Identity Theft: Modus Operandus, Prevalence, and Solutions

Identity theft is a common occurrence in the United States today. It is a new type of crime that has been helped by the spread of the internet and the age of technology. In the county where in intern, there are many cases of identity theft each year. I have witnessed several cases personally and I have been a victim of this type of crime, so I have personal experience with this offense. The prevalence and the ease of committing this crime means that many cases of identity theft go uninvestigated, unless they involve large amounts of stolen funds. It is very important to understand how this type of crime is committed, and how often it occurs in order to discover a way to stop it.

Identity theft can be defined as the unauthorized use or attempted use of credit cards, debit cards, bank accounts, and the misuse of personal information to obtain accounts or loans (NCJRS, 1). It usually involves the theft of personal information for the purpose of obtaining funds by theft and misinformation. Often the theft of personal information, such as social security numbers, constitutes a crime in itself, besides the theft of funds. Identity theft differs from most fraud and physical theft by the means in which it is performed. In most cases the perpetrator of identity theft never comes close to the victim, most of the work is done by computer through the internet. Sometimes perpetrators will use physical means to gain personal information about the victim such as looking through the victim’s trash, but even then rarely does the victim come into contact with the perpetrator. Most of this crime is “stranger to stranger”, where the perpetrator and the victim have no prior knowledge of the other. The National Criminal Justice Reference Service identifies several other modus operandus for gaining personal information: the theft of mail, the theft of wallets, the use of skimming devices that steal credit card numbers as they are used, the hacking of business computers and other means for getting a customer’s information, etc (NCJRS, 1). The impersonal means by which this crime is committed means that victims often do not feel emotionally and psychologically affected such as by physical crime. This in turn means that many victims do not report this type of theft because their banks and financial institutions help them recover their funds. Even though victims often get their money back, a crime has still been committed and financial institutions and businesses are still prejudiced a great amount of money each year.

The prevalence of identity theft can be discovered by looking at the amounts of money stolen each year due to this type of crime. In 2004 about 3.6 million households (representing 3 percent of all households in the nation) were victimized by identity theft as reported by the NCJRS. The Federal Trade commission stated that in 2003 10.1 million Americans were the victims of this type of crime, while in 2004, identity theft affected 9.1 million individuals according to the same agency (MSNBC, 1). The difference in number may be due to different methods of counting and to the fact that the NCJRS got their results from interviews, which is a method that is known for under reporting. Which ever the case, millions of Americans are affected by this type of crime every year. The NCJRS stated that the average amount of money stolen was $1290 per household, and while only two thirds of households reported monetary loss, that total amount is staggering: over $3 billion stolen in 2004 alone (NCJRS, 1).

The fact that this type of crime gained such a magnitude in the last years thanks to the surge in the use of the internet. Personal information, credit card numbers, account numbers and other information is exchanged every day legally on the internet. Many criminals have gained knowledge that allows them to “hack” into websites and web servers and to steal this information. More and more resources are invested into combating this problem. Major websites and servers are protected electronically with “firewalls”, programs that stop illegal intrusions. Most major police departments have units that investigate internet crimes and identity theft. Programs in the media instruct citizens to be aware of this type of problem and to protect their personal information (Federal Trade Commission, 1). As technology changes it allows criminals new ways to unlawfully gain information and money from their victims. It is up to law enforcement agencies to rise to the challenge and to create new means to combat this surging problem.

References

Federal Trade Commission. 2008. Fighting Back Against Identity Theft: Deter, Detect and Defend. Washington, DC: Federal Trade Commission. http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/microsites/idtheft/consumers/deter-detect-defend.html

MSNBC.com. 2006. 3 Percent of US Households Suffer ID Theft. Washington, DC: National Broadcasting Company. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12121574/

National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS). 2007. In the Spotlight – Identity Theft. Washington, DC: US Department of Justice. http://www.ncjrs.gov/spotlight/identity_theft/Summary.html

Police Chases: Controversy and Adrenaline

Every year in the United States there are thousands of high speed police pursuits that take place.  In the course of my internship I have been involved in a high speed pursuit with the department in which I work in. The pursuit which I witnessed ended well, the suspect was detained, and no one was injured. However hundreds of pursuits end up in bodily injury or fatalities every year. This topic has become a highly debated one since the writing of a number of studies that indicate that fatalities are common in high-speed pursuits. It is very important to study and understand this police procedure because many people killed in these chases are innocent bystanders. The safety of American streets is affected by police pursuits therefore it is necessary to develop alternative methods of stopping criminals in automobiles.

The NHTSA reports that about three hundred people die each year as a result of crashes related to police pursuits. Around a hundred of these are innocent people, pedestrians or drivers uninvolved in the chase. These official statistics are thought to be understated because only ninety percent of police departments report pursuits to the NHTSA, and many times the departments record crashes separate of the pursuit itself, making it practically impossible to know the correct number of pursuit-caused crashes. One thing is certain though, on average a person dies every day as a result of a police chase (FBI Bulletin, 1). These grim statistics paint the picture of a car chase: a patrol car tries to pull over a suspect for a traffic violation; the suspect attempts to flee, the police give chase, and the suspect crashes at high speed or surrenders. According to Pursuit Watch, an organization that monitors police chases, 40 percent of those pursuits end in a crash (Pursuit Watch, 1). Most crashes occur fast: fifty percent of collisions occur in the first two minutes of a pursuit, and seventy percent occur in the first six minutes (National Institute of Justice, 1).

The causes of the crashes are the high speeds involved and the recklessness of the participants in the pursuits. Many times the parties involved develop “tunnel vision”, a phenomenon where the person only sees the road in front of him and overlooks everything else. The suspects only focus on fleeing and many times the police officers only focus on catching the suspects, overlooking the safety of the public. A study shows that seventy percent of the fleeing suspects declared that they would have slowed down or stopped if the police would have stopped pursuing or backed down (FBI Bulletin, 3). Plus, only around seventy percent of the suspects chased are serious felony offenders. The rest of eighty percent are just traffic violators or misdemeanor offenders (Norse and O’Connor, 512). This raises the question of whether or not there is sufficient basis to start a dangerous high-speed pursuit, and whether or not the police officers know when to back down and put the public safety first in their field of priorities.

There are many methods of reducing police pursuits or at least in taking some of the danger out of them. Most people agree that a total banning of police pursuits would lead to an increase in crime, and in the confidence of criminals. Most police departments have policies on pursuits, and most critics argue that these policies should either be reformed or that more care should be taken in putting the policies into practice. More training is needed for patrol officers to know when to stop a pursuit, and/or back down from it. Modern technology allows the police to follow a suspect from a distance, either through a helicopter, or through patrol cars. Studies show that the suspects would then slow down and pose a lower risk to the public, while the police would be able to apprehend the suspect once he/she is in a safe location. Other devices in development would allow patrol cars to disable a fleeing vehicle safely and fast, in the first seconds of a pursuit, through an electromagnetic pulse that would incapacitate the vehicle’s electric system. Other such systems use microwave blasts or radio technology to stop a suspect’s vehicle. Another tool that is successfully in use today is the spike strip, a strip of spikes placed along the road, in the suspect’s path, that disables the tires of the car. This tool is not a hundred percent efficient though because many suspects choose to drive on their bare rims, and keep driving for hours, sometimes.

The police department where I interned is an example of an organization that discourages police pursuits. In the general regulations manual there is a section that covers this topic and that clearly outlines that pursuits cannot be initiated and continued unless the suspect that is pursued is wanted for a serious felony (murder, rape, etc.) or represents a serious danger to the life of other individuals. This organization therefore has very few pursuits every year, and the ones that are initiated are carefully monitored by supervisors in real time. This is an example of a type of policy that can be successful in reducing the number of deaths and injuries related to police pursuits.

Police chases are increasing in number every year and with thousands occurring everywhere in the nation, it is very likely that we are going to come across one of these very dangerous incidents. Many of these pursuits end in collisions that put the lives of many people at risks and that make the roadways unsafe for everybody. The risks of these events and the danger they pose could be eliminated or drastically reduced by reforming the policies of the police departments and by training officers to back down or use technology to stop the pursuits fast and safely.

References

Hill, John. 2002. “High-speed police pursuits: dangers, dynamics, and risk reduction.” The FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin. Washington, DC: US Department of Justice. http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2194/is_7_71/ai_89973554

National Institute of Justice. 1998. Pursuit Management Task Force’s Report on Police Pursuit Practices and the Role of Technology. Washington, DC: US Department of Justice. http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles/fs000225.pdf

Norse, William L. Jr., and O’Connor, Patrick, T. 2006. “Police Pursuits: A Comprehensive Look at the Broad Spectrum of Police Pursuit Liability and Law“. Mercer Law Review. Macon, GA: Mercer University. 2006: pg 11- 48. Hein Online. http://heinonline.org.proxy-remote.galib.uga.edu:2048/HOL/Print?collection=journals&handle=hein.journals/mercer57&id=521

Pursuit Watch. 2008. Pursuit Watch Media Kit. Orlando, FL: Pursuit Watch. http://pursuitwatch.org/media.htm

Rivara, Frederick. 2004. “Study examines crash fatalities from police pursuits.” University of Washington School of Medicine News. Seattle, WA: University of Washington. http://depts.washington.edu/mednews/vol8/no15/police.html

 

Criminal Procedural Law: Beginnings, Application, and Importance

The base of the American justice system is the constitution and the federal and state laws that govern the day to day life in this country. Criminal law contains laws that guide the prosecution of individuals for acts that have been classified as crimes. Criminal procedure on the other hand, contains laws that govern the way in which criminal law is enforced. Therefore substantive criminal law refers to the laws that prosecute people for illegal acts while criminal procedure guides those agencies that prosecute the people. In the time I spent in my internship I have observed how criminal procedure guides the actions of the law enforcement personnel in my agency. In the county where my organization does law enforcement a set of criminal procedure laws and a local agency procedure manual guides the officers to apply the law with maximum efficiency and to guarantee that the rights of individuals are not violated.

Criminal procedure has its origins in the US Constitution. The constitution contains a guarantee of equal rights for all citizens, although it does not contain any specific rights. The individual rights of citizens were added to the constitution in the first ten amendments. The amendments are based on the oppression that the first American colonists were subjected to by their British rulers. The forefathers of the American nation deemed that it is very important to create a written amendment to the constitution to guarantee that no American would be subjected to the kind of violations that the colonists had to endure. The most important of the ten amendments (also known as the Bill of Rights) in relation to criminal procedure are the fourth, fifth, sixth and eight amendments (Yates, notes). The fourth amendment protects citizens against unreasonable searches and seizures, and illegal arrests. The fifth one guarantees due process, indictment by grand jury, and protection from double jeopardy. The sixth amendment reserves individuals the right to an attorney at trial, the right to a speedy and public trial, to an impartial jury and to know what his/her accusations are. Finally the eight amendment protects people against unusual and cruel punishments and excessive bails or fines (Bill of Rights Website, 1).

The Bill of Rights formally applied only to the federal government at first. The fourteenth amendment, which was ratified in 1866, was the first step towards incorporating the rights guaranteed in the first ten amendments to state laws and legislatures. It extended the due process clause to the states, making sure that citizens’ rights to a fair legal proceeding were respected (NPS, 1). The further incorporation of the other amendments in state trials took place over the course of the entire 20^th century in a series of landmark trials. It is important to mention Powell v.Alabama (1932) in which the right of counsel was guaranteed by law. In Palko v.Connecticut (1937) the double jeopardy clause was introduced in state proceedings. Rochin v.California (1952) ensured the enforcement of the law against illegal searches and seizures.Duncan v.Louisiana (1968) guaranteed the right to a jury trial in serious criminal cases.

These and many other landmark cases ensured that the rights of the American citizens would be respected in the application of the law. Virtually all the major criminal justice procedures in place today are the result of major landmark cases presented before the US Supreme Court and other major state and federal courts. Arrests today have to be legal, based on probable cause and factual evidence, as defined in Dunaway v. New York(1979) (Yates, Notes). Warrants have to be based on probable cause and are only taken under oath in a criminal court of law. Searches have to be performed with search warrants and seizures can only be performed where there is evidence of illegal activities. One of the most important rights that citizens have today is the right against self-incrimination. This right was enforced in Miranda v.Arizona(1966) and it forces police officers to inform an arrested suspect about his/her Miranda rights as soon as the suspect is placed into custody. This is a very important procedural aspect because it protects individuals in the setting of an interrogation.

Individuals living in the United States today enjoy some of the most extensive rights in the world. Their freedom is protected by the criminal procedure law, which dictates how the law enforcement and the judicial personnel can enforce the law. Without these extensive protections citizens could be arrested and incarcerated at the whim of an officer. Every day many of the rights of Americans are challenged in the courts of the nation, and it is the duty of every citizen to fight for the protection of these rights. The criminal procedure law is very important because without it governments could set up tyrannical regimes such as the one early colonists confronted in the form of the British Empire.

References

Bill of Rights Website. 2008. The Amendments. http://www.billofrights.com/amendments.htm

Dunaway v.New York, 442US200 (1979).

Duncanv.Louisiana, 391US145 (1968).

Miranda v.Arizona, 384US436 (1966).

National Park Service. 1997. 14^th Amendment to the US Constitution. Washington,DC: US Department of the Interior. http://www.nps.gov/archive/malu/documents/amend14.htm

Palko v.Connecticut, 302US319 (1937).

Powell v.Alabama, 287US45 (1932).

Rochin v.California, 342US165 (1953).

Yates, Jeff. 2006. Notes from Criminal Procedure Class (POLS 4720).

The Importance of 911 Communication Networks

Police officers in the field rely on radio operators to dispatch them to emergency calls and to provide backup and supervision of the situation in the field. The radio operators could not do their work effectively without a telephone network that allows the citizens to report their emergencies. In the United States this telephone system is the 911 network. During my internship I was able to observe and acknowledge the importance of this system and the great influence that it has on the daily operations of law enforcement agencies and the other public safety organizations that use it. The 911 system is important because it provides a quick and reliable way for citizens to report their emergencies. The network also allows for the fast and easy transfer of these emergency calls to a dispatch center from where they can be relayed to the officers in the field.

The 911 communication network consists of locally operated communication centers. Most of these centers are operated by county governments, except in metropolitan areas where local governments can have their own 911 networks (Dispatch Monthly Magazine 2007). The 911 system allows for citizens to call a single number to report police, fire and medical emergencies to the appropriate agencies. The history of the three digits emergency number goes back to Great Britain, which adopted a 999 emergency phone number in 1937, and Canada, that followed suit in 1959 (Dispatch Monthly Magazine 2007). It wasn’t until 1968 that the 911 single number emergency system began to be adopted in the US, and the first 911 call was made in the town of Haleyville, Alabama (Federal Communications Commission 2007). Over the next decade or so the 911 emergency number was adopted all over the United States, and today an estimated five hundred thousand calls are made to 911 daily across the country (Sampson 2002).

The 911 system provides an emergency number that is easy to remember, and that can instantly connect citizens to an operator that can relay the emergency to the dispatch center. Before the three digit system was created, every public safety agency had a different seven digit phone number that citizens had to call in the case of an emergency. The existence of thousands of these agencies across the country meant that oftentimes it would take a significant amount of time for citizens to get in touch with their public safety agencies in cases of an emergency, and that meant a delayed response that could cause human lives to be lost. Today’s system allows for citizens to call a single emergency phone number – 911, after which computers identify the address of the caller through the phone company database, and connect the caller instantly to the public safety agency in their area. In the case of mobile phones, computers connect the caller to the agency which is closest to the wireless tower that picked up the phone call. When an operator answers the phone call, he or she can automatically see the address of the caller (Dispatch Monthly Magazine 2007). This means that an operator already has an address to which he/she can dispatch units immediately, even in the case where citizens are unable to speak, or clearly report their problem.

After the 911 operator makes contact with the complainant, he/she can take a quick report of the problem and send the report to a dispatcher almost instantly. In the agency where I interned the dispatch report was sent automatically to the agency that handles those kinds of emergencies. A police, fire or medical emergency radio operator gets the report, and he/she can dispatch the proper units to the scene of the emergency. This allows for a very fast reaction time from when a citizen first places a 911 call, reports the problem, and the report is passed on to the proper agency which dispatches a unit. Fast reaction times allow police, fire and ambulance units to reach the site of the call in minutes, and attend to the emergency while it is still in progress, saving lives and maintaining the safety of the public.

Emergency reporting systems have come a long way from the time when citizens had to dial the individual number of their emergency agency. Today a single national emergency phone number allows for emergencies to be reported quickly and reliably. The 911 system allows the proper emergency units to be dispatched to the site of the problem in minutes. This means that police officers, firemen, and paramedics can arrive on-scene at emergencies while there are still in progress, allowing them to effectively deal with these emergencies. Although the 911 system handles one hundred and eighty three million phone calls nationally every year (Sampson 2002), it has been a very successful network, saving lives, and maintaining the safety of American citizens for over forty years.

References

Dispatch Monthly Magazine. 2007. “911 Information.” Dispatch Monthly Magazine, RetrievedJanuary 9, 2008. http://www.911dispatch.com/911/index.html

Federal Communications Commission. 2007. “911 Consumer Information.”Washington,DC: Federal Communications Commission, RetrievedJanuary 9, 2008. http://www.fcc.gov/pshs/services/911-services/consumer.html

Sampson, Rana. 2002. Misuse and abuse of 911.Washington,DC: US Department of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services.

Broken Windows Theory in the 21st Century

In the United States, law enforcement procedures and actions are taken according to scientific principles. Over the last century there were several major theories of crime that influenced law enforcement activities in the field. One of the most important of these theories is the “broken windows” theory. During the course of my internship I was able to observe police officers on the street direct their actions according to the principles of this theory. Since this is a very widely accepted theory, it is very important to define, understand and examine the effects that it has on daily law enforcement procedures.

“Broken windows” is a theory that has originated in the early eighties with an article written by James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling in the Atlantic Monthly magazine. In this article the authors are reviewing the law enforcement policies of the state of New Jersey from the 1970’s. During those years police departments in that state reinstated foot patrols and focused more on the communities and their fear of crime. The conclusions of authors Wilson and Kelling are that despite the fact that crime levels rose slightly in the time that they conducted their study, the fear of crime in those neighborhoods where officers had patrolled on foot had dropped. The authors concluded that the maintaining of public order in those communities was seen by citizens as an indication of crime reduction and increased safety. Wilson and Kelling use this conclusion to develop their theory, “broken windows” that states that law enforcement agents should focus on combating small community problems and on maintaining order in the streets, and that will eventually lead to less crime (Kelling and Wilson, 10). The theory focuses on the culture of different neighborhoods, and suggests that by keeping the streets clean and in order a culture of order develops in the community. Neighborhoods which are decaying and decadent lead to increased crime, according to this theory, because they create norms of social disorder and disorganization that encourage crime. The theory does not specify exact means for enforcing order and cutting down crime, allowing police agencies to adapt and shape the theory to fit their means and goals.

Ever since it was first published, the “broken windows” theory has gained considerable influence among law enforcement agencies and chiefs throughout the country. The most famous application of the theory is in the large metropolis of New York City, under police Chief William J. Bratton in the mid nineties (Bratton and Kelling, 1). Under the guidance of Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Bratton imposed a series of tough policies that cracked down on street disorder and city code violations. Arrests for misdemeanors, such as failure to pay parking tickets were encouraged, and the city agencies enforced code violations harshly in an attempt to keep the neighborhoods in order (Harcourt and Ludwig, 6). Crime rates dropped significantly between 1990 and 1998 in New York City, and the Uniform Crime Reports reported an alleged 55 percent reduction in overall crime for those years. Violent crime dropped 51 percent during the same years which resulted in nationwide support for Giuliani and Bratton, and helped the “broken windows” theory gain ground in many police departments around the nation (Macallair, 1). This led to major cities such as Chicago and Los Angeles to apply some of the concepts of the theory.

Following the adoption of this theory in major city departments, scholars have begun to develop and carry out studies to better understand the effectiveness of “broken windows”. After the conclusion of these studies, many scholars have attacked the theory and claimed that it is unfounded and that it did not have a significant effect on crime. In a study conducted in 2005, Harcourt and Ludwig state that the sharp reduction of crime in New York City and other major departments in the mid nineties is a result of “mean reversion”, a natural tendency of crime to surge down after years of very high crime rates. The authors argue that the eighties were the years of the “crack epidemic”, during which drugs and street violence helped crime rates rise to astronomical highs, and that the nineties saw a severe reduction in crime rates because of a drop in drug use and trafficking in those major cities (Harcourt and Ludwig, 6). Daniel Macallair conducted a study in 2002 on New York City and San Francisco(which does not use broken windows in its law enforcement policies). By comparing these two cities Macallair concluded that San Francisco had a similar, if not more effective drop in crime rates from 1992 to 1998 than New York City, despite the fact that it had not adopted the “broken windows” principle (Macallair, 1). Violent crime rates dropped more for San Francisco than for New York City in the same years, suggesting that the Californian city’s approach to reduce arrests and cut down on incarceration times (a total opposite of “broken windows”) had been perhaps more effective than New York City’s one (Macallair, 1).

Although many modern studies disprove the effectiveness of “broken windows”, the debate is still raging in academic circles as well as in police agencies nationwide. The county agency where I intern has adopted several principles of the theory. There is a Code Enforcement unit, as well as a Quality of Life unit that both work to maintain the beauty and cleanliness of the neighborhoods of the county, combating code violation in a very strict manner. Arrests for misdemeanors, such as disorderly conduct, are encouraged and officers work hard to keep order in the communities. A Crime Prevention unit works with community leaders and neighborhood crime watches to alleviate their concerns on crime and to cut down on disorderly practices in the streets. It is unclear how successful these policies are but the police department where I intern continues to invest millions of dollars to enforce these procedures.

“Broken windows” has been at the forefront of crime reduction efforts in major US cities for the last two decades. It has made officials such as police chief Bratton famous, and allowed them to run for office in higher positions. Beyond the publicity aspect of this theory, police agencies state that reductions in crime rates have occurred following the implementation of “broken windows”. Scholars still debate the usefulness of the theory and ultimately it is up to them to conduct studies to demonstrate whether or not police departments should keep focusing on street order or whether they should move on to other means of law enforcement.

References

Bratton, William J. and Kelling, George L. 2006. There Are No Cracks in the Broken Windows.New York,NY: National Review Online. http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/bratton_kelling200602281015.asp

Harcourt, Bernard E. and Ludwig, Jens. 2006. Broken Windows: New Evidence from New York City and a Five-City Social Experiment.Chicago,IL:University ofChicago Law Review, Vol. 73. http://ssrn.com/abstract=743284

Kelling, George L. and Wilson, James Q. 1982. The Police and Neighborhood Safety: Broken Windows.Washington,DC: The Atlantic Monthly. http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/198203/broken-windows

Macallair, Daniel. 2002. Shattering “Broken Windows”: An Analysis of San Francisco’s Alternative Crime Policies. San Francisco,CA: Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice. http://www.cjcj.org/pubs/windows/windows.html

Arrests in the United States

Criminal procedure in the US is a very well organized set of laws and procedures that guide law enforcement agencies in conducting their activities, ensuring that the rights of US citizens are not infringed. Criminal investigations are conducted according to these procedural laws. One of the most important procedures in criminal investigations is the arrest. In my experience with the agency in which I intern, I have witnessed numerous arrests and I have become aware of the importance that this procedure has in investigations and on the lives of ordinary citizens. Thousands of people are arrested and placed in police custody daily across the nation and therefore it is very important to ensure that these arrests are legal, based on factual evidence and that they respect the rights of American individuals as outlined in the Bill of Rights.

An arrest is defined by Merriam-Webster as “to take or keep in custody by authority of law”. It is the procedure by which a “person is taken into custody against his or her will for the purpose of criminal prosecution or interrogation” (Yates, Notes). An arrest is a physical and legal procedure, the arresting officer notifies the suspect that he is under arrest and then proceeds to take him into custody. On the streets officers secure the suspects after arresting them by the use of handcuffs and other such materials and then transport the suspects to a detention center or a police precinct.

There are four very important elements to every legal arrest: seizure and detention, intention to arrest, arrest authority, and the understanding by the person arrested (Watts, 1). For any arrest to take part the suspect must be located, if the law enforcement officers cannot locate a suspect than an arrest cannot be made, the warrant will remain in effect until they can find the suspect. This is the seizure and detention part of the arrest process. If the suspect cooperates with officers and is placed in custody willingly, this constitutes a constructive seizure or detention. If the arresting officer has to use physical or verbal force in the process of the seizure than that is called a physical seizure (Yates, Notes). The second element of an arrest is the intention to arrest. When an officer performs an arrest he or she should ask him/herself whether the suspect is by all means under arrest, or would a reasonable person believe that the suspect is under arrest. In other words, is the intention to arrest clear to the suspect. The third necessary element is authority to arrest, an officer needs to have the legal authority to make an arrest, and he/she must have/get an arrest warrant. If an ordinary citizen makes an arrest than the suspect can believe with reasonable rights that he is not under arrest because the person who performed the arrest is not a police officer. The fourth and final element is the understanding. A suspect must know that they are under arrest. This is usually performed by the officer informing the suspect “you are under arrest”. If a person is intoxicated or mentally challenged than it is not necessary for that person to be in full understanding that he/she is under arrest. All of these four elements must exist for an arrest to be legal.

Every year in the United States there millions of people placed under arrest. In 2004 alone 14 million Americans were arrested by law enforcement authorities (FBI, 1). It is therefore very important that arrests are legal and that they do not violate a person’s rights. The fourth amendment protects the rights of Americans against unreasonable searches and seizures, be it property or person. Often times arrests are challenged in court as being in disregard of the rights laid out in the fourth amendment. One such very important case is Dunaway v.New Yorkin which the US Supreme Court deemed that the Rochester Police illegally seized the petitioner without probable cause for an arrest, violating his fourth amendment rights to freedom from illegal seizure. The court also held that the detention of the petitioner was indistinguishable from an arrest, and that detention for interrogation purposes is an arrest (Dunaway v.New York, 214). In this the court laid out arrest procedures which were to be followed by all law enforcement agencies.

Arrests are very violating procedures, depriving an individual of his or her freedom. Therefore it is very important that an arrest is performed legally and only with factual evidence. Arrests are very important parts of the judicial process and therefore it is necessary for our courts and law enforcement agencies to guarantee their legality. This is one of the most important parts of the judicial process and guaranteeing the legitimacy of an arrest is vital for the function of our criminal justice system.

References

Dunaway v. New York, 442 US 200 (1979).

Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). 2006. Crime in the United States 2004, Persons Arrested.Washington,DC: US Department of Justice. http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius_04/persons_arrested/index.html

Merriam-Webster. 2008. Arrest. Merriam-Webster Online. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/arrest

Watts, Harrison. 2008. The Arrest.Lawton,OK:CameronUniversity. http://www.cameron.edu/~harrison/chapter4cp.ppt#1

Yates, Jeff. 2006. Notes from Criminal Procedure Class (POLS 4720).