Issues Facing Law Enforcement Today and In the Future

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There are two main issues facing law enforcement today which will grow exponentially as the field of law enforcement moves into the future; having the potential to evolve into greater issues than can be anticipated. The two issues are a simple situation of cause and effect; because society has become more complex, so too have the crimes which are committed within society. Thus, the ever growing complexity of society and crime has created forms of crimes that could not have been imagined twenty years ago. Consequently, the greater number of potential crimes, the greater the number of potential criminals; the greater number of criminals, the more people that need to be incarcerated. Because of this, technology based crimes and correctional facilities are now and will continue to be major issues plaguing law enforcement.

The field of law enforcement has evolved tremendously in the United States since the early part of the seventeenth century when Boston, Massachusetts began using watchmen to patrol the streets at night to protect the public; then in 1838 when Boston’s General Court passed legislation allowing the city to officially appoint police officers, thus establishing the first organized police force in the Unites States (Boston Police Department). With this creation, the entire philosophy behind policing changed. Policing went from only enforcing the law to enforcing the law and preventing crime. It became more proactive in its approach to law enforcement. From those humbly simplistic beginnings, law enforcement has metamorphosed into not only community crime prevention, but cyber-crime prevention.

Technology, although intrinsically neither good nor evil, has been the catalyst for a new form of criminal and an entirely unch...

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...ional Centre for Prison Studies’ Roy Walmsley compiled global prison data which demonstrates the enormity of United States’ prison population compared to other developed countries. The data shows the United States with a prison population of 716 per 100,000 people; larger than China and Russia (Walmsley).

In conclusion, because of the ever changing complexity of society and technology, the list of possible crimes will increase in-kind; thus, affecting the number of those incarcerated or placed into a community corrections program.

Works Cited

Boston Police Department. About: History. n.d. web. 9 January 2014.
Glaze, Lauren E. and Erinn J. Herberman. Bureau of Justice Statistics. 19 December 2013. web. 9 January 2014.
Walmsley, Roy. "World Prison Population List 10th Edition." 21 November 2013. International Centre for Prison Studies. web. 9 January 2014.

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