Comment by toomanybeersies | Hacker News Reader

Comment by toomanybeersies | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

toomanybeersies

I feel like this is due to a peculiarity of how law enforcement works in the USA.

Every department and authority has their own law enforcement branch. You've got county sheriffs, state police, highway patrol, campus police, transport police etc. on a local authority level.

Then on a federal level, as the paper points out, everyone from the IRS to the Department of Education have their own law enforcement officers.

In the rest of the world, police is much more centralised.

Here in New Zealand (admittedly a small country), the Police are the only agency with general powers of arrest, and the only department outside the military with firearms.

The police don't have fancy equipment, if they need an APC, or helicopters or whatever (the police do have one), they'll borrow it from the Defence Force. It's not like they need to pay for and maintain their own stock to use once in a blue moon.

If an agency like the IRD (our tax department) need to raid or arrest someone, they'll get the police to do it.

I don't fully understand why the USA isn't like this. I understand why there's federal and local law enforcement, but if the FDA needs to raid and arrest people, why don't they second some FBI agents when they're needed?

Budgetary reasons. Why would the FBI spend their own money and resources to enforce FDA regulations? That's money coming out of their budget. There would need to be in place a central federal police force that would be funded by the various agencies that require X number of hours of law enforcement per year. But this might create even greater costs due to the overhead in running this federal police force. You would need offices all over the country alongside the current federal agency offices like FDA, FBI, DEA, etc.

It would probably be easier to have the FBI setup as a federal police force which it pretty much almost is. Agencies could send part of their budget to the FBI to essentially purchase law enforcement hours. Factor in the cost of hourly rate of officer + hourly rate of overhead for officer + usage of resources + any other expenses incurred and then bill that to the agency that requires the police work. This would help smaller agencies by reducing the costs they would have to spend on maintaining a police force of their own 24/7. The only issue would be that the FBI would need to maintain a force large enough to enforce anything the other agencies would require of it. Things like DEA work and regular FBI work would require much more man power than things like DOE work so smaller agencies might not get the representation and priority they would get by maintaining their own force.

> Budgetary reasons. Why would the FBI spend their own money and resources to enforce FDA regulations? That's money coming out of their budget.

Businesses have been charging internal departments budgetary expenses for ages. That's what an overhead department - often IT, for example - does.

Thinking of these as separate agencies is just an easy way to hide that they are all federal government agencies.

Even working with charging state agencies wouldn't be that difficult to work out.

> campus police

This one I've always found bizarre. What is it about American university students in particular that requires there to be an on-site police force?

A university campus is like a microcity with thousands of people, its own economy separate from the surrounding area, facilities, and rules. Instead of sending off reports and requests to city police (and how many students, staff, and faculty are locals, again?), they can have a single, centralised, limited office to handle public safety and policing.

Put another way, it's so everything that happens within the university doesn't eat into municipal or county time and resources, but they can still interoperate with some parity.

Look into the Clery Act for more.

Jurisdiction issues in America were already pointed out, but I'd also remind that in the Old World, universities and their campuses traditionally enjoyed certain kinds of autonomy. This could even extend to immunity from prosecution by regular authorities, with the university as its own jurisdiction handling at least some offences autonomically.

This is, I believe, now completely a thing of the past almost everywhere, but America being rather conservative, there could be echoes of it around.

>immunity from prosecution by regular authorities

This is still the case at many universities. Offenses which would be classified as criminal (i.e. public intoxication) are handled internally by the university. From one perspective, handling the mistakes of students like this is a way of protecting the university's revenue stream, as parents often withdraw their children from the university after a criminal offense.

I was going to reply and mention that protecting the revenue stream is a cynical outlook, given that campus PD can also protect students from graduating college and having a "criminal record" for public intoxication or other petty charges.

But then I recalled an article earlier this year about how "campus PD" have been intervening in sexual assault cases and trying to get them handled by the university instead of the justice system, where there's public record and of course publicity.

There's no doubt that the school I went wins over students and their 70K/year with a reputation of being a 'party school'.

And there's no doubt that it could not have this reputation with more lenient policing than you'll see anywhere else. Certainly moreso than the policing in the inner city ghetto a mile away.

I've seen campus police consistently do nothing over drug possession issues that would, without question get jail time anywhere else in the city.

The dissonance is disturbing to me.

The University of Melbourne in Australia has a similar carry over. The majority of the university is on crown land, in an arrangement where most state laws do not apply (however federal law does). The state police have a standing invitation to go on campus if it's in reply to a "violent crime", but otherwise should never be there. However... the university does not have it's own police force: they just have clueless Wilson's Security personnel like any normal industrial site.

I've heard things along the lines of "most state laws do not apply (however federal law does)" before, but never with a citation. Pretty sure that's just urban legend.

> Pretty sure that's just urban legend.

It might be. I just had a look around for a citation and didn't find much. However I do recall a law student finding something in the university by-laws about it (however that shouldn't overrule state law... unless it does). I found http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/UWSLawRw/2002/3.html but the University of Melbourne seems to be victorian crown land (since at least 2000 http://www.legislation.vic.gov.au/domino/Web_Notes/LDMS/PubP...) rather than commonwealth crown land. I don't know enough about property and title in Victoria to make a call here.

There's still one relic of this in England: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_University_Constabul...

(AFAIK, the regular police don't have any jurisdictional limits stopping them from acting within university premises, but the University of Cambridge can appoint its own additional officers.)

I think the CU constabulary are largely ceremonial nowadays. The Proctors are still responsible for a bunch of disciplinary things, but probably not legal matters (more like exam rules, plagiarism and keeping a vehicle in Cambridge).

For universities in metropolitan areas, the advantage is in having police that are specialised to handling issues more common to universities (drinking/drug use), implementing policies like a good samaritan policy around drug overdose reporting, being a closer part of the community, and taking part in planning exercises for on-campus emergencies.

Source: When I studied at MIT, I volunteered with two different organisations that liaised with the police. I observed an active shooter tabletop roleplaying exercise. (no, it did not involve dice)

This is also the reason the National Park Service has its own law enforcement rangers, various state fish and game organizations have game wardens, and likely the EPA had its own special agents, among others. Not only are the issues specialized, the laws are as well.

"Campus policing originated with the establishment of the Yale Campus Police Department in 1894. Yale, located in New Haven, Connecticut, began an agreement with the New Haven Police Department to have two of their officers assigned exclusively to the campus as a means to deter crime on campus, and to better student-police relations. Shortly thereafter these two officers were hired by Yale to keep law and order on the campus. It was not until 73 years later that most college and university security departments became police departments. With the protest of the Vietnam War, the Kent State incident, and crime increasing on college campuses all over America, most of the 50 states did not pass laws authorizing colleges to have their own campus police department until the late 1960's."

Davis, R. (1967). History Of Campus Policing. Retrieved February 2, 2017, from http://www.oocities.org/odupd/

Most large American Universities are not part of the surrounding town or city. They are in effect their own municipalities.

Some of the literally are their own municipalities.

Two examples: The University of Notre Dame is in Notre Dame, Indiana, which happens to be surrounded by South Bend, Indiana. Same with Stanford... which is technically in Stanford, California.

Even more literally, the city of College Station, Texas, is a city built around the main campus of Texas A&M. Thus the name.

Ah, interesting - thank you! So it's the civic structure rather than a particularly lawless student base. :) Not so bizarre then - just different!

Is there anywhere else that has the US model? I worked on a UK university campus for a few years and I don't think they had any security guards (certainly I never met any and I was in and out of buildings at all hours) let alone armed police!

The really ancient ones: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_University_Constabul... (I think that may be the last left).

I think UK universities mostly include limited security in their general pastoral support, rather than having dedicated security guards. So there's someone who can e.g. ask a stranger loitering on campus at night what they're doing, but anything serious will be handled by the police.

In general, it's not about the students, it's about the surrounding public. I know at my university there were several assaults over the 4 years I attended. Every last one was caused by someone from the outside coming onto campus to commit a crime.

If, for instance, sexual assault is your thing - a college campus is a pretty good place to find lots of young women who are potentially vulnerable (walking home alone/potentially inebriated). Furthermore, if you're in that approximate age range, it's pretty easy to get lost in the crowd.

The one that caused me to do a double take was the "postal police"... the postal service, at least in New York, appears to have its own police force.

The USPS is a federal agency so it's not limited to NY, USPS police are federal agents.

I believe they traditionally have dealt with a lot of mail fraud and child pornography investigations.

Another fun one, the Supreme Court has their own police force with 145 members. There are quite a few of these micro-police forces in the US system.

Railroad police are even more interesting. Private security given full arrest powers.

That depends on the state and what kind of railroad police you're talking about. In California they are full sworn officers who have general police powers (i.e., they're not limited to operating on railroad property). In other states it's different.

Amtrak police are federal agents with nationwide jurisdiction. That makes some degree of sense when you realize that pursuit might easily cover several states. The crime itself might even cover several states -- imagine someone burglarizing sleeping compartments on the train. When he hits the first one the train is in Minnesota, but by the time he finishes, the train is in Wisconsin. Having federal jurisdiction avoids pissing contests about which state has authority.

The situation is similar for the sky marshals on planes.

I've always found this bizarre too, but then all alcohol is prohibited until 21 quite unlike other places. I guess someone has to enforce that, too ?

And there is an ABC store right next to the campus that specialises in cheap vodka.

That is not generally enforced at universities.

I think it depends on some combination the jurisdiction, university & location. It's absolutely enforced where alcohol & alcohol related crime is a problem.

Don't forget the Boston bombers ran to MIT and killed a security guard.

While this is an extreme case some University are in urban environments. Take GaTech for example, every year someone is robbed or even murdered walking near campus. The campus police usually have to fend off vagrants or drug addicts from nearby.

I used to go to Temple in Philadelphia and the amount of crime that took place on or near campus definitely warranted its own police department.

North Philadelphia isn't the safest place to begin with, but 28,000+ college students fresh out of the nest make easy targets for criminals. There's likely around a dozen "incidents" almost daily. Of the 2 or 3 years I was there, two students were murdered, another committed suicide in the middle of campus, and a few others were shot and survived. The campus police department does its best to make a safe zone around campus with either uniformed officers and/or safety officers on the corners every few blocks outside of campus.

> Of the 2 or 3 years I was there, [...] another committed suicide in the middle of campus,

Why does this health problem require police attendance?

Perhaps I shouldn't have mentioned that particular incident; the rest of my points still warrant a higher police presence.

Police are sometimes different from Campus security.

Who else is the front line for mental health problems? A medical doctor or psychiatrist isn't going to be on standby rushing waiting for a student to become sucicidal.

Campus faculty aren't likely to be trained on this stuff.

> A medical doctor or psychiatrist isn't going to be on standby rushing waiting for a student to become sucicidal.

It actually is and is what they are for. Psychiatrists do clinics etc but occasionally end up absent if a call comes through. It's a bit easier if a big hospital for a big city is near the uni however.

I've never heard of a Ga Tech student being murdered, and I can't find anything about such an incident online. Do you have a source for this?

I was incorrect it was a GSU student.

Sean Collier was a sworn MIT Police Officer, not a security guard.

> In the rest of the world, police is much more centralised... New Zealand (admittedly a small country)

The US is broken into "normal" country size blocks - i.e. States. Kiwis have a lot more faith in centralized government though. Many aspects of American society have significant duplication due to a perceived loss in autonomy if resources are consolidated. For example, I live in a metro area of 4 million people that has over 100 local government entities (each suburb has it's own council etc), most with their own emergency services, public works departments, and own set of regulations. It's insane.

> The police don't have fancy equipment, if they need an APC, or helicopters They have one helicopter (http://www.police.govt.nz/contact-us/station/air-support-uni...), it used to be called the "Eagle" when I was a kid growing up in Auckland.

This accounts for our federal / state / local breakdown, but what is a legitimate question is why does the FDA or IRS need a law enforcement division? Why can't there be a federal law enforcement division that works on behalf of federal agencies with a need?

> Why can't there be a federal law enforcement division that works on behalf of federal agencies with a need?

Because a substantial portion of the work of many agencies involves specialized law enforcement in the domain of responsibility, and it's organizationally inefficient for that to invo love coordinating units where the lowest common level of management is the President of the United States.

Exactly - the IRS and the DEA and the ATF have very different law enforcement objectives and domains but all have legitimate law enforcement requirements.

The spotty history of the FBI notwithstanding, it makes more sense to have smaller decentralized law enforcement units specialized in their given area than to have one large agency made up of the same specialized groups.

Would it not be possible to have relevant domain experts as a part of the relevant organization working in tandem with the actual "force" of some sort of white label federal law enforcement? I realize police work involves more than kicking in doors and shooting bad guys, but surely most of these organizations do not need folks running around with guns.

> Would it not be possible to have relevant domain experts as a part of the relevant organization working in tandem with the actual "force" of some sort of white label federal law enforcement?

So, instead of specialized law enforcement for agencies like the park service and forest service, you want to have generic federal cops accompanying unarmed park/forest specialists, and so on throughout the government? That sounds like it would be somewhere between merely grossly inefficient and utterly disastrous in practice in many cases.

> I realize police work involves more than kicking in doors and shooting bad guys, but surely most of these organizations do not need folks running around with guns.

Maybe some of them don't, and I'd like to hear specific arguments for specific agencies as to how things would be better if they didn't.

But in my working career I've seen enough of people distant from a particular organizations work deciding "surely they don't need <resource> in that organization" and producing bad results thereby that I'm highly.skeptical of such claims without some kind of specific, convincing analysis of why the alternative actually is superior for the specific case.

The domain experts could be cops themselves, in a specialist department of a broader police force. I'm sure a lot of the basic training and equipment required is the same across agencies.

In any case, the current hyper-local US system for both police and other services is disastrous in practice for many groups of people, and has its own gross inefficiencies (economies of scale are smaller, weaker bargaining positions when purchasing things, etc.).

> The domain experts could be cops themselves, in a specialist department of a broader police force. I'm sure a lot of the basic training and equipment required is the same across agencies.

To the degree that that's true, the basic non-domain specialized training is already shared. [0] There are also, I believe, jointly-developed shard equipment standards and mutiagency equipment purchasing. Even if there weren't, you don't need to put operational authority in a central LE agency to achieve that.

What is the specific benefit to be gained by centralization?

> In any case, the current hyper-local US system for both police and other services is disastrous in practice for many groups of people

A specific argument on this point, particularly about how this is relevant to the subject-matter division of federal agencies rather than the territorial divides of city/county/state general-purpose option policing agencies would be welcome.

[0] https://www.fletc.gov/learn-about-fletc

It may be inefficient, but as I mentioned up-thread, I like that it's more localized.

I've had a neighbor call the cops (in this case sheriff's office) because our horses got out at night. I much prefer dealing with the local deputy who might have a few head of beef cattle himself (and so understand the issues with keeping large animals where you want them to be) vs. a cop from the nearest city who's never had to personally deal with anything other than his cat running around the backyard.

Think of it as community policing on a larger scale.

In addition to the other reasons given, the interactions are significantly different because they're specialized. e.g., one day a Park Ranger came up to me when I was photographing a snake. He waited patiently until I was done, we had a conversation about it (informed me that it was a "banded water snake"), talked about how the trout stocking program was going and at the he end said, "oh, by the way, can I see your fishing license?"

A normal state or local cop would have likely just said "hi, good morning, where's your fishing license?" A completely different, though not unpleasant, interaction that would have left me with a different "feeling" about how it happened.

And yes, he was armed. Sidearm in a holster and likely at least one shotgun in the car.

Maybe it's because I'm not American, but why do you need a handgun to check fishing licences? Are people inclined to start shooting game wardens/park rangers?

>Are people inclined to start shooting game wardens/park rangers?

It might be a small factor, but not really. Legal gun owners aren't typically the ones using them against law enforcement anyway (it's not much different than Europe).

Remember that you (as US wildlife enforcement) are a long way away from civilization and medical aid. As such, the chance that you'll potentially be dealing with animals with sharp teeth, claws, and fangs is substantially higher than the average person going fishing on Saturday once every few months. This is the reason geological survey crews (like the USGS) tend to be armed as well.

Contrast this to Western Europe, where any animal of sufficient size to harm a human is endangered if not already extinct. The density of civilization is much greater than it is in the US; if you are injured by something a gun can defend against it's much more likely you'll be quickly rescued. The requirement you be armed out there is much less.

History probably plays a role, and that some of the people they'll encounter will be legally armed, perhaps animal control. Their job is more than just checking fishing licenses.

Why did you need a fishing license to photograph a snake?

> Why can't there be a federal law enforcement division that works on behalf of federal agencies with a need?

This may be efficient, but we should consider whether inefficiency may actually be a feature. Each individual enforcement arm is weaker, less easily coordinated with others, and less likely to be commandeered in pursuit of overarching federal goals. A common federal law enforcement entity could come to disconcertingly resemble a domestically deployed military.

All of those police forces are unrecognized by the Constitution except the Sheriff

Where are sheriffs mentions in the Constitution?

GP is not completely wrong. Many state constitutions do indeed create the office of Sheriff. The federal one does not, of course, because there is no federal sheriff.

Each state Constitution will have him listed. He is an officer of the state but sworn to uphold and defend both the state Constitution and the federal Constitution. Answerable only to the people of his county.

His job is to protect the law AND the rights of the people from federal law that would strip their rights away.

1. If you use the phrase "the Constitution" without first referencing a specific one, the overwhelming majority of Americans will assume you're referring to the US Constitution.

2. Women can be Sheriffs.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com