Deck 17: Police and Courts: Investigation, Arrest and Adjudication

Question 1

Is there a conflict of interest in turning over police power to a private corporation? Might they cut corners to make a profit? On the other hand, we have private schools and hospitals, why not police?

Answer 1

Private policing:
Nowadays, private policing has become multi-dollar business over 10,000 firms with about 2 million employees. This privatization cuts expenditure. The security professionals are classified into two broad classes. They are proprietary security personnel employed directly by organization, for asset protection and professionals providing security for goods and services in different organizations. These services institutions install, maintain, provide, conduct, and protect their patrons and their property with specialized technologies.
Private policing might cut corners to make profits:
Conflict of interest is the variation that would arise from private and public police professionals. Private police professional will surly cut corners for easy task completion. This occurs due to lack of responsibility over the public safety. These organizations do not follow any stringent rules or legal statutes for the organization. The major motive is maximizing profit like any other privatized organization. This will reduce the protection and threaten national security.
However, the government selects from amongst number of private firms one best. This best organization satisfies societal needs to sustain its status and increase revenue. Hence, privatization works out better.
The organizational nature is the vital point in consideration to privatization of schools and hospitals. However, privatization will work better in all fields with major motive being profit and reputation.

Question 2

Distinguish among the duties of the state police, sheriff's departments, and local police departments.

Answer 2

Distinguish between state police, sheriff, and local police departments:
State police agencies are traced low regard of public respect to crime fighting ability of local agencies and for increased mobility of law violators. Automobile thieves strike at will and are out of local police jurisdiction ahead of any investigation. Hence, the necessity of law enforcement agency on statewide jurisdiction was mandatory. In addition, state police provided governors with powerful arm for legal enforcement under personal control and not by the control of city politicians.
Sheriff or county law enforcement: The sheriff's roles in county evolved from early days, which was assisting royal judges try prisoners and enforce sentences. On the time of westward expansion in U.S. until development of municipal departments, the sheriff was sole legal authority of enormous territories. The sheriff's law enforcement functions were restricted within unincorporated areas of a specific county, until town or city police department's requests for help.
Metropolitan policing is also known as local police department. There are 4,63,000 full time personnel in U.S. Additionally, sworn personnel and number of police agencies hire civilian employees with special skills for the department. These local police perform multiple roles inclusive and not limited to identification of suspects, investigating them, and proceeding to arrest.

Question 3

Breaking and Entering?
A federal appellate judge asks your opinion about a tricky case. It seems that at 3 A.M. the local police were called about a loud party. When they arrived, they heard shouting inside, proceeded down the driveway, and saw two juveniles drinking beer in the backyard. Entering the yard, they saw through a screen door and windows an altercation in the kitchen between four adults and a juvenile, who punched one of the adults, causing him to spit blood in a sink. A police officer opened the screen door and announced his presence. Without a search warrant, the officer entered the kitchen and again cried out, whereupon the altercation gradually subsided. The officers arrested the adults and charged them with contributing to the delinquency of a minor and related offenses. However, the trial court granted the defendants' motion to suppress all evidence obtained after the officers entered the home on the grounds that the warrantless entry violated the Fourth Amendment. According to state and federal law, one exigency eliminating the need for a search warrant is the need to render emergency assistance to occupants of private property who are seriously injured or threatened with such injury. However, the trial judge concluded that the juvenile's punch was insufficient to trigger the "emergency aid doctrine" because it did not give rise to an objectively reasonable belief that an unconscious, semiconscious, or missing person feared injured or dead was in the home. Furthermore, the judge suggested the doctrine was inapplicable because the officers had not sought to assist the injured adult but had acted exclusively in a law enforcement capacity.

The appellate court judge has asked your advice on the ethics of the arrest and seizure of evidence. What would you advise? Write a brief paper explaining your position. Even though you are a trained criminologist, you may want to read over the case of Brigham City v. Stuart at www.law.arizona.edu/frontpage/Events/ pdf/05-502.pdf.

Answer 3

Advice to the judge of appellate court:
Case: Local police plans for a party. On the point of arrival, they hear a loud shout. They find an altercation between four adults and two juveniles. Here, one juvenile punched adult causing hurt to him. The police officer opens screen door and announces his presence. However, the altercation subsided. The police officer arrested adults and charged with delinquency of minor. The court granted judgment in motion of defendant suppressing all evidences were obtained using the warrant-less entry of officer. In addition, it concluded that juvenile's act was not sufficient for doctrine of emergency aid. The judge also suggested it was not applicable, as the police did not help the injured adult and facilitated legal enforcement.
Justification:
On viewing "varieties of police behavior," one major role is "handling situation." The police have the duty to fix the troublesome incidents. This enforces legal tool through threat, sympathy, coercion, and understanding. The police has obligation to keep things under control with nil complaints.
This role of maintaining peace reflects on through various studies that list police functions as dispute settling, order keeping, maintaining public health, and safety. In this new millennium, policing has undergone huge variations to carry out the set mission. Considering policing department as independent entities every individual is free to opt for new models, uphold traditional policing, or even to try another combination of styles.
These facts imply police can act to preserve the public peace and decide how to stop the conflict. Hence, warrantless search can be claimed as an act to protect the people involved and the surrounding.

Question 4

Are private police agents bound by the same legal rules that state and local police must obey?

Question 5

What do you think are the social trends that may infl uence policing during the coming decade?

Question 6

Should male and female offi cers have exactly the same duties in a police department? If not, why not?

Question 7

A police offi cer orders an unarmed person running away from a burglary to stop; the suspect keeps running and is shot and killed by the offi cer. Has the offi cer committed a crime? Explain.

Question 8

Would you like to live in a society that abolished police discretion and used a full enforcement policy? Why or why not?

Question 9

Should obviously guilty people go free because police originally arrested them with less than probable cause? Should illegally seized evidence be excluded from trial, even though it is conclusive proof of a person's criminal acts?

Question 10

Have the courts given criminals too many rights? Should courts be more concerned with the rights of the victims or the rights of offenders?