Law Enforcement Agency Powers
A law enforcement agency (LEA) has powers, which other government subjects do not, to enable the LEA to undertake its responsibilities. These powers are generally in one of six forms:
- Exemptions from laws
- Intrusive powers, for search, seizure, and interception
- Legal deception
- Use of force and constraint of liberty
- Jurisdictional override
- Direction
The types of powers and law exemptions available to a LEA vary from country to country.
They depend on the social, legal, and technical maturity of the country, and on the resources available to LEAs generally in the country. Some countries may have no laws regarding a particular type of activity by its subjects at all, while other countries might have very stringent laws on the same type of activity. This will impact significantly on the legal structures, if any, that govern how an LEA can operate, and on how the LEA's use of powers is overviewed.
Law enforcement agency powers are part of a broad range of techniques used for law enforcement, many of which require no specific legislative support or independent overview.
- See law enforcement techniques for a list of other law enforcement techniques.
Read more about Law Enforcement Agency Powers: Overview of Use of Powers, Exemption From Laws, Communications Interception, Intrusive Seizure, Legal Deception, Use of Force, Constraint of Liberty, Jurisdictional Override, Direction
Famous quotes containing the words law enforcement, law, agency and/or powers:
“You’ve just fulfilled the first role of law enforcement. Make sure when your shift is over you go home alive.”
—David Mamet, U.S. screenwriter, and Brian DePlama. Jimmy Malone (Sean Connery)
“Lawyers are necessary in a community. Some of you ... take a different view; but as I am a member of that legal profession, or was at one time, and have only lost standing in it to become a politician, I still retain the pride of the profession. And I still insist that it is the law and the lawyer that make popular government under a written constitution and written statutes possible.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“It is possible that the telephone has been responsible for more business inefficiency than any other agency except laudanum.... In the old days when you wanted to get in touch with a man you wrote a note, sprinkled it with sand, and gave it to a man on horseback. It probably was delivered within half an hour, depending on how big a lunch the horse had had. But in these busy days of rush-rush-rush, it is sometimes a week before you can catch your man on the telephone.”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)
“The poet is the person in whom these powers are in balance, the man without impediment, who sees and handles that which others dream of, traverses the whole scale of experience, and is representative of man, in virtue of being the largest power to receive and to impart.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)