support of the local police units. In some states, the members of the "State Police" are also known as "State Trooper". Usually they carry military ranks, whereby various ranks are omitted. Because of their original task of monitoring highways, the police in some states are also called Highway Patrol .

State police

The establishment of a “state police” is available in

Highway Patrol

There are "Highway Patrols" in

Alabama
Arizona
Florida
California ( California Highway Patrol )
Kansas
Mississippi
Montana
Nevada
Oklahoma
South carolina
South Dakota
Tennessee
Texas (see also Texas Rangers )
Utah
Wyoming

State Highway Patrol

There is a "State Highway Patrol" in

State Patrol

There is a "State Patrol" in

Hawaii

Due to the geographic features of Hawaii, there is no Highway Patrol or State Police. The Hawaii Department of Public Safety assumes the overall support of the local police units .

Washington (DC)

There are currently around 30 different law enforcement agencies operating in Washington.

The District of Columbia (DC) has its own police force that operates throughout the district, except within government buildings. The policemen of the Metropolitan Police Department Columbia (MPDC) wear a dark blue, almost black uniform with a white shirt, the police cars are white. The city is divided into seven so-called Police Service Areas , which in turn are divided into districts .

A special feature is the additional toll-free number 311, which exists in addition to the emergency number 911. The number 311 is intended for less urgent reports (damage to property, theft if the perpetrator is no longer there, parking problems) and information.

The criminal investigation department is a division within the MPDC. It is responsible for all criminal offenses with the exception of fire investigations. As is customary in almost all large cities in the USA, fire investigations are carried out by firefighters with police powers and additional police training and not by police officers. These firefighters are usually also armed. This is also the case with the Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department (FEMS), which is struggling with the same financial problems as the police. The fire investigators of the fire brigade wear civilian clothes or the uniform of the fire brigade.

In addition to these police-related offices, there is the Police and Firefighters' Retirement and Relief Board for tasks related to retirement and incapacity for work, and the Office of Police Complaints , which is responsible for investigating police misconduct.

The United States Capitol Police , which is subordinate to Congress and has around 1,700 police officers, is responsible for the area of the Capitol .

In federal buildings, either Secret Service, Federal Bureau of Building Management, or Military Police officers are in charge.

Navajo Nation

A specialty is the reservation police of the Navajo Nation in Arizona , which also operates its own judicial prisons.

Police at the federal level

The primary criminal investigation department at the federal level is the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The Secret Service is responsible for certain criminal offenses directed against the President and Vice-President as well as for counterfeiting of money and credit cards .

The US armed forces' own military police also have police power . There are also military authorities whose employees have the status of federal agents , these are police officers of the US Army ( Criminal Investigation Division - CID ) and the US Navy or the US Marine Corps ( Naval Criminal Investigative Service - NCIS ). There are also criminal police departments of the Department of the Treasury , the Federal Post Office ( United States Postal Inspection Service ), Customs ( US Customs ), the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE ), the Department of Commerce , the Ministry of Transport and the tax investigation department of the Ministry of Finance . In addition to customs, there is also the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to combat drugs . In addition to the immigration authorities, border surveillance is also carried out by the US Border Patrol . The US Park Police is responsible in the National Recreation Areas Golden Gate Bridge and Liberty Island .

In addition, has Coast Guard ( US Coast Guard ) Police authority in their area. The US Marshals are responsible for guarding federal courts and for special tasks . The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) maintains the Office of Criminal Enforcement, Forensics and Training (OCEFT), which in 1988 also received full police powers.

Problems

The police are repeatedly criticized by civil rights groups, representatives of the Indian reservations and politicians for their work and the brutal behavior. It was not until 2014 and 2015 that the issue of racially motivated assaults and killings by US police officers became an international issue. After the killing of an 18-year-old Afro-American youth by a police officer in 2014, there were ongoing unrest and demonstrations against racist police violence , the deployment of the National Guard and night curfews. After a grand jury decided in November 2014 not to open any proceedings against the police officer, protests, some of which were violent, broke out in more than 170 cities in the United States.

The structure of the police force means that there are around 18,000 police departments in the United States. 97 percent of law enforcement agencies in the US have fewer than 50 employees. Many are poorly funded and poorly educated. With this large number, monitoring and internal control is as good as impossible.

Discrimination and Police Violence

Many police authorities are accused of structural racism, i. that is, they are harsher against Indians , African Americans and Hispanics. In 2014, three African American citizens, Michael Brown , Tamir Rice and Eric Garner , died independently of each other from police violence after resisting their arrests. Riots in several cities were the result. In 2020 the death of George Floyd was added.

1033 range

Since 1997, the "1033 Program" has regulated the formally free loan of surplus military equipment to US security agencies. Originally intended to help underfunded US police forces, small police stations were also equipped with former war equipment. Critics claim this type of rearmament encourages escalation of violence and inappropriate police behavior.

Military goods valued at US $ 4.3 billion went to police authorities by 2014. This is organized by the “Law Enforcement Support Office” (Leso) of the Pentagon. The agency is part of the Defense Logistic Agency , which also handles the sale of disused US military equipment to other facilities. More than 400 armored vehicles weighing 18 tons have been transferred to the fleets of US police authorities since 2006. In addition, there were 435 other armored vehicles from Humvee to armored trucks to chain armored vehicles. 533 aircraft and helicopters as well as 93,763 military machine guns were passed on (according to "New York Times"). Ammunition, night vision devices, grenade launchers, silencers and drones were also supplied.

"Broken Windows" strategy

In 1982 the US sociologists George L. Kelling and James Q. Wilson published a groundbreaking essay for US police work, especially in large cities. The “broken windows” theory states that if a window in a house is broken and not repaired, all the windows will soon be broken. Applied to law enforcement, this means that even the smallest offenses (parking wrong-way, disturbance of the peace, petty crime) should be punished immediately. The NYPD pursues this strategy of "offensive policing". Critics see this with a reason why people are repeatedly shot by police for banalities.

education

The training of police officers in the USA is regulated differently depending on the agency. For local police forces it is usually very short by international standards. Many police authorities have problems finding anyone interested in a job as a police officer.

Maki Haberfeld , Professor of Law and Police in New York, criticized in 2015 that the recruits are often too young and often only have a school leaving certificate. Haberfeld told the US broadcaster NPR that police training lasted an average of 15 to 16 weeks. Police students primarily learn the use of firearms and some local and federal law. There are also a few hours in various social sciences.

literature

Tamara Rice Lave, Eric J. Miller (Eds.): The Cambridge Handbook of Policing in the United States. Cambridge University, Cambridge 2019, ISBN 978-1-1084-2055-6 .
Radley Balko: Rise of the warrior cop. The militarization of America's police forces. PublicAffairs, New York 2014, ISBN 978-1-61039-457-4 .
Robert C. Wadman: To Protect and to Serve: A History of Police in America. Pearson, 2003, ISBN 978-0131120648 .
Marilyn Olson: State Trooper: America's State Troopers and Highway Patrolmen. Turne, 2001, ISBN 978-1563116131 .
Eric H. Monkkonen: Police in urban America, 1860-1920. Cambridge University Press, New York 1981, ISBN 0-521-23454-9 .
OV The Police Blue Book 1939-40, Philadelphia 1940 (includes all US state and local police forces and all major foreign police agencies. Online version)