If I were in charge, I would grant the police the authority to carry out an arrest or a warrant execution in any state, independent of the jurisdiction. According to current law, a police officer cannot detain a criminal or a suspect in a state that is not under his authority unless the issuing state issues a special warrant authorizing the detainment. (Button, 2016). The area restriction hinders the prompt and effective administration of justice. (Boateng, &Abess, 2016). As a result, police should have unlimited power to make arrests and issue warrants in every state. A law enforcer from Texas, for example, should have the power to arrest an individual in New York who engages in criminal activities.
The police power that I would remove is the authority to negotiate out-of-court disposals with arrested persons. The usual procedure for all criminal offenses is the gathering of evidence by the police or prosecutors and then the charging and prosecution process that takes place in court (Valverde, 2016). However, the alternative to the prosecution system is the out-of-court disposal where the officer will fine or warn minor offenders.
The out-of-court disposal power, however, should be removed because it is being misused by mischievous police persons to extort money from the public. For example, individuals who found with minor offenses such as possession of illicit drugs can be fined, and the money is a form of revenue collection for the government (Schneider, 2014). However, corrupt offices do not issue tickets for the minor offense but instead, collect money from the offenders and use it for their personal benefits (Vermeule, 2014). Therefore, the police authority of out-of-court proposal should be removed to reduce cases of corruption in the system.
References
Boateng, F. D.,&Abess, G. (2016). Analyzing Citizens’ Reported Levels of
Confidence in the Police: A National Study of Public Attitudes toward the Police in the
United States. Journal of Criminology: an Interdisciplinary Journal on Crime, Law and Deviance in Asia, 11, 4, 289-308.
Button, M. (2016). Security officers and policing: Powers, culture and control in the governance
of private space. London: Routledge.
Schneider, C. L. (2014). Police power and race riots: Urban unrest in Paris and New York.
University of Pennsylvania Press
Valverde, M. (2016). Beyond the Social Control of Space: Towards a Multidimensional
Approach to Local Security Networks. The SAGE Handbook of Global Policing, 46
Vermeule, A. (2014). Optimal Abuse of Power. Nw. UL Rev., 109, 673
