The United States has had a big challenge in controlling terrorism activities. Reports on research done on the future of terrorism, the task force foresees a lot of terror activities and threats in the United States and this has become a little scary to the law enforcement agencies (Scott, Jones, and Furmanski, 2010). Criminals especially terror suspects are becoming smarter everyday in their operations and this has forced the U.S. government to create the homeland security department with the high hopes of combining the police force into one unit of the national police organization so as to be able to fight terrorism. This is the only way they can be able to fight terrorism and stop terrorist activities.
The United States should combine all police agencies into one national police organization in order to strengthen its police force and provide national security to its citizens. Even though the federal government has been there to defend the nation against its enemies, many terror attacks have been reported against the U.S. since their attackers have a strong force of armies and industrial capabilities and so the United States needs a combined force in order to be able to fight their attackers and defeat them. It is the government’s role to find out better tools and ways in their arsenal to defeat the great armies of their enemies and the best way possible is to consolidate the police force and come up with energetic efforts to cut off terrorists financing and stop them from carrying out terror activities (Stevens, 2001).
The national security strategy of combining all police agencies into one national police organization will keep the U.S. and the whole world safer and better place since it will help curb terrorist activities. The terrorist will not have any powers to carry own with their terror activities since the consolidated military will have more force on them. Furthermore, the U.S. needs to strengthen the alliances into the police force by combining them in order to achieve its goal of defeating global terrorism and terrorists attacks on the U.S. government. If the police force is consolidated into one national force, it will develop cooperative agendas and put them into action in order to prevent terror threats and attacks and this will transform America’s national security. The combined police force will be able to work together to disrupt the financing of terror groups by blocking their funding sources and freeze their assets and the assets of those funding them. In addition, a combined force will ensure that terrorists do not get access to the international financial system. They will be able to prevent terrorist’s movements and the movement of their assets through alternative financial networks and all their organizations will be destroyed. In essence, a combined police force into one unit of police will help end terrorist activities in the U.S. and it will also enhance border security. The law enforcement agencies should be enforced because they are already working together while dealing with dangerous criminals who cross the state lines (Riley, and Hoffman, 1995).
In contrast if the police force is to be consolidated in one organization, it will call for a re writing of the constitution since the U.S. constitution does not include the police protection as a power of the federal government. If the 10th amendment is checked, it grants all powers which are not specified to the federal government to the states and different states have different laws and it will be hard for all the states to follow the same laws. In addition, each police force has different training, authority and rules of engagement and so it will be hard for them to work together.
The criminal justice system should not be consolidated even if the police force has been consolidated. The criminal justice system has three branches with different duties but work together under the rule of the law to maintain the rule of law. The criminal justice system consists of the police who investigate crimes, enforce law and apprehends criminals. The next branch is the court which conducts trials and determines whether those arrested are guilty or innocent and lastly the correlation agency which carry out cases that are doled out by the court. In simple, this system does not need to be consolidated since all its branches have different duties and they still work together to maintain law and order and the rule of law in the society.
In order to establish a one national police organizational unit, the government should provide special training to the consolidated force on how to tackle both domestic and global terror threats and attacks. Such a police organization can be established by training the selected force on how to trace terrorists from other citizens.
I believe the establishment of terrorism as a crime that can be committed domestically has changed community policing. The first question was how? First of all it is by passing of the patriotic act by the congress. By passing the patriotic act, there will be a reorganization of the counter-terrorism policy thus the police powers will be increased and they will not be limited anymore therefore, they will be able to handle terror related crimes. This will highly help in prevention of terrorism threats and attacks. Furthermore, it has brought change by bringing about the reconstructing of the federal state agencies and the local police force (Schmalleger, 2011). By responding to domestic terrorism, the government should standardize methods of enacting new laws and the use of new electronic gadgets to trace terrorists.
Another reason why I believe that the establishment of terrorism as a crime that can be committed domestically has changed community policing is by the U.S. government creating the homeland security. The homeland security was created to help integrate existing agencies and to ensure there is national security in the U.S. Lastly, standardizing of methods of enacting new laws and use of new electronic gadgets like the GIS systems to trace terrorists activities responds to domestic terrorism since these gadgets are being used by the COPPS. A good example to illustrate this is the FBI which has assigned over 4000 agents to counter terrorism activities and this proves that more focus has been put on domestic terrorism. Furthermore, the immigration and the naturalization service have reorganized to expand its enforcement duties so as to provide national security over terrorism.
References
Scott, G., Jones, R. and Furmanski, L. (2010). 21 debated issues in world politics: 2010 custom edition (2nd Ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Stevens, D., J. (2001). Case Studies in Community Policing. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Riley, K. J. and Hoffman, B. (1995). Domestic terrorism: A national assessment of state and local preparedness. Santa Monica, CA: Random House.
Schmalleger, F., J. (2011). Criminal Justice Today: An Introductory Text for the 21st Century, 11th Edition. New Jersey: Pearson Learning Solutions.
