The US has close to 18000 local and state agencies that enforce law and the limits and scope of operation of these agencies are strictly outlined by the law. The US military which is basically under the department of defense is also organized in a structure starting from the top to lower level departments (Sapolsky, 2013). The federal agencies considered to be major in enforcing the law are the Department of Homeland Security which is at the cabinet level and the Federal Bureau of Investigation which investigates all crimes at the federal level like bank robbery, interstate gambling, aircraft piracy and kidnapping. Other federal agencies are the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the U.S Coast Guard, the Secret Service, the Postal Inspection Service, Drug Enforcement Administration, the Marshals Service, Internal Revenue Service among others. The Department of Justice is the category under which all these agencies fall. Apart from the above federal agencies, every state in the US has its own agency to enforce law and carry out criminal investigations like the Forestry Commission Investigations and Department of Public Safety in Alabama, Colorado Department of Corrections, Oklahoma Insurance Department and the Department of Criminal Justice in Texas (Richelson, 2015).
The US military is headed by the Department of Defense which is held by the Defense Secretary. Under this department are Departments of Army, Air Force, Navy, Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Office of the Secretary of Defense (Powell & DiMaggio, 2012). All these departments are headed by the departmental secretaries apart from the Joint Chiefs of Staff which is headed by the Chairman. The military service under these departments includes the Army, Air Force, Navy and the Marine Corps. The Office of Secretary of Defense has seventeen agencies including the Defense Commissary Agency, Pentagon Force Protection Agency, Defense Security Service, and Defense Contract Audit Agency. It also comprises other agencies which are identified as the combat support agencies like the Defense Contract Management Agency, Defense Intelligence Agency and National Reconnaissance Office. Finally, under the Joint Chiefs of there are combatant commands like the European Command, Pacific Command, Central Command and the Africa Command.
References
Powell, W. W., & DiMaggio, P. J. (Eds.). (2012). The new institutionalism in organizational analysis. University of Chicago Press.
Richelson, J. T. (2015). The US intelligence community. Westview Press.
Sapolsky, H. M. (2013). Polaris System Development. Harvard University Press.
