Agencies of Department of Justice Research Essay

To defend, safeguard, and uphold American legal regulations, the Department of Justice (DOJ) was founded. The primary duty of the DOJ is to defend American interests against dangers from both abroad and within the country. Additionally, the department is required by law to guarantee the safety of American citizens. (Snider, 2012). The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the Office of the Attorney General, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives are just a few of the departments under the Department of Justice (DOJ). (Snider, 2012). United States rules governing controlled substances are enforced by the DEA. In this case, the primary role of the DEA is to regulate the demand and supply of controlled substances. The agency brings criminals that deal with manufacture and distribution of controlled substances to justice according to the United States laws (Snider, 2012).

The office of the attorney general is the legal guardian of the rights of citizens of the United States. Also, the attorney general is the legal adviser of the executive and is mandated to represent the country in legal matters (Snider, 2012). Federal Bureau of Investigation is the agency that is involved in enforcing federal laws and investigating various criminal activities such cybercrimes and terrorism, corruption and human rights violations (Snider, 2012). Lastly, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives deals with regulating explosive and firearms. The principal mandate of the agency is to prevent and to protect the Citizens of United States from violent crimes and terrorism. Among the above agencies, the office of the attorney general is the most important and has the greatest responsibility. Primarily, the office of the attorney general has the greatest responsibility because the attorney general is the head of the department of justice which means that he is legally mandated to coordinate other agencies of the DOJ (Snider, 2012).

Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) and the National Crime Information Center (NCIC)

Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) consists of information published by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The primary purpose of UCR program is to generate data that can be used by law enforcement agencies to create an overview of the prevalence of criminal activities in the United States (Dempsey & Forst, 2014). Primarily, Uniform Crime Reports provide essential data regarding crime rates such as rape. In addition to that, other related professionals such as sociologists, planners, and legal officers use the reports for empirical research and planning projects. Further, the reports offer standardized definitions and classification of crimes that provide an empirical framework for reporting crimes and offenses (Dempsey & Forst, 2014).

The Nation Crime Information Center, on the other hand, is a centralized and standardized database for tracking information related to crime. The database is maintained by Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS). The primary purpose of NCIC is to facilitate a smooth pipeline of information between law enforcement agencies (Dempsey & Forst, 2014). Primarily, the database is the link between federal agencies, local authorities and other relevant parties. Additionally, NCIC helps law enforcement to located fugitives and missing persons. Although Uniform Crime Reports have helped in measuring and controlling the prevalence of crimes, there are several weaknesses associated with the reports. In this case, empirical studies have indicated that the Uniform Crime Reports do not provide accurate data on the prevalence of crime because they contain only information that was reported to law enforcement officers. Therefore, Uniform Crime Reports do not provide data of unreported crimes. in addition to that, victimless crimes such as prostitution are not considered in the reports which mean that they do not give a holistic overview of the prevalence of crime in the United States (Dempsey & Forst, 2014).

Roles of Police Executives

Police Executives hold one of the most important roles in the law enforcement process. Law enforcement in the 21st century has changed calling for Police executive to exercise best managerial skills (Kessler, 2013). In this case, The Mintzberg model of Chief Executive officers is the empirical framework that can be used to outline the roles of police executive in modern law enforcement operations. According to Mintzberg model, there are three major functions of police executives which include interpersonal, information and decision making roles (Kessler, 2013). Interpersonal skills involve communicating with internal and external stakeholders of an organization. Therefore police executive must network effectively and efficiently with all the parties involved in the law enforcement process. Further, police executives are expected to coordinate different member of the law enforcement team to achieve goals and resolve problems within their departments (Kessler, 2013)

Information roles entail communicating valuable information to relevant stakeholders in an organization. Thus, police executives are expected to disseminate important information to their colleagues and other members of the law enforcement teams (Kessler, 2013). Also, Police executives under the information roles are supposed to act as the spokespersons for their department. In other words, police executives are responsible for giving information about law enforcement to the members of the public. Further, police bosses have a mandate to collect information about their jurisdiction from outside sources to align their department with the need and demand of their environment (Kessler, 2013).

Lastly, Decision making roles entail determining the rationale for distributing police resources. In this case, police executives are supposed to formulate proper mechanisms of allocating resources such as funds and police staff (Kessler, 2013). Moreover, police executives are expected to play an active role creating and controlling change in their department. Primarily, in the Mintzberg model, the information roles are the most important for the success of police executive. These roles are important because they involve collecting intelligence which is one of the core mandates of law enforcement departments. Collecting intelligence is essential for police executive because it helps them to prevent crimes and to execute other roles in the Mintzberg model (Kessler, 2013).

Legislative Enactments to Combat Terrorism

In the United States, many legislative enactments have been passed to provide a conceptual framework for combating terrorism. One of the legislative pieces passed in the recent to counter terrorism is the Defense Authorization Act of 2003 (Lovelace, 2015). The Defense Authorization Acts allows the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to request for resources of combating terrorism from the Department of Defense. In other words, the act allows military intervention in strategies and programs of fighting terrorism in the United States. The Critical Infrastructure Act of 2002 is the other legislative act that was passed to protect the United States from acts of terrorism (Lovelace, 2015). The Critical Infrastructure Acts facilitates dissemination of information among the operators and stakeholders of critical infrastructure and to government agencies such as the DHS. The act was enacted to formulate a comprehensive plan for protecting U.S infrastructure from terrorism.

The legislative enactments have been necessary for counter-terrorism because they provide a rationalized environment for assessing vulnerabilities and to identify priority areas that require maximum attention (Lovelace, 2015). For instance, the Defense Authorization Act has enabled the creation of an operational network that allows timely collection and transmission of information to relevant authorities. The Critical Infrastructure Act, on the other hand, has created a platform for access to information regarding infrastructure protection (Lovelace, 2015).

Hate Crimes

Hate Crimes according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) are criminal offenses against people or property that are motivated by the perpetrator's bias against societal elements such as religion, gender, race, and disability (Perry et al., 2009). Hate crimes are different from other crimes because they are catapulted by the bias against the victims’ race, religion and other forms of social affiliations. Therefore, hate crimes are traditional crimes such as murder with an added element of bias (Perry et al., 2009). Various reports have indicated that have been problems with recording accurate data of hate crimes because of the complexity of the problem. For instance, the FBI has consistently stated that hate is not a crime which means that the FBI is mindful of infringing freedom of expression and other civil liberties. For that reason, the FBI has had difficulty in striking a balance between protecting rights of expression and investigating the crimes. As a result, many hate crimes have been washed away on the basis that the perpetrators were expressing their freedom of speech (Perry et al., 2009).

In addition to that, many victims do not report hate crimes against them which makes it difficult for law enforcement officers to collect data. Primarily, statistical reports have revealed that more than 25% of the crimes go unreported. For example, some immigrants do not report hate crimes because of fear of being deported. In addition to that, members of the LGBT community have consistently failed to report the crimes because of fear of stigmatization. Moreover, there is the notion that nothing is going to be done which makes many victims to refuse to cooperate in data collection (Perry et al., 2009).

References

Dempsey, J. S., & Forst, L. S. (2014). An introduction to policing. Clifton Park, NY : Delmar Cengage Learning.

Kessler, E. H. (2013). Encyclopedia of management theory. Thousand Oaks, Calif: SAGE.

Lovelace, D. C. (2015). Terrorism: Commentary on security documents. New York: Oceana.

Perry, B., Levin, B., Iganski, P., Blazak, R., & Lawrence, F. M. (2009). Hate crimes: Responding to hate crime. Westport, Conn: Praeger Publishers.

Snider, D.T. (2012) The Department of Justice Manual. New York : Wolters Kluwer Law & Business : Aspen Publishers New York : Wolters Kluwe.