Law Enforcement Today Essay

There are several issues that face police departments today, too many to possibly count, however I believe that there are quite a few that are small and would be better focused on within the department. Now there are some that could be solved on a larger scale. I am going to define and review a few issues that do affect police departments and provide my own opinion on what could be done to change them to show positive results. Now local and county police only job is to keep the peace and serve and protect. If there were no police then crime would run wild, there would be absolute anarchy and chaos. Police is necessary to ensure the survival of the human race. The United States Department of Homeland Security and local, federal, and state law enforcement agencies are working together to assist in the prevention of crime, or at least trying to do so. The DHS has integrated several ways to share information and they boast it is one of the key elements of their strategy. For federal officials, the post-9/11 threat environment requires a trusted partnership among federal, state, and local agencies to make information sharing integrated, interconnected, effective and as automatic as possible in order to ensure our national security. Additionally, numerous governmental, commercial, and non-governmental organizations provide officials with homeland security alerts, updates, and databases to support preparedness efforts. Now I am in no way a expert on this situation, however I believe that it should not stop at just information sharing. While this helps abundantly in several different ways, I believe that it should go far beyone just sharing information. I think that local law enforcement should be tied to the DHS and report to this office on a regular basis. This would help with different strategies on how to effectively reduce crime as well as share information on a more personal level between agencies. The issues that current police face, in my own opinion are that many police departments are facing budget problems, forcing them to cut their police force down. Many officers are being asked to do things they normally don’t do such as patrolling etc. Police departments are also facing increasing crimes due to the poor economy. More people are engaging in criminal activities because they have more free time as they are not working. It has often been in the mind of some individuals that if they cannot buy it they will take it. All crime is a form of theft if you think about it, and to some people stealing something would be much easier than actually taking the time to work for and buy it. Also police departments across the United States are poorly understaffed, and cannot recruit the people needed to manage the ongoing crime in this country. Police departments would have an easier time recruiting if a cop’s life were the way it’s depicted on the big screen, however very few police officers live in million-dollar homes and they don’t always get the bad guy. So police recruiters can’t offer the prospect of a perfect life of happiness and victory to prospective officers, but departments across the country are short-staffed and they’re aggressively competing for candidates. I know that in my own town there are an adequate number of police officers, however in a town that is just 90 miles away they cannot seem to keep a viable police force. I think that if the DHS were to assist with this and the federal governments were to offer police officer’s a better salary then people would flock to become cops. As it is now, the only real reason to become a police officer is to help, and sadly that is not the way our current society is these days. Sharing information is not the only thing that can aid in the struggle to fight this war on crime, everybody must work together to achieve the common goal of happiness and prosperity of all humans. Now this will never be attained as that is just unrealistic, however if you work toward the goal then you will often get close. In conclusion I believe that if police officers were offered more money then there would be a greater supply of police and this would in turn be able to tighten police patrols and effectly put a tighter strain on criminal activity. There are a lot of problems that face police today, however we are moving in the correct direction.