U.S. Law Enforcement Questions. (2 Viewers)

[The General]

Being an Aussie I find U.S. Law Enforcement a little confusing. Can somebody answer a few of the questions that I have been curious about for a long time?

Are New York city traffic cops part of the N.Y.P.D. or are they a traffic only branch? I mean are they real cops?

What is the difference between say the L.A.P.D. and the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Dept.?

If you're a bad guy who's gonna bust you, the Police or the Sheriffs Dept.?

What's the difference?

What are State Troopers? Do they just maintain the highways and areas within the state outside of the major cities?

I know what the Secret Service is, the C.I.A. and the F.B.I. but what on earth are the ATF?

Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms? Isn't that the F.B.I.'s jurisdiction?

 

[Njja]

Its all about jurisdiction. New York has a police force, Transit Police-whose job is subways, Housing Police- I believe maintain City housing. They are all
real police with arrest powers and firearms.

We have police departments that handle the citys. The citys do not always run together so we have county police that handle the larger county area.

The Sheriffs are a throw back to eariler times. Today they maintain the County jails and police area's outside city limits.

State police have jurisdiction state wide, they cover highways, and can be called in when other police need assistance.....or there is a problem.

Some states such as Georgia have a Bureau of Investigation (GBI-Georgia Bureau of Investigation) to oversee special police matters state wide.

CIA is outside the US affairs.
FBI is inside the US, across state lines, special affairs.
DEA drug related crime
Customs things/people coming into US
ATF Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms - Illegal Booze, Untaxed Tobacco products,
Illegal weapons, sales, production, distribution.
Secret Service - Protect Government Officials, Police counterfeiting.

Many, many more agencies such as NCIS - Naval Criminal Investigative Service. Each military has an agency.

In a country of 303 Million, there are a lot of agencies. All of them carry weapons, and can arrest a criminal.

The US is one of the safest, countries in the world. And an honest citizen is free as a bird, able to go about as he pleases, own property, and have a wonderful life.

In my state, a citizen with a clean record may obtain a permit to carry a firearm should he choose to. With this permit he could buy a weapon and take it home with no waiting period since he has already been approved.

Nice feature if you are a hunter, or sportsman.

This is just a rough overview as I am not affiliated with any of these agencies.

 

[The General]

The Sheriffs..... police area's outside city limits.

State police have jurisdiction state wide

So what's the difference between the County Sherrif and the State Police?

 

[Njja]

So what's the difference between the County Sherrif and the State Police?

State police can go anywhere in the state, usually maintain highways.

They are called in for special cases, police problems, security for Governor.

Sheriffs are on a county level, maintaining each counties jail, and area outside city limits of cities in his county.

City police jurisdiction is within their city. Crimes committed outside their citys limits would be covered by either the sheriffs, or the state police.

Here is an example I grew up in New Jersey, my city Rahway had a police department. My country Union had a police force, but they mainly patrolled the parks in Union County. I never heard of a Union County Sheriff, or for that matter a Union County Jail. We did have the famous New Jersey State Troopers (I was set to be one myself......but I moved) You should see these guys......fancy hats, motorcycle boots, fancy uniforms, and they look like they were born PISSED OFF. They patrol the New Jersey Turnpike, New Jersey Parkway......and anywhere else they please.

You mess with a New Jersey State Trooper......your going to jail.

Now I live in a southern state Georgia. Its less populated, more laid back,
slooow living. My city Marietta is as big as my old county in New Jersey. We have a police force but the city is way to big for them. So right smack downtown we have this hugh Cobb County Police Complex for the entire county. Its got its own tank Swat Vehicles you would think they were expecting an invasion. Do we have a lot of crime? No everyone has a gun

There is even a town Kennesaw where every head of household HAS to OWN a FIREARM! Almost no crime there.

The large cities such as Atlanta has an army of police, and all through Georgia every county has a large Sheriff's department with its own jail. The jails are mostly filled with Drunk Drivers......as that is a major pass time down here.

I don't know if we have a State Police, if we did all they would do is protect the Governor. We do have the GBI......what do they do you ask? As near as I can figure they go around and arrest the various Sheriffs that get in trouble for one reason or another. They then usually fill in until a new sheriff can be elected.

Again I'm no expert, I'm just calling it as I see it

 

[The General]

Thanks Njja.

You went to a lot of trouble to explain it in great detail.

Much appreciated.

 

[Rethymno]

Thanks from me too Njja - there are a lot of long standing questions I've hadanswered by your posts.

 

[Spitfrnd]

There is one important thing to remember about all this. The relative jurisdiction of any federal police or investigative body is defined by federal law, just as the same is true for any agency of any state. Thus which agency has jurisdiction over a given crime in a given area can and does vary widely from state to state. Some sherrif departments have responsibilities akin to city or state police departments, some are merely process severs. Also, as Njja notes, jurisdiction varies by the crime or act. So you have to look at the act in question as well as the location to know which or how many police authorities have jurisdiction. It is common to have overlapping jurisdiction and then they have to work it out or in the worst case, take the dispute to a court.

 

[1879fanatic]

Njja,
Yeah, GA has a State Patrol. Don't you notice the single blue strobe on top of their car on 95? They look like they were taken off the end of a runway beacon. Mike

 

[Njja]

Njja,
Yeah, GA has a State Patrol. Don't you notice the single blue strobe on top of their car on 95? They look like they were taken off the end of a runway beacon. Mike

Fortunately for me of late, the only interaction I have had is at the pistol

range. I did have a few officers over when a pistol was misplaced. It turned

into a question and answer session, me answering questions about different

types of weapons and their advantages.

I was suprised the officers were familiar with basically their duty weapon, and

backup for off duty use.

There were both quite young, and said the SWAT officers had a broader

knowledge of different weapons.

With gas at $4 I'm more likely to encounter an officer walking a beat....then

on the highway.

 

[L Flowers]

Not all states have state police. Those that do, the state police have statewide jurisdiction. City and town cops will have jurisdiction within their respective city/town limits unless there is soem type of mutual aid agreement. When I worked in Mass. we(City of Worcester) and the state police had an unwritten agreement that they would handle the interstates and anything in the city was to be left to us. I got along well with staties because I saw them as other police. A lot of old timers didn't appreciate them anywhere in the city.

Sheriff's departments are a different story. All states have them but not all let them do law enforcement functions. In Mass. most sheriffs depts. just handled the jails and courthouses. They did not actively patrol. There was one exception and I forget which county.

Here in Hawaii we have no state police. There are four departments for the four different counties. Hawaii covers the Big Island(where I work), Honolulu covers Oahu, Maui covers Maui, Molokai and Lanai and Kauai County covers Kauai. There are no city police. Hawaii 5-0 was a good show but fiction.

New York is the largest police dept in the country. 30,000 plus in three main agencies: Transit, Port Authority and NYPD. Those are further broken down into various depts.

State police are usually referred to as "troopers", "staties", "highway patrol" while city police are usually referred to as municipal police.

If you go to Washington,, DC you will get even more confused. They must have 30 different agencies. I do feel bad for the DC Metro cops during police week when there are thousands of cops "socializing".

And yes, you do see cops at donuts shops, but hey, that is where the coffee is.

 

[The General]

Perhaps some of our Pommie contributors could give us a run down on how Police and other agencies operate in the U.K.?

 

[Wraith]

A bit easier to follow in the UK. There are 43 main forces in England and Wales, with the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI, formerly the RUC), all working to the same legislation. There are also 8 Scottish forces who work to Scottish Law, which although different, is broadley similar.

All Police Officers in England and Wales are appointed as Constables and their powers stretch across all force areas, country(s) wide. I work in Nottingham (Nottinghamshire Police), but have the same powers if I were in London, or Durham (including various powers of seizure - Tony, we need to talk )

The forces vary in size from the Met Police, who broadly cover the London area, with 30,000 or so officers, to smaller forces who's numbers are less than 1,000, with the majority being between 2-3,000. I think last count, there were some 150,000 police officers in England and Wales (although I can't remeber if that took in to account the PSNI and / or Scottish force numbers

They are geographically boundried and may include more than 1 large city.
Each force will be made up of in the main, police oficers, but will also include a new phenomina called Police Community Support Officers. These are not Constables and have very few powers, mainly handing out tickets for minor offences. The idea is that these uniformed support officers act as a high visibility 'face' of policing, to provide reassurance to the public.

In addition to these Police Forces, there is also the SOCA (Serious and Organised Crime Agency, which was formed a couple of years ago, with the intention that they do what the FBI does for the States. Not entirely convinced they do a great deal other than wonder around in Jeans and T-shirts, but hey...

There are a number of smaller Police forces, such as the Parks Police in London, the Civil Nuclear Police (or something like that), Atomic Energy Police, all very small in numbers, and as their name suggests, very specialised in their areas.

We also have the British Transport Police who cover the whole of England and Wales and purely police the railway network.

Our prisons are covered by Prison Officers (totally seperate to the police) while our custody 'suites' (where prisoners are interviewed and charged etc) are run by the police.

Then we've got MI5, MI6 and probably MI7 through to MI20, who do secret squirrelly stuff, drive around in Aston Martins and save the world from bald men with white cats.

That's a pretty general run down here in the UK.

Simon

 

[OzDigger]

In Australia, each state has it's own Police Force that handles law enforcement in all areas of their state be it in the cities or rural areas. We have no separate city or county style police forces. Western Australia has the world's largest non-federated area of jurisdiction with 2.5 million square kilometres to cover.

The Australian Federal Police (AFP) handle all matters on a national basis domestically and internationally. These guys are sometimes sent as a task force to other countries to handle security there such as the Solomon Islands: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Federal_Police

ASIO handles the spy type of stuff etc: http://www.asio.gov.au/About/content/what.aspx

We also have special law enforcement agencies covering customs and trade etc. Each state has a sheriff but they are mainly concerned with court matters.

Australia also has very strict gun control with one of the lowest homicide rate in the world being well below the US. However unlike Police in the UK, most of our police officers carry guns when on duty, usually a Glock. But I reckon Aussie ebay go to far as they recently deleted my listing for a cap gun, and said I was a naughty boy - idiots

 

[binder001]

The US law enforcement can be a bit confusing to those not used to it. The basic idea stems from the original desire to do law enforcement at as local a level as possible - the original founding fathers didn't want a massive federal law enforcement bureacracy. They are probably spinning in their graves at the thought of the size of the monstrous federal government, but that is a topic for another discussion.

Anyway, one side note for fans of US westerns on TV. Over the long run of "Gunsmoke" Marshall Matt Dillon was a "US Marshall" in Dodge City, KS. They never showed Dodge having a local constable (Town Marshall, whatever) and they never had a County Sheriff around. Ol' Matt was handling the jobs of enforcement in the city, the county and the region all by himself. No wonder the body count was so high!

Gary

 

[Njja]

Wraith:

Very cool, do you carry firearms?

If so what kind?

Do you carry weapons when you are off duty?

 

[Wraith]

Very cool, do you carry firearms?

If so what kind?

Do you carry weapons when you are off duty?

Not routinely. I suspect that give it another 10 or 20 years or so and it will happen, but at the moment only a small percentage of officers are trained in firearms use. In Nottingham, about 5% of officers are trained, and there is always firearms cover (with a small number of fast cars, double crewed with full range of firearms and less lethal options (Walther P99 pistols, H&K G36 Carbines, baton guns and Tazers). They'll get sent to any potential firearms related incident or pre-planned firearms operation.

To be fair, there isn't a huge need for armed cops in this country. Firearms licencing is ridiculously tight (unfortunately - had to give up my recreational firearms). I would have no problem if they were to arm us tomorrow, but I suspect we would see an increase in officer death rate, with cops being killed by their own weapons. As a country, most are just not weapons familiar.
We should have a more widespread issue of Tazer in the next year or so. Which will be amusing with the amount of ND's I can see coming....

 

[Njja]

I can't believe you had to give up your personal weapons! That seems

crazy! You would think they would encourage officers not only to own, but

to become experts with weapons.

Here in the US there are thought to be more weapons then people

Over 300 million, many people don't realize it is still legal to own machine guns

and silenced weapons A fact I can't justify.

They were legal a few years back, so today they carry a $200 federal tax

stamp. Each time one is sold the buyer must pay the $200 and agree to

allow the police to enter his residence and provide both the weapon and

license. These are pretty much in the hands of collectors and valued at

many thousands of dollars.

My favorite weapons are by H.K. they are extremely accurate right out of

the box, precision manufactered, and in my opinion the only weapon to carry

should your life depend on it.

The H.K. P7M8 & M10 are wonderful weapons, that cannot easily be fired

unless you know how to use them. They can be carried with a round in the

chamber (so they do not need to be cocked). You do not have to have a

safety on so they can be put into action as soon as they are drawn with

no risk of discharge by accident. If the gun was somehow obtained by the

criminal simply pulling the trigger has no affect, giving the officer the chance

to revover his weapon and make the arrest.

Their MK5 is standard Swat assault submachine weapon.

Their Benelli shotguns are among the worlds fastest weapons, firing 7 shots

in 1 second, imagine 7 loads of buck shot released in one second through

their rolling block system. Now imagine every other shot being a 50 calibur

slug.

Now thats firepower!

 

[vandilay]

Not routinely. I suspect that give it another 10 or 20 years or so and it will happen, but at the moment only a small percentage of officers are trained in firearms use. In Nottingham, about 5% of officers are trained, and there is always firearms cover (with a small number of fast cars, double crewed with full range of firearms and less lethal options (Walther P99 pistols, H&K G36 Carbines, baton guns and Tazers). They'll get sent to any potential firearms related incident or pre-planned firearms operation.

To be fair, there isn't a huge need for armed cops in this country. Firearms licencing is ridiculously tight (unfortunately - had to give up my recreational firearms). I would have no problem if they were to arm us tomorrow, but I suspect we would see an increase in officer death rate, with cops being killed by their own weapons. As a country, most are just not weapons familiar.
We should have a more widespread issue of Tazer in the next year or so. Which will be amusing with the amount of ND's I can see coming....

From my limited knowledge the police here seem to operate on a very similar
basis , they use the armed offenders squad for firearms related incidents.
Probably one of the reasons NZ police try and poach English police officers.
Ever thought of emigrating .

 

[1879fanatic]

I can't believe you had to give up your personal weapons! That seems

crazy! You would think they would encourage officers not only to own, but

to become experts with weapons.

Here in the US there are thought to be more weapons then people

Over 300 million, many people don't realize it is still legal to own machine guns

and silenced weapons A fact I can't justify.

They were legal a few years back, so today they carry a $200 federal tax

stamp. Each time one is sold the buyer must pay the $200 and agree to

allow the police to enter his residence and provide both the weapon and

license. These are pretty much in the hands of collectors and valued at

many thousands of dollars.

My favorite weapons are by H.K. they are extremely accurate right out of

the box, precision manufactered, and in my opinion the only weapon to carry

should your life depend on it.

The H.K. P7M8 & M10 are wonderful weapons, that cannot easily be fired

unless you know how to use them. They can be carried with a round in the

chamber (so they do not need to be cocked). You do not have to have a

safety on so they can be put into action as soon as they are drawn with

no risk of discharge by accident. If the gun was somehow obtained by the

criminal simply pulling the trigger has no affect, giving the officer the chance

to revover his weapon and make the arrest.

Their MK5 is standard Swat assault submachine weapon.

Their Benelli shotguns are among the worlds fastest weapons, firing 7 shots

in 1 second, imagine 7 loads of buck shot released in one second through

their rolling block system. Now imagine every other shot being a 50 calibur

slug.

Now thats firepower!

Njja,
Used to carry th HK P7 . Best sidearm in the world, bar none. Caveat is that it requires extensive training for proper deployment. The NJSP still carry it in .40, I heard from one of my buddies (that knows nothing about guns). The M8s were issued to girls and little men. The larger 15 was for everyone else. Nothing beats the 870 for SG. We evaled the Benelli in the mid 90's and I found it to be awful for aimed firing, the sights made you plant your cheek in the stock. Mike

 

[Wraith]

I can't believe you had to give up your personal weapons! That seems crazy! You would think they would encourage officers not only to own, but to become experts with weapons.

I was pretty miffed at the time. Legal ownership has always been subject to pretty stringent checks and processes, but after Hungerford (legally owned firearms being used in out and out mindless massacre by one individual over the edge), the government imposed even more strict controls. Then after Dunblane (similar story), they all but wiped out handgun ownership and rifles were subject to extreme controls (i.e. no semi-autos other than .22 rimfire, no magazine fed weapons etc, etc.). In the end, it just knocked all of the enjoyment out for me. Still, I have an occasional blat at the police range with the police issue firearms, so all is not lost.