Special Police - United States

United States

In United States terminology, special police can mean:

  • Fire Police, members of specialized traffic control units responding with volunteer fire companies;
  • Auxiliary Police, members of volunteer, unpaid or paid, part-time civilian police, security officer units, interns;
  • Special Law Enforcement Officers - used in New Jersey to supplement full-time police officers;
  • Security police; or
  • Company police.

The term can also refer to limited police power granted in some jurisdictions to lifeguards, SPCA personnel, teachers, and other public sector employees which is incidental to their main responsibilities. Special Police Officers (or SPO's) can be employed to protect large campuses such as theme parks, hospital centers, and commerce centers.

Some states, such as Maryland, New York, and the District of Columbia, grant full State Police/peace officer authority to SPOs for use in whatever area they are employed to protect. They can make traffic stops in their jurisdiction if they have had accredited training. They are also permitted to conduct traffic control and investigations pertaining to the area protected by them, while a majority of SPOS are armed with a firearm, some states permit the age for an SPO to be 18, while still they can not carry a sidearm. Special police can make a criminal arrest and run blue strobe lights on their vehicle.

In the United States security officers are involved in law enforcement and have been given the power of police officers, but are operated under a private police agency also known as a security agency. Security officers are special police because they are officers of the law, but employed by private companies offering private police officers to uphold laws, protect, patrol, and guard property under a private party contract.

Read more about this topic:  Special Police

Famous quotes related to united states:

    We can beat all Europe with United States soldiers. Give me a thousand Tennesseans, and I’ll whip any other thousand men on the globe!
    Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)

    Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Canada are the horns, the head, the neck, the shins, and the hoof of the ox, and the United States are the ribs, the sirloin, the kidneys, and the rest of the body.
    William Cobbett (1762–1835)

    It was evident that, both on account of the feudal system and the aristocratic government, a private man was not worth so much in Canada as in the United States; and, if your wealth in any measure consists in manliness, in originality and independence, you had better stay here. How could a peaceable, freethinking man live neighbor to the Forty-ninth Regiment? A New-Englander would naturally be a bad citizen, probably a rebel, there,—certainly if he were already a rebel at home.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    The Federated Republic of Europe—the United States of Europe—that is what must be. National autonomy no longer suffices. Economic evolution demands the abolition of national frontiers. If Europe is to remain split into national groups, then Imperialism will recommence its work. Only a Federated Republic of Europe can give peace to the world.
    Leon Trotsky (1879–1940)

    You are, I am sure, aware that genuine popular support in the United States is required to carry out any Government policy, foreign or domestic. The American people make up their own minds and no governmental action can change it.
    Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)