What does the police do outside of enforcing the law to deal with knife crimes and the media and the domino effects.

Look at community issues, community co-operation, crime prevention, holistic approaches to policing and the police as a social service.

What does the police do outside of enforcing the law to deal with knife crimes and the media and the domino effects

Modern law enforcement agencies and policies face a host of unique challenges due to the changing nature of criminal activities in terms of severity, complexity, and sophistication. This scenario has subjected the Department of Justice under intense pressure which necessitates adoption of best practices, a change of strategies and adoption of innovative approaches to law enforcement to effectively handle crimes while at the same time observing the constitutional rights of citizens (Meese & Malcolm, 2017).   Given the complexity of justice system, this paper describes the four agencies of the Department of Justice, the purposes of Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) and the National Crime Information Center (NCIC), as well as the major roles of police executives using the Mintzberg model of chief executive officers. The paper further examines two legislative enactments that are in place to help combat terrorism and analyzes problems related to determining the actual numbers of hate crimes and what makes hate crimes different from other crimes.

The Major Functions of the Four (4) Agencies of the Department of

The DOJ has venerable law enforcement agencies including the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), US Marshals, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF), the Organized Crime and Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) Office of Justice Programs, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) (AllGov, 2016). These agencies have various functions as described hereunder.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)

The FBI is the highest law enforcement agency for the federal government and concerned mainly with domestic intelligence and security. Its core functions includes investing organized criminal activities, foiling and combating terrorism,  preventing the state against espionage, cyber-attacks and even combating corruption. It is also mandated with providing leadership and criminal justice services to federal, state, municipal, and international agencies and partners (AllGov, 2016).

US Marshals Services

This agency of DOJ is tasked with enforcing federal laws and supporting nearly all the entire federal justice system through providing security to federal courts, ensuring judges and other court personal are safe, ensuring that all criminals are apprehended, and operating the witness security program (AllGov, 2016). In addition, the US Marshals is tasked with transporting federal prisoners, seizing all illegally acquired property and assets and ensuring that such forfeited property or assets are disposed of well (AllGov, 2016).

What does the police do outside of enforcing the law to deal with knife crimes and the media and the domino effects

The core functions of ATF, given its mission, is to prevent acts of terror, minimize violent crimes that emanate from unlawful use of firearms, and preventing manufacture and trafficking of alcoholic and tobacco products. The agency also investigates illegal manufacture and possession of firearms, explosives, arsons and bombings (AllGov, 2016).

The Organized Crime and Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF)

The functions of this agency is to curb the supply of illicit drugs across the country as well as minimize occurrences of violent criminal activities that are as a result of illegal drug trade (Schmalleger et al., 2014). This agency works with Drugs Enforcement Administration (DEA, the FBI and other relevant agencies to investigate, identify, and dismantle drug trafficking organizations in the country (AllGov, 2016). This they achieve through disrupting their drug supply networks and findings (AllGov, 2016).

Agency with the Greatest Responsibility

Given the above, all agencies play a crucial role in so far as law enforcement in the country is concerned. However, the FBI stands out the law enforcement agency with the greatest responsibility because of the nature of its role in safeguarding citizens and crime prevention. The FBI thus has the greatest responsibility being the top law enforcement agency and given that its role prevent the country against terrorism, a major issue most citizens, as well as intelligence threats. In addition, botched operations from this agency can have far reaching implications such as the September 11 attacks. It thus has to partner with other international agencies and partners in upholding its mandate, a huge responsibility indeed.

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

Since its inception in 1929, the purpose of UCR is to collect statics from various agencies both state and local, on criminal activities such as murder, manslaughter, aggravated assault, rape, just to mention (Regoli, Hewitt, & Maras, 2011). Run by the FB, UCR generates reliable statistics for the benefit of law enforcement agencies.  UCR also avail the law enforcement agencies with relevant data essential in budgeting, planning and resource allocation and even in police operations (Regoli, Hewitt, & Maras, 2011).  The data from UCR also services the purpose of information the media which in turn informs the public on the state of crime at national and local level (Regoli, Hewitt, & Maras, 2011).  Finally, UCR provides information on arrests made by availing demographic characteristics of the arrested persons. The data from the UCR is, however, not without some weaknesses, which has majorly to do with inaccuracies. Fisrt, most criminal data in the UCR are only those know to the police and many others go unrecorded since not victims to crimes report them. The incidences and prevalence of crimes as reported by UCR are thus largely underestimated (Regoli, Hewitt, & Maras, 2011). UCR applies the hierarchy rules in which only crimes deemed serious are reported, affecting international crime rates comparisons since those deemed minor crimes are reported in some countries.  UCR does not collect all relevant data or details on crime with respect to the victims and perpetrators of criminal acts unless it is a homicide case. Other information such as weapon types, are only collected for murder, aggravated assault and robbery, with those used during rape going unrecorded. The other weakness is that UCR only reveal more information regarding police behavior instead of crime. This is because sometimes the police officers or other law enforcement agencies falsify, downgrade or do not report some data in their hand