The Criminal Justice System, Research Paper Example

Regarding the question of whether the United States should seek to forge all existing police forces into one organization, the answer is that, at least in part, it already has. The Department of Homeland Security is the latest form of a federal police agency, but it is by no means not the only one. The Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Marshals Service, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the U.S. Secret Service are among the others, all with powers granting national jurisdiction (Hagan, 2007, p. 462). These agencies deal with specific aspects of national crimes; even the FBI, which has jurisdiction over all kinds of criminal activity, is in place because the interstate, or national, component of crimes tends to increase the severity of it.  In a sense, then, these national police forces have been created because federal policing must address certain criminal issues, and ones removed from mainstream police activity.

To incorporate all polices forces into one presents challenges virtually impossible to calculate, let alone address. Different states in different regions have varying values, and the laws within them reflect the ethics of these locations. For example, the three strikes law is far more strict in California than it is in other states upholding it, because California, the first state to enact it, was responding to serious violence in a way that was demanded by its citizens. Other states restrict three strikes to address only violent repeat offenders, whereas in California a series of misdemeanors can earn an offender a life sentence (Bazelon, 2010). As noted, this translates to law enforcement policy as following the will of the citizens of a particular area. A federal police force could not begin to successfully negotiate such enormous differences in what the law actually is written to accomplish, to serve the people of certain areas.

This goes to the consequent, and even greater, difficulty that would arise from adapting the criminal justice system to a federal police organization. The courts of each state are structured to handle the activities generated by the laws and the police actions of the individual states, and it is highly unlikely that a national force would simplify the processes. On the contrary, there would probably be a vast increase in challenges to the courts, if individual state considerations were no longer valid. Turning again to the three strikes law, California is suffering severe criminal justice issues because of how the law is implemented there. The new demands for preparing records, certifying prior convictions, collecting data, and preparing cases for appeal  require extensive court staff hours. Then, other problems emerge; the necessary focus on these criminal matters creates a backlog of civil cases, and over thirty retired judges were reinstalled to address this neglected arena (Walsh, 2007, p. 110). It is impossible to even speculate, then, as to how a national police organization would be required to proceed, in regard to this single law and its consequences. A national police force would need to rely on a set, national code of accepted laws, and the nearest the U.S. can come to this is in how the Supreme Court interprets the basics.

The Supreme Court is in place to ensure that the constitutional foundations of the law are viewed the same in every state (Segal, Spaeth, Benesh, 2005,  p. 175); that the states interpret and write laws stemming from these decisions and differing in content is an inevitability in so large and multifaceted a country.

Lastly, terrorism has actually served to reinforce the value of community policing. There are those who see terrorism as so substantial a danger that only a militaristic, federal police force should be in place to combat it, but the reality is that uncovering terrorist threats invariably translates to gaining information. As information is best provided through safe channels, the mutual trust between the law and the people that is at the heart of community policing is most effective (Miller, Hess, Orthmann, 2010, p. 475). An example of this would be in how a citizen may seek to convey suspicions to a police officer based only upon the trust that has been developed by the community police presence. Also, community policing is inherently interactive, and the police force engaged in it has a sense of commitment to the area no larger, or federally based, organization could possess. With this familiarity comes knowledge, as well, and the community police are then equipped to notice potentially dangerous changes in the locale simply because they are able to see them as unusual.

References

Bazelon, E. (May 21, 2010.)  “Arguing Three Strikes.” The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/23/magazine/23strikes-t.html

Hagan, F. E.  (2007.)  Introduction to Criminology: Theories, Methods, and Criminal Behavior. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.

Miller, L. S.,  Hess, K. M., & Orthmann, C. H.  (2010.)  Community Policing: Partnerships for Problem Solving. Clifton Park, NY: Cengage Learning.

Segal, J. A.,Spaeth, H. J., & Benesh, S. C.  (2005.)  The Supreme Court in the American Legal System. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

Walsh, J. E. (2007.)  Three Strike Laws.  Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group.