NationStates Jolt Archive

'Lo, I'm from Britain. The other day I was watching a documentary on a downmarket Satellite channel (Bravo) about The Worlds Deadliest Gangs, it was about the Gangs of L.A. Anyway, thats irrelevant.

The documentary said there were two competing law enforcement agencies dealing with the gang problem, the LA County Sheriff and the LAPD.

The point of this thread is I'm asking if anyone can tell me why the US has so many law enforcement agencies that seem to overlap in their duties, why they haven't just reformed them into a few bigger and more effective agencies that don't compete.

Also, can anyone tell me how the Sheriff's Department and Police Department differ in their duties?

Thanks much.

'Lo, I'm from Britain. The other day I was watching a documentary on a downmarket Satellite channel (Bravo) about The Worlds Deadliest Gangs, it was about the Gangs of L.A. Anyway, thats irrelevant.

The documentary said there were two competing law enforcement agencies dealing with the gang problem, the LA County Sheriff and the LAPD.

The point of this thread is I'm asking if anyone can tell me why the US has so many law enforcement agencies that seem to overlap in their duties, why they haven't just reformed them into a few bigger and more effective agencies that don't compete.

Also, can anyone tell me how the Sheriff's Department and Police Department differ in their duties?

Thanks much.

To answer your last question, they don't differ in their duties. That's all I have.

Efficency? Who needs efficiency? Why not just waste taxpayer money?

In all seriousness, i have no idea why there are different agencies. It could be different jurisdictions (city, county, state) or it might just be some weird tradition that nobody bothers to reform.

As for why law enforcement in the US is so balkanized, it stems from the inate mistrust of big government. We know we must have police, but find it better to have multiple police agencies so that we can be sure one does not become a sorce of injustice - in England centralized royal justice was seen as good alternative to the arbitrary baronial justice, in the US balkanized justice was seen an a good alternative to the arbitrary centralized royal justice of England. If you count on having trustworthy system it is better to have a central one, if you do not it better to have multiple small ones to contain the damage they can do.

The US governmental structure is sort of hierarchal, a federal government and the state governments sharing soverignity (comparable to England and Scottland in the UK). States are usually subdivided into counties, and these vary in power and significance from state to state. In California, state level police, charged with enforcing the laws of the State of California are ralaitively small and most of their powers are handled on the county level by county sheriffs departments. LAPD are metropolitan police, their area of responsibility ends at the city lines.

It's about like Squi said. The LAPD is for the city of Los Angeles itself, while the Sheriff's Department is for the whole county. Most major cities have their own police departments, but the rest use the county sheriff. My town contracts with the sheriff's department, which you could see as outsourcing police duties. They don't overlap, to my knowledge. Then there's the FBI, which was made so the federal government could have more police power and also to coordinate and address national issues. The CIA's not supposed to be involved in non-international issues (though they are), and don't involve themselves in law enforcement. The NSA's the same deal as the CIA here. State troopers don't do much except in rural areas. It's really mostly the LAPD.

State troopers also patrol interstate highways and in the case of coastal and border states, patrol the coastlines and the borders (in concert with the agency formerly known as the INS). But Squi and Jesusfish pretty much handled the difference between the LAPD and the sheriff's office.Their duties don't overlap and in fact there's generally some jurisidictional pissing contests--that's the case for every city/sheriff jurisdiction. I've seen it in small town Louisiana as well.

Cheers for the answers Squi & others, cleared that up for me!

I think Germany and the Netehrlands have a similar system. At least it sounds kinda familiar.

It's all about the Reno sheriffs department.

Hmm


I have the first Season on DVD


Gotta love Lt. Dangle(sp?)