Checkpoint: Police and Law Enforcement Response

The role of police has always been to serve the communities of the United States by protecting them from crime and those who commit crimes. Police are responsible for enforcing the law, investigating crimes, apprehending offenders, reducing and preventing crime, maintaining public order, ensuring community safety, providing emergency and related community services, and protecting the fundamental rights and freedoms of individuals. (Schmalleger, pg. 17) If police were to be lessened or have a limit of power; communities would implode on themselves. Crime is high in today’s society with having law enforcement; now if we were to take away that asset crime would take over completely. If you were to look at Mexico for instance, the police and military are in a constant war with drug lords, cartels, and many different crime organizations. These outlaws have developed their own communities and in some places have taken over towns and cities in which they still control to this day. The people of the communities have to adhere to rules or ruling of that one individual who has the power almost like a dictator but not politically empowered. The police of Mexico are always trying to stop them but from most standpoints they are in a either a stale mate or agreement to stay away from certain areas. If there were no police or they were lessened everything would be out of control. ("Los Angeles Times", 2013). Police have always been affected by the probable cause issue because at times many criminals are not prosecuted because of their rights being violated. Police need probable cause in order to execute searches, arrests, and most importantly be granted search warrants. The police are here to fight crime but must do so within the law; they cannot break the law in order to serve it. A good example would be the marijuana laws here in Massachusetts. Before the year 2009 police would be able to execute searches of vehicles and occupants based on the grounds that they can smell marijuana. In 2009 the laws were changed and now the odor of marijuana does not grant probable cause because marijuana has been decriminalized. Just one year ago in Hingham, MA a state trooper pulled over a taxi and could smell marijuana and searched the vehicle; He discovered 13 pounds. The case was dismissed because the state police didn’t have probable cause to search the vehicle. The driver was pulled over because of a broken tail light and was acting as anyone that just got pulled over would. The search violated the civil rights of the two individuals involved which were right to privacy. (Burrell, 2012) All the issues that police and law enforcement face can be improved by changing laws that restrict the police from doing their jobs as well as not allowing criminals in the face of all evidence to utilize the constitution or bill of rights as a means to get away with their crimes. Many times in our history criminals that have been caught trafficking drugs, committed murder or rape, rape have been acquitted due to supposed violation of their civil rights. I don’t feel that it is right that criminals of the high level get away with their crimes because their “privacy was violated” or there “due process was not speedy”. ("Wikipedia", n.d.)

Reference page
Schmallager, F. (2009). Criminal Justice Today, 10th ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J.
Pearson/Pentrice Hall.
Los Angeles Times. (2013). Retrieved from http://projects.latimes.com/mexico-drug-war/#/its-a-war
Burrell, C. (2012). The Patriot Ledger. Retrieved from http://www.patriotledger.com/topstories/x413536012/Judge-State-troopers-had-no-right-to-search-taxi-trunk-for-drugs
Wikipedia. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution