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Law enforcement in the United States is one of three major components of the criminal justice system, along with courts and corrections. Although there exists an inherent interrelatedness between the different groups that make up the criminal justice system based on their crimedeterrence purpose, each component operates independently from one another. However, the judiciary is vested with the power to make legal determinations regarding the conduct of the

other two components. Apart from maintaining order and service functions, the purpose of   policing is the investigation of suspected criminal activity and the referral of the results of investigations and of  suspected criminals to the courts. Law enforcement, to varying degrees atdifferent levels of government and in different agencies, is also commonly charged with theresponsibilities of deterring criminal activity and of preventing the successful commission of crimes in progress; the service and enforcement of warrants, writs and other orders of the courts;  providing first response to emergencies and other threats to public safety; the protection of certain public facilities and infrastructure; the maintenance of public order; the protection of  public officials; and the operation of some correctional facilities (usually at the local level).

History

In 1626, the New York City Sheriff's Office was founded. In 1631, the Town of Boston startedits first " Night Watch". The first local modern police department established in the United Stateswas the Boston Police Department in 1838, followed by the New York City Police Department in 1844. Early on, police were not respected by the community, as corruption was rampant. Inthe late 19th and early 20th century, there were few specialized units in police departments.[1]

The advent of the police car, two-way radio, and telephone in the early 20th century transformed policing into a reactive strategy that focused on responding to calls for service.[1] In the 1920s,led by Berkeley, California police chief, August Vollmer , police began to professionalize, adoptnew technologies, and place emphasis on training.[2] With this transformation, police command

and control became more centralized. O.W. Wilson, a student of Vollmer, helped reducecorruption and introduce professionalism in Wichita, Kansas, and later in the Chicago Police Department.[3] Strategies employed by O.W. Wilson included rotating officers from communityto community to reduce their vulnerability to corruption, establishing of a non-partisan police board to help govern the police force, a strict merit system for promotions within the department,and an aggressive, recruiting drive with higher police salaries to attract professionally qualifiedofficers.[4] Despite such reforms, police agencies were led by highly autocratic leaders, and thereremained a lack of respect between police and minority communities. During the professionalismera of policing, law enforcement agencies concentrated on dealing with felonies and other serious crime.[5]

Following urban unrest in the 1960s, police placed more emphasis on community relations, andenacted reforms such as increased diversity in hiring. The Kansas City Preventive Patrol study inthe 1970s found the reactive approach to policing to be ineffective. [6] In the 1990s, many lawenforcement agencies began to adopt community policing strategies, and others adopted  problem-oriented policing. In the 1990s, CompStat was developed by the  New York Police Department as an information-based system for tracking and mapping crime patterns and trends,and holding police accountable for dealing with crime problems. CompStat, and other forms of information-led policing, have since been replicated in police departments across the UnitedStates and around the world.

In 1905, the Pennsylvania State Police became the first state police agency established, as

recommended by Theodore Roosevelt's Anthracite Strike Commission and Governor  Samuel Pennypacker .[7]. See also Coal Strike of 1902.

California municipalities were among the first to hire women as officers. The first female policeofficer was Alice Stebbins Wells, who was hired by the Los Angeles Police Department in 1910.The LAPD also hired the first African-American police officer, Georgia Ann Robinson, in 1916.

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The first female deputy sheriff, Margaret Q. Adams, was hired by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department in 1912.

Types of police

Policing in the United States is conducted by numerous types of agency at many different levels.Every state has their own nomenclature for agencies, and their powers, responsibilities andfunding varies from state to state.

Federal

Federal police  possess full federal authority as given to them under United States Code (U.S.C.).Federal Law Enforcement Officers are authorized to enforce various laws not only at thefederal level, but also state, county, and local in many circumstances.

Both types operate at the highest level and are endowed with police roles, both may maintain asmall component of the other (for example, the FBI Police

). The agencies have nationwide jurisdiction for enforcement of federal law. All federal agencies are limited by the U.S. Code toinvestigating only matters that are explicitly within the power of the federal government.However, federal investigative powers have become very broad in practice, especially since the passage of the USA PATRIOT Act.

The Department of Justice is the largest and most pronounced law enforcement agency, andhandles most law enforcement duties at the federal level.[8] It includes the Federal Bureau of  Investigation (FBI), the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the Bureau of Alcohol, 

Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), the United States Marshals Service, and amongothers.

At a crime or disaster scene affecting large numbers of people, multiple jurisdictions, or broadgeographic areas, many police agencies may be involved by mutual aid agreements, for examplethe United States Federal Protective Service responded to the Hurricane Katrina natural disaster.Command in such situations remains a complex and flexible issue.

The federal government is prohibited from exercising general police powers due to restrictions inthe constitution, due to the fact that the United States is organized as a union of sovereign states,which each retain their police, military and domestic law-making powers. For example, the

State's National Guard is the state's military. The constitution gives the federal government the power to deal with foreign affairs and interstate affairs (affairs between the states). For policing,this means that if a domestic crime such as murder is committed in a state and the fugitive doesnot flee the state, the federal government has no jurisdiction. However, once the fugitive crossesa state line he violates the federal law of interstate flight and is subject to federal jurisdiction, atwhich time federal law enforcement agencies may become involved.

State

Most all states operate statewide government agencies that provide law enforcement duties,including investigations and state patrols. They may be called State Police, State Patrol or 

Highway Patrol, and are normally part of the state Department of Public Safety. In addition, theAttorney General's office of each state has their own state bureaus of investigation. Variousdepartments of State Governments may have their own enforcement division such as capitol  police, Departments of Correction, Water police, environmental (fish and game/wildlife) Game Wardens or Conservation Officers (who have full police powers). In Colorado, for instance, theDepartment of Revenue has its own investigative branch, as do many of the state fundeduniversities.

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County

Also known as  parishes and  boroughs, county law enforcement is provided by Sheriffs'

Departments or Offices and County police.

County police

Main article: County police

County police tend to exist only in metropolitan counties and have countywide jurisdiction. Insome areas, there is a sheriff's department which only handles minor issues such as service of  papers such as a constable in other areas, along with security for the local courthouse. In other areas, there are no county police and the local sheriff is the exclusive law enforcement agencyand acts as both sheriff and county police, which is much more common than there being aseparate county police force. County police tend to fall into three broad categories:

•

Full-service - provide the full spectrum of police services to the entire county,irrespective of local communities, and may provide contractual security police services tospecial districts within the county.

o Hawaii - Hawaii has only county police, there are no local police.

• Limited service - provide services to unincorporated areas of the county (and may provide services to some incorporated areas by contract), and usually provide contractualsecurity police services to special districts within the county.

• Restricted service - provide security police to county owned and operated facilities and parks. Some may also perform some road patrol duties on county built and maintainedroads, and provide support to municipal police departments in the county. Somenortheastern states maintain county detectives in their county attorneys' offices.

Sheriffs' departments

Main article: Sheriffs in the United States

• Full service - The most common type, provide all traditional law-enforcement functions,including countywide patrol and investigations irrespective of municipal boundaries.

• Limited service - along with the above, perform some type of traditional law-enforcementfunction such as investigations and patrol. This may be limited to security police dutieson county properties (and others by contract) to the performance of these duties inunincorporated areas of the county, and some incorporated areas by contract.

•

Restricted service - provide basic court related services such as keeping the county jail,transporting  prisoners, providing courthouse security and other duties with regard toservice of process and summonses that are issued by county and state courts. The sheriff also often conducts auction sales of real property in foreclosure in many jurisdictions, andis often also empowered to conduct seizures of chattel property to satisfy a judgment. Inother jurisdictions, these civil process duties are performed by other officers, such as amarshal or constable. 

Municipal

Municipal police range from one-officer agencies (sometimes still called the town marshal) tothe 40,000 men and women of the New York City Police Department. Most municipal agenciestake the form (Municipality Name) Police Department. Many individual cities and towns willhave their own police department, with larger communities typically having larger departmentswith greater budgets, resources, and responsibilities. Metropolitan departments, such as the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, have jurisdiction covering multiple communities and

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municipalities, often over a wide area typically coterminous with one or more cities or counties.Metropolitan departments have usually have been formed by a merger between local agencies,typically several local police departments and often the local sheriff's department or office, inefforts to provide greater efficiency by centralizing command and resources and to resolve jurisdictional problems, often in communities experiencing rapid population growth and urban 

sprawl, or in neighboring communities too small to afford individual police departments. Somecounty sheriff's departments, such as the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, arecontracted to provide full police services to local cities within their counties.

Other

See Specialist police departments of the United States for a list  

There are other types of specialist police department with varying jurisdictions. Most of theseserve special-purpose districts and are Special district police. In some states, they serve as littlemore than security police, but in states such as California, special district forces are composed of 

fully-sworn peace officers with statewide authority. These agencies can be transit police, campus  police,  airport police,   park police or police departments responsible for protecting government property such as the Los Angeles General Services Police. Some agencies, such as the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Police Department, have multi-state powers. There arealso some private (non-governmental) agencies, such as the Co-op City Department of Public Safety.

Police functions

Textbooks and scholars have identified three primary police agency functions. The following iscited from The American System of Criminal Justice, by George F. Cole and Christopher E.

Smith, 2004, 10th edition, Wadsworth/Thomson Learning:

• Order maintenance. This is the broad mandate to keep the peace or otherwise prevent behaviors which might disturb others. This can deal with things ranging from a barkingdog to a fist-fight. By way of description, Cole and Smith note that police are usuallycalled-on to "handle" these situations with discretion, rather than deal with them as strictviolations of law, though of course their authority to deal with these situations are basedin violations of law.

• Law enforcement. Those powers are typically used only in cases where the law has beenviolated and a suspect must be identified and apprehended. Most obvious instances

include robbery, murder , or  burglary. This is the popular notion of the main policefunction, but the frequency of such activity is dependent on geography and season.

• Service. Services may include rendering first aid, providing tourist information, guidingthe disoriented, or acting as educators (on topics such as preventing drug use

). Cole andSmith cited one study which showed 80% of all calls for police assistance did not involvecrimes, but this may not be the case in all parts of the country. Because police agenciesare traditionally available year-round, 24 hours a day, citizens call upon policedepartments not only in times of trouble, but also when just inconvenienced. As a result,  police services may include roadside auto assistance, providing referrals to other agencies, finding lost pets or property, or checking locks on vacationers' homes.

Styles of Policing

Given the broad mandates of police work, and yet having limited resources, police administratorsmust develop policies to prioritize and focus their activities. Some of the more controversial policies restrict, or even forbid, high-speed vehicular pursuits.

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Three styles of policing develop from a jurisdiction’s socioeconomic characteristics, governmentorganization, and choice of police administrators. According to a study by James Q. Wilson(”Varieties of Police Behavior”, 1968, 1978, Harvard University Press), there were three distincttypes of policing developed in his study of eight communities. Each style emphasized different police functions, and were linked to specific characteristics of the community the department

served. (Wilson’s field of study was in the United States, and it is not clear if similar studies have been done for other countries with different governmental organization and laws.)

• Watchman. Emphasizes maintaining order, usually found in communities with adeclining industrial base, and a blue-collar, mixed ethnic/racial population. This form of  policing is implicitly less pro-active than other styles, and certain offenses may be“overlooked” on a variety of social, legal, and cultural grounds, as long as the publicorder is maintained. Smith and Cole comment the broad discretion exercised in this styleof policing can result in charges of discrimination, when it appears police treatment of different groups results in the perception that some groups get better treatment thanothers;

• Legalistic. Emphasizes law enforcement and professionalism. This is usually found inreform-minded cities, with mixed socioeconomic composition. Officers are expected togenerate a large number of arrests and citations, and act as if there were a singlecommunity standard for conduct, rather than different standards for different groups.However, the fact that certain groups are more likely to have law enforcement contactmeans this strict enforcement of laws may seem overly harsh on certain groups;

• Service. Emphasizes the service functions of police work, usually found in suburban,middle-class communities where residents demand individual treatment. Police inhomogeneous communities can view their work as protecting their citizens against

“outsiders”, with frequent but often-informal interventions against community members.The uniform make-up of the community means crimes are usually more obvious, andtherefore less frequent, leaving police free to deal with service functions, and trafficcontrol.

Wilson’s study applies to police behavior for the entire department, over time. At any given time, police officers may be acting in a watchman, service, or legalistic function by nature of whatthey’re doing at the time, or temperament, or mood. Individual officers may also be inclined toone style or another, regardless of supervisor or citizen demands.

Salary

Salary varies widely for police officers, with most being among the top third of wage-earners,age 25 or older, nationwide.[9] In May 2004, the overall median was $45,000. The median salaryfor those at the federal level was $48,000, compared to $49,000 for those at the state level and$45,000 for those employed by local law enforcement agencies. The top 10% earned more than$69,000 and bottom 10% less than $37,000.[10]

Rank Minimum Salary Maximum Salary

Police Chief $73,000 $93,000

Deputy Chief $61,000 $77,000

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Police Captain $61,000 $75,000

Police Lieutenant $56,000 $68,000

Police Sergeant $50,000 $59,000

Police Corporal $42,000 $52,000

Reserve Officer $0.00 $0.00

United States

The United States police rank model is generally  paramilitary in structure. Although the largeand varied number of Federal, state, and local police and sheriff's departments have differentranks, a general model, from highest to lowest rank, would be:

• Chief of Police/Commissioner /Sheriff : Five or four stars, similar to a full general. (Insome cities "commissioner" is the civilian official or member of the board of officials incharge of the department, while a "chief" is the top uniformed officer answering to thecommissioner or commission.) In very large departments, like NYC, there may be severaldeputy and assistant commissioners, all civilian, some of whom outrank the chief of department, others of whom are approximately on a par with the uniformed chief, andthere may be a chief of operations who is second in command to the top-ranking chief.

• Deputy Chief of Police/Deputy Commissioner/ Undersheriff: Three stars, similar to alieutenant general.

• Assistant Chief of Police/Assistant Commissioner/ Assistant Sheriff: Two stars, similar toa major general. IN NYC, assistant chiefs head borough commands bureaus.

• Inspector /Commander /Colonel: One star, similar to a brigadier general. Others have goldor silver eagle, similar to a colonel. "Inspector" is also used as a term for "detective" in police departments such as San Francisco and Chicago but is two ranks above Captain incities such as New York and Philadelphia. In NYC inspectors command divisions, whichmay be groups of precincts within a borough or specialized branches of the policeservice.

• Major /Deputy Inspector: Either a gold or silver oak leaf, similar to a major or lieutenantcolonel, supervisor of a Police Station in larger cities such as Baltimore,  New Orleans,and Atlanta, commander of a high crime precinct or of a borough-wide detectivecommand in NYC.

• Captain: Two gold or silver bars ("Railroad tracks"), often supervises a Police station but

can supervise an entire division (Detectives, Patrol, etc) in smaller departments and onlycertain sections of a police station in larger departments. In NYC captains are the normalcommanders of precincts.

• Lieutenant: A single gold or silver bar, who supervises two to three or more sergeants.Lieutenants can supervise an entire watch shift of a police station or detective squad(Narcotics, Homicide, etc.) in larger police departments and entire precincts in smaller  police departments.

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• Sergeant: Three inverted chevrons, a police officer who supervises an entire watch shiftin smaller departments and areas of a precinct and individual detective squads in larger departments.

• Detective/Inspector/Investigator: An investigatory specialist, usually working in plainclothes. This may be in several classes that correspond to higher supervisory and pay

grades. In NYC, technically a designation: detectives do not, exactly outrank policeofficers albeit they are in charge of cases and are often senior in years of service and sohave a certain degree of authority beyond police officers in specific situations.

• Officer : A regular police officer wears no rank insignia, and there may be several paygrades.