United States Government

A

3

Other Agencies

One of the fastest-growing parts of the law enforcement industry is private police, who are employed by private security agencies. They play an increasingly important role in providing security, especially in the workplace. In the mid-1990s private police numbered more than 1.5 million, close to three times the number of police in public enforcement agencies.

B

Increasing Federal Involvement

The size of nearly all police units has sharply increased since World War II because communities have demanded larger police forces. By the 1970s over 500,000 men and women were employed in 40,000 public law enforcement agencies. By the 1990s these figures had increased to nearly 750,000 people in 45,000 agencies. From the 1970s to the 1990s the combined annual budget of law enforcement organizations more than doubled, not including the cost of prisons. Some of this growth was spurred by public fears, especially in the 1970s and 1980s, that crime was becoming difficult to control.

As a result of these fears, the federal government has become increasingly involved in all levels of law enforcement. Congress and the president have attempted to provide more support for state and local law enforcement agencies. The federal government, state troopers, and local police often share technology such as crime laboratories and fingerprint records. In 1968 Congress passed the Crime Control and Safe Streets Act, which established the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA). The LEAA provided federal grants to states to hire more police officers, purchase equipment for crime control, and improve coordination between federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies. The act also required the licensing of gun dealers, prohibited the interstate shipment of pistols and revolvers to individuals, and prohibited the sale of handguns to anyone under the age of 21.

In 1994 the president and Congress again responded to citizen concerns with the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, which built on the federal, state, and local alliance. Not only did this legislation provide funds for local governments to hire more police, but for the first time it also included money for programs specifically designed to fight violence against women.

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The federal government has also become involved in defining and standardizing what constitutes crime in the United States and the rights of those accused of criminal activity. Since World War II the Supreme Court has expanded the rights of suspected criminals to ensure that the innocent are protected. Under the law, an individual has the right to due process—that is, a fair trial and equal treatment. If arrested, people have the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty, to have access to an attorney, to be fairly questioned by the police, to be advised of their rights, and to be free from unreasonable seizures of personal property.

Some Americans believe that the need to protect individuals from injustice sometimes conflicts with society’s need to enforce the law and maintain social order. A Supreme Court case decided in 1984 addressed such tensions. In its ruling in United States v. Leon, the Court held that evidence obtained by a defective search warrant (which had been thrown out by a lower court in order to protect the defendant’s rights) was admissible. The Court ruled that because the police had believed at the time of the incident that the search warrant was legitimate and they were acting in good faith, the evidence could be used against the defendant.

C

Current Trends and Issues

Over time, the types of crimes that have been the focus of law enforcement have changed. During the 1950s, Americans worried about organized crime, treason by Communists, and vandalism by city gangs. Today they are more likely to worry about domestic violence and drugs. Domestic violence—abuse that occurs between married couples or individuals in other intimate relationships—was previously considered a private matter. Similarly, drug use was not as much of a concern in the past as it is today, when many Americans consider the sale, possession, and use of illegal drugs among the nation’s most serious problems. Annually, drug offenses rank as the largest category of criminal activity. On every level, law enforcement agencies are fighting a so-called war on drugs. This effort is led at the executive level by a presidentially appointed “drug czar,” the director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy. The director’s main task is to coordinate national drug-fighting efforts and to draw attention to new developments, such as rising use of heroin among teenagers or the efforts of the U.S. government to control production of cocaine in Colombia.

VIII

Election Process and Political Parties

Elections are a fundamental part of the American system of government, which was founded on the principle that the power to govern resides in the people. Elections provide the means by which the American people delegate this power to elected representatives. By voting for government officials, the public makes choices about the policies, programs, and future directions of government action. At the same time, elections make government officials accountable to their constituents. Elected officials must conduct themselves in a responsible manner and take into account popular interests and the wishes of those they represent. Otherwise they risk being voted out of office. This system depends primarily on the voters. The electoral process can only work if people participate.

A

Responsibility for Elections

In the United States, elections are held at regular intervals. National presidential elections take place every four years. Congressional elections occur every two years, and state and local elections usually coincide with national elections. In addition to elections for office, many state and local ballots include referendums and initiatives, which allow the people to directly determine a government policy.

State and local governments are largely responsible for organizing elections. State, county, and municipal election boards administer elections. These boards establish and staff polling places and verify the eligibility of individuals who come to vote. State laws specify the qualifications of candidates and how elections are to be administered, including registration procedures, the location of polling places, and even the kind of ballots used.

More importantly, states also determine the boundaries for congressional and state legislative districts. In the past, because many legislative districts were drawn based on area and not on population, regions with small populations had substantially more representation per person than did regions with large populations. Thus in the allocation of seats in the state legislature, rural districts were overrepresented in relation to their population. For example, in Vermont in the 1960s, the small town of Stratton, with a population of 38, had the same number of representatives in the state legislature as Burlington, with 40,000 residents. The U.S. Supreme Court in a series of decisions beginning in 1962 mandated that each elected official must represent roughly the same number of people.

Many people also debate whether the state legislatures should be allowed to gerrymander, or draw legislative lines to favor a special interest. In the early 19th century, to further his own and his party’s interests, Massachusetts governor Elbridge Gerry encouraged the legislature to design a district so as to contain as many of his party’s opponents as possible. By doing this he hoped that his party would lose that district by a large majority but would then be able to win all the other districts by small majorities. The district Gerry created was so convoluted that it was described as being shaped like a salamander, and it is from this that the term “gerrymander” derives.

Gerrymandering has also occurred on racial lines, both to prevent and to ensure minority representation in government. After the Voting Act of 1965 made it possible for blacks to vote, racial gerrymandering that favored whites was instituted to prevent blacks from being adequately represented. In recent years, however, gerrymandering has been used to facilitate the election of members of minority groups, such as blacks or Hispanics, by creating a district in which such a group holds the majority. This process—sometimes called “loading a district”—has been used by some legislatures such as that of North Carolina to attempt to assure the election of a black representative. The intent of such districts is to adequately represent the diversity of the United States population in Congress. Opponents of this process claim that such procedures are unfair, that they create resentment against blacks and other minority groups, and that they produce racial segregation. Whatever the outcome, it is clear that the states’ ability to set legislative and congressional boundaries is a powerful tool in the determination of public policy.

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