Local Police Role in Homeland Security Essay

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The Boston Marathon bombing happened 4 years ago and affected the field of homeland security greatly. Different local and federal agencies cooperated in order to protect both citizens and the whole country. The police role in these activities was extremely important.

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Officers are expected to maintain operations in four systems:

  • Criminal justice system. They are to be gatekeepers, and both prevent and respond to crimes. They are the ones who determine which criminals are to be considered by the criminal justice system. In this way, the police are in charge of making criminal cases and identifying suspects. After the Boston Marathon bombing, for example, the Boston Police Department made a criminal case and started searching for the offenders, ensuring that they would be considered by the criminal justice system. In the framework of the investigation, the police identified carjacking suspects who were later connected to the bombings.
  • National security system. The police are to maintain anti-terrorist efforts. For this purpose, they gather information in two ways. On the one hand, officers can observe the situation themselves and address terrorism. On the other hand, they can receive assistance from the community. The Boston Police Department, for example, asked citizens to participate. People shared information about individuals in photos. During the investigation, they responded to calls for suspicious activity and packages, trying to identify terrorists and prevent further bombings.
  • Safety system. They are to respond to serious emergencies (maintaining evacuation or ensuring traffic safety, for example). The police should be ready to deal with chemical, biological, and pandemic situations. In this way, the Boston Police Department ensured that all people who were injured because of the bombings were transported to the healthcare facilities. They provided traffic safety for ambulances, which streamlined this process. As the investigation started, the police restricted access to the place where the marathon was held. In this way, they ensured that other people would not get hurt and avoided any contamination or damage of evidence.
  • Security system. The police should ensure security at schools and malls, etc. They should pay attention to different quasi-public places that represent nation’s infrastructure but are privately owned. Cooperating with various organizations, the Boston Police Department coordinated public messaging. In this way, they received an opportunity to inform the population about the outcomes of the bombing. Moreover, the police stated what has been done and provided some recommendations for the representatives of the general public to return to their normal lives. In the framework of the investigation process, citizens were asked to stay at home while the police were searching for the suspects (Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 2014). The majority of business and public places were closed as well, which simplified this process.

The influence on terrorism and homeland security urged the police to streamline the improvement of their services. An increased number of attacks open agencies consider the opportunity to predict possible crimes and prevent them or at least find offenders as soon as possible. As a result, intelligence-led policing was developed. With its help, the police managed to enhance evaluation of crime trends, which had positive influences on the allocation of resources. Crime fight strategies were created for typical groups of offenders, which gave a chance to direct police officers and guide their actions. Intelligence-led policing provides the police with a possibility to treat a group of offenders from a business or managerial point of view. In this way, it became easier to prevent and resolve specific crime issues.

Part Two: Decision-Making and Organizational Philosophies

The law enforcement agencies are in charge of making critical decisions connected with crimes. In order to focus on the best options, they resort to organizational philosophies that guide their decisions. Intelligence-led policing and community-oriented policing represent the most commonly used strategies.

Community-oriented policing, for example, is focused on the proactive crime prevention. It tends to improve the quality of citizens’ life and to ensure safety. In addition, it allows considering alternatives to arrest. Intelligence-led policing, on the one hand, is also focused on crime prevention. However, on the other hand, its main concern is offenders. Community-oriented policing is impossible without cooperation between the police and the general public. Moreover, there are patrol officers who work in particular districts over a long period of time, which provides them with an opportunity to get to know the neighborhood and its population. As a result, these professionals can make the best decisions for them. This tight contact with the community also increases visible operations. Intelligence-led policing is not that concerned about interactions with citizens and pays more attention to crime analysis. In addition to that, all operations are aligned with criminal intelligence. As a result, the police receives an opportunity to direct police resource decisions appropriately.

Community-oriented policing improves relations between the general public and the police. It also makes officers improve their perception of work. As a result, it makes the police become more creative and productive when developing solutions to serious problems. Community-oriented policing ensures that officers can gather all possible information associated with the crime because citizens share their knowledge with them. Intelligence-led policing makes the police focus on the enforcement activities. Officers are concerned with the identification of prolific and serious offenders so that they do not focus on minor crimes that are investigated in the framework of community-oriented policing (Cordner, 2016). Thus, reduction of problems and decision-making related to crime prevention depend on data analysis but not on data gathering, as in case of community-oriented policing.

As a result, community-oriented policing has a broad problem focus and concentrates on crime events while intelligence-led policing has a narrow problem focus and concentrates on offenders. Community-oriented policies are hardly defined and oriented on neighborhoods while intelligence-led policies are fairly easily defined and oriented on criminal groups and serious offenders. Priorities for community-oriented policies are determined by the community and need to satisfy it while priorities for intelligence-led policies are determined by police management and need to reduce criminal activities.

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My local law enforcement agency uses both of these policies. In the framework of community-oriented ones, it ensures that patrol officers make decisions regarding their neighborhoods. It also encourages citizens to participate in investigations, asking them to provide information or assist in searching. Intelligence-led policies are maintained through the collection and analysis of information related to serious offenders. Officers assess security and identify local threats and vulnerabilities, which allows them to presuppose particular consequences and prepare resources needed to deal with them. The police develop action plans for dealing with the most common types of crimes and safety issues, which provides them with an opportunity to react to occurring problems immediately.

References

Commonwealth of Massachusetts. (2014). Web.

Cordner, G. (2016). Police administration (9th ed.). New York, NY: Routledge.

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IvyPanda. 2020. "Local Police Role in Homeland Security." September 18, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/local-police-role-in-homeland-security/.

1. IvyPanda. "Local Police Role in Homeland Security." September 18, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/local-police-role-in-homeland-security/.


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