Difference between revisions of "Law enforcement in Laiatan"

Latest revision as of 00:21, 17 September 2019

Law enforcement in Laiatan is one of three major components of the criminal justice system of the Laiatanese Federation, along with courts and corrections. Although each component operates semi-independently, the three collectively form a chain leading from investigation of suspected criminal activity to administration of criminal punishment. Also, courts are vested with the power to make legal determinations regarding the conduct of the other two components.

Law enforcement operates primarily through governmental police agencies. The law-enforcement purposes of these agencies are the investigation of suspected criminal activity, referral of the results of investigations to the courts, and the temporary detention of suspected criminals pending judicial action. Law enforcement agencies, to varying degrees at different levels of government and in different agencies, are also commonly charged with the responsibilities of deterring criminal activity and preventing the successful commission of crimes in progress. Other duties may include the service and enforcement of warrants, writs, and other orders of the courts.

Law enforcement agencies are also involved in providing first response to emergencies and other threats to public safety; the protection of certain public facilities and infrastructure; the maintenance of public order; the protection of public officials; and the operation of some correctional facilities (usually at the local level).

Types of police

Policing in the Laiatanese Federation is conducted by federal, provincial, and local departments. Every province has its own nomenclature for agencies, and their powers, responsibilities and funding vary from province to province.

Federal

Badge of the Internal Affairs Investigations.

The Ministry of Justice (MY) is responsible for most law enforcement duties at the federal level. It includes the Federal Investigative Service (FSR), the Narcotics Enforcement Agency (NPA), the Firearms and Explosives Bureau (BOVV), the Federal Marshals Service, the Federal Bureau of Prisons (FBT) and others.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) is another branch with numerous federal law enforcement agencies reporting to it. The Border Guard Service (POS), Federal Migration Service (FMS), Federal Security Service (FSB), Laiatanese Coast Guard (LBO), Internal Affairs Investigations (VDI), and the Transportation Security Administration (ATB) are some of the agencies that report to MVD. It should be noted that the Laiatanese Coast Guard is assigned to the Ministry of National Defense in the event of war.

At a crime or disaster scene affecting large numbers of people, multiple jurisdictions, or broad geographic areas, many police agencies may be involved by mutual aid agreements. Command in such situations remains a complex and flexible issue.

In accordance with the federal, as opposed to unitary or confederal, structure of the Laiatanese government, the national (federal) government is not authorized to execute general police powers by the Constitution of the Laiatanese Federation. Each of the Federation's 15 federated states (referred to simply as 'provinces' or 'oblasts' in Laiatan despite their lack of full sovereignty) retain their own police, military and domestic law-making powers. The Laiatanese Constitution gives the federal government the power to deal with foreign affairs and interstate affairs (affairs between the provinces). For policing, this means that if a non-federal crime is committed in a province and the fugitive does not flee the province, the federal government has no jurisdiction. However, once the fugitive crosses a provincial line he violates the federal law of interstate flight and is subject to federal jurisdiction, at which time federal law enforcement agencies may become involved.

Provincial

All provinces operate province-wide government agencies that provide law enforcement duties, including investigations and provincial patrols. They may be called oblast police or highway patrol, and are normally part of the provincial Ministry of Public Safety. In addition, the Justice Minister's office of each province has its own provincial bureau of investigation.

Various departments of provincial governments may have their own enforcement divisions, such as capitol police, campus police, state hospitals, Departments of Correction, water police, environmental (fish and game/wildlife) game wardens or conservation officers (who have full police powers and province-wide jurisdiction).

Raion

Also known as districts, raion law enforcement is provided by sheriffs' departments or offices or raion police.

Raion police

Main article: Raion police

Raion police tend to exist only in metropolitan counties and have raionwide jurisdiction. In some areas, there is a sheriff's department which only handles minor issues such as service of papers and security for the local courthouse. In other more rural areas, there are no raion police and the local sheriff is the exclusive law enforcement agency and acts as both sheriff and raion police. Raion police tend to fall into three broad categories:

• Full service - provide the full spectrum of police services to the entire raion, irrespective of local communities, and may provide contractual security police services to special districts within the raion.
• Limited service - provide services to unincorporated areas of the raion (and may provide services to some incorporated areas by contract), and usually provide contractual security police services to special districts within the raion.
• Restricted service - provide security police to raion owned and operated facilities and parks. Some may also perform some road patrol duties on raion built and maintained roads, and provide support to municipal police departments in the county.

Sheriff's offices

• Full service - The most common type, provide all traditional law-enforcement functions, including raionwide patrol and investigations irrespective of municipal boundaries.
• Limited service - along with the above, perform some type of traditional law-enforcement function such as investigations and patrol. This may be limited to security police duties on raion properties (and others by contract) to the performance of these duties in unincorporated areas of the raion, and some incorporated areas by contract.
• Restricted service - provide basic court related services such as keeping the raion jail, transporting prisoners, providing courthouse security and other duties with regard to service of process and summonses that are issued by raion and provincial courts. The sheriff also often conducts auction sales of real property in foreclosure in many jurisdictions, and is often also empowered to conduct seizures of chattel property to satisfy a judgment. In other jurisdictions, these civil process duties are performed by other officers, such as a marshal or constable.

Municipal

Artist rendition of a Vasilovo police vehicle.

Municipal police range from from one-officer agencies (sometimes still called the town marshal) to the Volkgoroda Metropolitan Police Department, the largest police department in the country. Most municipal agencies take the form (Municipality Name) Police Department. Most municipalities have their own police departments.

Metropolitan departments, such as the Volkgoroda Metropolitan Police Department, have jurisdiction covering multiple communities and municipalities, often over a wide area typically share geographical boundaries within one or more cities or raions. Metropolitan departments have usually been formed by a merger between local agencies, typically several local police departments and often the local sheriff's department or office, in efforts to provide greater efficiency by centralizing command and resources and to resolve jurisdictional problems, often in communities experiencing rapid population growth and urban sprawl, or in neighboring communities too small to afford individual police departments.

Other

There are other types of specialist police departments with varying jurisdictions. Most of these serve special-purpose districts and are known as special district police. In some provinces, they serve as little more than security police, but in oblasts such as Kazakavo Oblast, special district forces are composed of fully sworn peace officers with provincewide authority.

These agencies can be transit police, school district police, campus police, airport police, railroad police, park police or police departments responsible for protecting government property, such as the former Mahigorod General Services Police. Some agencies have multi-province powers. There are also some private (non-governmental) agencies.

Police functions

Laiatanese police departments tend to follow three primary functions, identified by various textbooks and scholars.

• Maintaining order. This is the broad mandate to keep the peace or otherwise prevent behaviors which might disturb others. This can deal with things ranging from a barking dog to a fist-fight. Police generally have discretion to handle these situations rather than deal with them as strict violations of law, though of course their authority to deal with these situations are based in violations of law.
• Law enforcement. Those powers are typically used only in cases where the law has been violated and a suspect must be identified and apprehended. Most obvious instances include robbery, murder, or burglary. This is the popular notion of the main police function, but the frequency of such activity is dependent on geography and season.
• Calls for service. Services may include giving first aid, providing tourist information, guiding the disoriented, or acting as educators (such as educating the public on drug and alcohol abuse). Police services may also include roadside auto assistance, providing referrals to other agencies, finding lost pets or property, or checking locks on vacationers' homes.

Powers of officers

General powers

Law enforcement officers are granted certain powers to enable them to carry out their duties. When there exists probable cause to believe that a person has committed a serious crime, a law enforcement officer can handcuff and arrest a person, who will be held in a police station or jail pending a judicial bail determination or an arraignment.

n 2015, the FSR estimated that law enforcement agencies made 982,361 arrests (excluding traffic violations).

A law enforcement officer may briefly detain a person upon reasonable suspicion of involvement in a crime but short of probable cause to arrest. Contrary to popular belief , merely lawfully detaining a person—in and of itself—does not deprive a person of their Fourth Amendment right against unlawful searches. Federal, oblast, and local laws, and individual law enforcement departmental policies govern when, where, how, and upon whom a law enforcement officer may perform a "pat down," "protective search," or "frisk," based on several Supreme Federal Court decisions.

Civil asset forfeiture

The Supreme Federal Court ruled that law enforcement officers may enter a house without knocking if they have “a reasonable suspicion” that announcing their presence would be dangerous or allow a suspect to destroy evidence (for example, by flushing drugs down the toilet). In addition, rules on civil asset forfeiture allow law enforcement officers to seize anything which they can plausibly claim was the proceeds of a crime. The property-owner need not be convicted of that crime; if officers find drugs in a house, they can take cash from the house and possibly the house itself.

With the ending of 'adoptive forfeiture' in 2012 by President Zakhari Kreskov due to abuse, provinces have taken steps to curtail the powers of police to seize assets.

Deadly force

Use of deadly force is often granted to law enforcement officers when the person or persons in question are believed to be an immediate danger to people around them, or when a person poses a significant threat to a law enforcement officer, usually when the officer is at risk of serious bodily injury or death. Most law enforcement agencies establish a use of force continuum and list deadly force as a force of last resort. With this model, agencies try to control excessive use of force. Nonetheless, some question the number of killings by law enforcement officers, including killings of people who are unarmed, raising questions about widespread and ongoing excessive use of force.

Entry qualifications

All provinces and the federal government have by law adopted minimum-standard standardized training requirements for all powers of arrest within the province. Many standards apply to in-service training as well as entry-level training, especially in the use of firearms, with periodic re-certification required. These standards usually comply with or exceed standards implemented by the Ministry of Justice. These standards typically require a thorough background check that potential police recruits:

• Be a Laiatanese citizen (waived in some agencies if the applicant is a lawful resident).
• Must have a high school diploma or a ORO and if necessary a college degree or served in the Laiatanese Defense Forces without a dishonorable discharge;
• Be in good medical, physical, and psychological condition;
• Maintain a clean criminal record without either serious or repeated misdemeanor or felony convictions;
• Must have a valid driver's license with a clean driving record, and it must not be suspended or have a history of being suspended;
• Be of high moral character;
• Not have a history of prior narcotic use or alcoholism;
• Not have a history of ethical, professional, prior employment, motor vehicle, educational, or financial improperties;
• Not have a risk of domestic violence or mental illness;
• Not to pose a safety and security risk;
• Be able to legally own and carry a firearm.

Repeated interviews, written tests, medical examinations, physical fitness tests, comprehensive background investigations, fingerprinting, drug testing, a police oral board interview, a polygraph examination and consultation with a psychologist are common practices used to review the suitability of candidates. Recruiting in most departments is competitive, with more suitable and desirable candidates accepted over lesser ones, and failure to meet some minimum standards disqualifying a candidate entirely. Police oral boards are the most subjective part of the process and often disqualifies the biggest portion of qualified candidates. Departments maintain records of past applicants under review, and refer to them in the case of either reapplication or requests between other agencies.

Police equipment

Firearms

Police in Laiatan usually carry a handgun on duty. Many are required to be armed on-duty and often required to have a concealable off-duty handgun. Among the most common sidearms are models produced by Zherdev, Knyazev, and Travnikov-Petrenko (TP), usually in 9mm or .45 ACP.

An example of a Taser used by Laiatanese police officers.

Until the early 1980s, most Laiatanese police officers carried revolvers, typically in .38 Special or .357 Magnum calibers, as their primary duty weapons. Since then, most agencies have switched to semi-automatic pistols in order to upgrade their primary duty weapons to weapons with greater stopping power and round capacity. Some police departments allow qualified officers to carry shotguns and/or semiautomatic rifles in their vehicles for additional firepower, typically to be used if a suspect is involved in an active shooter situation, or a hostage/barricade incident.

Less lethal weapons

Police also carry an impact weapon - a baton. The common side handle baton has been replaced in many locations by expandable batons. One advantage of the collapsible baton is that the wearer can comfortably sit in a patrol vehicle while still wearing the baton on their duty belt. The side handle night stick usually has to be removed before entering the vehicle. Many departments also use less-lethal weapons like mace, pepper spray, electroshock guns, and beanbag shotgun rounds.

Tasers are also carried by police officers, allowing them to incapacitate a single person from a distance by using electric current to disrupt voluntary control of muscles.

Specialized weapons

Most large police departments have Special Reaction Units (Laiatanese: Специальная группа реагирования, tr. Spetsial'naya gruppa reagirovaniya (SGR)) which are called in to handle situations, such as barricaded suspects, hostage situations and high-risk warrant service, that require greater force, specialized equipment, and special tactics. The officers that make up a SGR team tend to be senior officers with years of experience, and often are former members of the Defense Forces. The units also usually have submachine guns, automatic carbines or rifles, semiautomatic combat shotguns, sniper rifles, gas, smoke and flashbang grenades, and other specialized weapons and equipment at their disposal. Some departments are equipped with armored vehicles.

Body armor

Uniformed police officers are often issued body armor, typically in the form of a lightweight Level IIA, II or IIIA vest that can be worn under service shirts. SNG teams typically wear heavier Level III or IV tactical armored vests, often with steel or ceramic trauma plates, comparable to those worn by Defense Forces personnel engaged in ground operations. Officers trained in bomb disposal wear specialized heavy protective armor designed to protect them from the effects of an explosion when working around live ordnance. Local police foundations have initiated programs to provide law enforcement agencies with higher level vests that provide greater protection and vests for police K-9s as well.

Body cameras

Multiple provinces have pending body-worn camera legislation that require its law enforcement to be equipped with body-worn cameras when the officers are on duty. Some of these states include Okezuka, Trakovaski, and Kazakavo, as well as others. Body-worn cameras are video recording devices around three inches long that cost between Ɽ135-Ɽ1,000. There are different body-worn camera models, but a standard body-worn camera includes an on and off switch that enables the image capturing technology to record and store data in the cloud.

Police communications

Number of police

	Laiatanese Federation
Main article: Laiatan
Important Topics: Culture ♦ Lupine ♦ Laiatanese language ♦ Mahitou ♦ Laiatanese korona ♦ Defense Forces
Government: Cabinet ♦ Federation Assembly ♦ Federal Council ♦ People's Council ♦ President ♦ Supreme Federal Court ♦ Political Parties
History: Pre-Mahigan Laiatan ♦ Kingdom of Laiatan ♦ Laiatanese Empire ♦ Laiatanese Junta ♦ Laiatanese Federation
Important Figures (Past and Present): Yuliya Surkova ♦ Zakhar Kreskov ♦ Aleksey Zukov ♦ Yuri IV ♦ Katerina I ♦ Nika Alkaev ♦ Yura Lainov