American Policing

When police officers from around the world visit the United States, they are often amazed of how many different police agencies there are in the US. More than once when I have picked up visiting officers at the airport, the conversation turns to comments about the various police jurisdictions in the area and questions such as “how does an officer know where his area stops and another agency starts”. This article will attempt to give officers a better idea of the how and why of police agencies in the America.Generally

there are five jurisdictions of US police agencies: Federal, State, County, Municipal and Special. There are an estimated 700,000 police officers in the country with about 450,000 uniformed and on patrol. These officers work for about 18,000 different agencies. This article will provide a brief overview.

Federal

While many, if not most countries, have some form of national police agency, the US does not. We have officers who work at the federal level but they are not a national police agency. Due to constitutional restrictions, federal law enforcement officers are prohibited from exercising general police powers. Federal officers enforce federal statutes, usually only those specific to their assigned task. While the most commonly recognized federal agencies include FBI, ATF, DEA etc., there are federal law enforcement officers in most US Departments including the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Justice, Labor, State, Transportation, Treasury and Veterans Affairs. Jurisdiction covers the entire US.

State

The US consists of 50 states, and each of those states has the authority to provide police services. Forty-nine states have such agencies, with Hawaii the only one who does not. States title their state agencies differently including State Police, Highway Patrol and Public Safety. Officers of these agencies enforce state statues but specific duties vary from state to state. The original term Highway Patrol was used because that was their jurisdiction, the highways in that state. Over the years the agencies have evolved and may include full law enforcement activities and criminal investigations, state level dignitary protections (such as the governor), Crime Scene Services, Forensic labs, police academies, and specialized task forces etc. With some exceptions, jurisdiction is limited to the state borders.

County

In the US, a county is the name for geographic divisions of the state. While Alaska uses the term boroughs and parish is used by Louisiana, all the rest of the states use the term county. The Sheriff heads the Sheriff’s Department and there are a little more than 3,000 Sheriff’s Departments in the US. The county voters elect most Sheriffs for a 2 or 4-year term. The officers are referred to as the Sheriff’s Deputies. The duties of the Sheriff’s office are broad and vary from state to state. The agency may provide full law enforcement activities and criminal investigations or may choose to provide none. Like the state they may provide crime scene services and task forces and correctional academies. Some agencies sole purpose is to operate and staff the county jail. Jurisdiction is limited to the county borders.

 

Municipal (City, Village, Town)

Any municipality may decide to provide police protection but they are not required to. Like all other levels of US police, what the police agency provides also differs. The primary function of the agency is the patrol function. Many smaller communities provide only the Patrol functions and rely on the county or state agency for assistance in investigations, crime scene investigations etc. What services they add depends on the size of the jurisdiction and agencies in the US run from only 1 officer to NYPD, the countries’ largest agency, with over 40,000 officers. Generally jurisdiction is city limits. There are approximately 13,000 local agencies.

 

Special

This category includes agencies that provide police services to a specialized limited jurisdiction such as Transit Police, Port Police, and Airports etc. As with all the categories, it is up to the jurisdiction what type of service will be provided. An Airport for example, may have its own police department, may use the officers from the local agency or a combination of the two. Jurisdiction is usually limited to the actual are and there are about 2,000 such officers in the country.