Community With The Police Agencies example essay topic

The American Legal system has been a strong order of justice since our forefathers created it when America was being born. Since there are so many parts and processes of the justice system, it has been divided into different agencies and departments, to ensure that system works in a manner that is efficient as possible. Like any other country in the world, the Unites States has crime and has a way of defending and regulating its control with police, courts, and a corrections system. Although the American Legal System does not work as well as we would like, it seems as if the control of 295 million citizens is doing well. We have police, with firearms, patrolling our streets to answer our calls of distress 24-hours a day, courts to handle each and every infraction of serious crimes, and a corrections system to punish offenders or try to rehabilitate them for release back to society.

For over two centuries, the American Constitution established the foundation of democratic government. It can undoubtedly be considered the strongest and longest lasting piece of document in the history of government. The Constitution, adopted in 1789, created a framework that secured the nations interests, promoted its commerce, and also maintained unity as a nation. Although ratifying it and building trust and confidence in it took a while, the foundation that the Constitution was built upon created a strong national government. This strong foundation or framework nevertheless is of great importance yet the secret to its success can be greatly attributed to the flexibility of the Constitution allowed by its structure. The Constitutional Convention, held in Philadelphia in May of 1787, led to the ending of the Articles of Confederation and the birth of the Constitution.

It cannot be argued that the Constitution was the result of the failures of the Articles of Confederation. The Articles of Confederation undoubtedly had good virtues but was concerned primarily with limiting the powers of the national government. Under it, Congress was given power to declare war, borrow money and trade but it left out two of the most important features that a strong government required: power to levy taxes and regulate commerce. Overall, the Articles of Confederation was merely a formality required after the Declaration of Independence. Not only was there no executive, there was also no judiciary authority and no means of enforcing Congress will. If there was to be any enforcement at all, it would be done for the Congress by the states.

Thus came the demand for a new contract or later called the American Constitution, simply stated: The people would give their consent to a strong national government if that government would in turn accept certain strict limitations on its powers. This exchange of power for limitations, also referred to as constitutionalism, is the main principle and relationship involved between the framers of the Constitution and the American people. Three principles that would be indirectly drawn from the Constitution is federalism, the separation of powers, and individual rights expressed in the Bill of Rights. The first order of the American justice System starts in the community with the police agencies that govern the people of the country. Local cops, state police, highway patrol, the FBI, the ATF, and the U.S. Marshals, are all different policing agencies that help to control life in society and keep it sound.

The police are here to regulate all that is around us, from enforcing traffic rules, answering calls for assistance, probe suspicious circumstances, maintain a police presence in the community, solving domestic disputes and crimes, and at the most to protect and serve the community. Police have a variety of jobs that help to better the place we live. Through collaboration with other departments, today the police are working to find what causes crime and what factors we can use to prevent it. Policing is a limited business that has many restrictions to it as well.

Before the police can catch a criminal, they have to have sufficient evidence or probable cause, which a crime has been committed or will be committed. Probable cause to make an arrest could be for example, an officer making a traffic stop and seeing a handgun in the backseat of the car, or perhaps a search warrant, issued by a judge, permitting agents to invade a suspected drug dealers house. Without sufficient probable cause or evidence it is against the law for any police agency to inflict charges upon any one person. The Supreme Court case, Mapp vs. Ohio (1961), dealt with establishing the principle that illegally obtained evidence cannot be used against a person in any case, meaning that evidence is void without probable cause or a warrant. Officers entered Maps home to apprehend a suspect but seized evidence that had nothing to do with the specific case. Police gather intelligence through surveillance operations, complaints or tips from the community, and even suspicious behavior.

Police only involve their work with people if they believe that person can help them in gathering information about, and or solving crimes. The Police in our society have a hard job. The job of keeping hundreds of millions of Americans safe, sound and assured that there is a force that is protection us. This force is the first step in the justice system, the police are seen regularly in their cars or not at all, like the FBI, who work undercover, but they enforce the social problems of today and provide the courts information to process crimes in the justice system.