Non-military federal agencies’ purchases of guns, ammunition, etc (2016)(openthebooks.com) |
Non-military federal agencies’ purchases of guns, ammunition, etc (2016)(openthebooks.com) |
Every department and authority has their own law enforcement branch. You've got county sheriffs, state police, highway patrol, campus police, transport police etc. on a local authority level.
Then on a federal level, as the paper points out, everyone from the IRS to the Department of Education have their own law enforcement officers.
In the rest of the world, police is much more centralised.
Here in New Zealand (admittedly a small country), the Police are the only agency with general powers of arrest, and the only department outside the military with firearms.
The police don't have fancy equipment, if they need an APC, or helicopters or whatever (the police do have one), they'll borrow it from the Defence Force. It's not like they need to pay for and maintain their own stock to use once in a blue moon.
If an agency like the IRD (our tax department) need to raid or arrest someone, they'll get the police to do it.
I don't fully understand why the USA isn't like this. I understand why there's federal and local law enforcement, but if the FDA needs to raid and arrest people, why don't they second some FBI agents when they're needed?
It would probably be easier to have the FBI setup as a federal police force which it pretty much almost is. Agencies could send part of their budget to the FBI to essentially purchase law enforcement hours. Factor in the cost of hourly rate of officer + hourly rate of overhead for officer + usage of resources + any other expenses incurred and then bill that to the agency that requires the police work. This would help smaller agencies by reducing the costs they would have to spend on maintaining a police force of their own 24/7. The only issue would be that the FBI would need to maintain a force large enough to enforce anything the other agencies would require of it. Things like DEA work and regular FBI work would require much more man power than things like DOE work so smaller agencies might not get the representation and priority they would get by maintaining their own force.
Businesses have been charging internal departments budgetary expenses for ages. That's what an overhead department - often IT, for example - does.
Thinking of these as separate agencies is just an easy way to hide that they are all federal government agencies.
Even working with charging state agencies wouldn't be that difficult to work out.
This one I've always found bizarre. What is it about American university students in particular that requires there to be an on-site police force?
Put another way, it's so everything that happens within the university doesn't eat into municipal or county time and resources, but they can still interoperate with some parity.
Look into the Clery Act for more.
This is, I believe, now completely a thing of the past almost everywhere, but America being rather conservative, there could be echoes of it around.
Source: When I studied at MIT, I volunteered with two different organisations that liaised with the police. I observed an active shooter tabletop roleplaying exercise. (no, it did not involve dice)
Davis, R. (1967). History Of Campus Policing. Retrieved February 2, 2017, from http://www.oocities.org/odupd/
If, for instance, sexual assault is your thing - a college campus is a pretty good place to find lots of young women who are potentially vulnerable (walking home alone/potentially inebriated). Furthermore, if you're in that approximate age range, it's pretty easy to get lost in the crowd.
While this is an extreme case some University are in urban environments. Take GaTech for example, every year someone is robbed or even murdered walking near campus. The campus police usually have to fend off vagrants or drug addicts from nearby.
The US is broken into "normal" country size blocks - i.e. States. Kiwis have a lot more faith in centralized government though. Many aspects of American society have significant duplication due to a perceived loss in autonomy if resources are consolidated. For example, I live in a metro area of 4 million people that has over 100 local government entities (each suburb has it's own council etc), most with their own emergency services, public works departments, and own set of regulations. It's insane.
> The police don't have fancy equipment, if they need an APC, or helicopters They have one helicopter (http://www.police.govt.nz/contact-us/station/air-support-uni...), it used to be called the "Eagle" when I was a kid growing up in Auckland.
Many of these agencies maintain large facilities to serve their core purposes and have to provide security for their facilities.
Little in this report is anywhere as alarming as the reports authors would like to make it out to be. OpenTheBooks.com seems to take the view that all government spending is wasteful, and by describing it out of context seeks to present it as abuse. For instance they present research grants to Ivy League schools as government subsidy of those schools [1] and The US Government employing a lot of lawyers as somehow suspect [2].
[1] http://www.openthebooks.com/openthebooks_oversight_report_%E...
[2] http://www.openthebooks.com/openthebooks_snapshot_oversight_...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posse_Comitatus_Act
The rampant expansion and use of SWAT is disgusting.
they are justified in that fear these days
"...Fire resistant safes..."
There has been an increase, but most of it is essentially due to post 911 mindset that every facility needs armed guards. In other countries that would just be unarmed (possibly contracted) guards, who ring the police if there are any problems. But then, other countries have fewer guns. Also, the fragmentation of policing in the States almost requires having an agency force, because of jurisdiction and funding wars.
I fear that HN attributes all these to the current political atmosphere and how the foundation laid by the previous administration.
The Department of State, FBI, prison system, DEA, secret service, ICE, customs/border patrol, etc. are all on the top of the list, and I'd expect them to spend a lot of money on guns, ammo, and "military-style equipment".
A few of them are higher than I'd expect, but most of them seem reasonable. Any agency that uses armed security guards is going to spend some amount of money on guns, ammo, training, etc.
LP gas cannons are used for scaring birds and making them take flight, night vision equipment is very useful for culling animals, same goes for thermal cameras/scopes.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_and_Plant_Health_Inspec...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_law_enforcement_in_t...
...which will feed the government via taxes to sustain the lavish spending you object to.
Just pointing out that you'd have more time to read articles on misspending if your government wouldn't misspend so much money.
I feel humanity will always be riddled with the 'lowest common denominator' problem. I don't know if that's the best name for it, maybe there's another. It's the reason for this CGP Grey video(1). Current events at the moment really bother me. I don't know if I'm being cynical or if things are really as bad as they seem.
Likewise, did ICE switch from some other caliber to .40S&W?
That's one way to 'retire' people. Take old Yeller out back...
- Nearly unrestricted freedom of speech
- For the time being, no constant surveillance state
- Comparatively low taxes for the services provided
Citizens, pick up that rock.
In Germany, we have solved this massive waste of money and resources by having police help other agencies. We call this "Amtshilfe". So for example if the tax office wants to raid a business in order to seize records, they request appropriate police assistance.
Basically we have three different kind of police: some "border cops" (former Bundesgrenzschutz, now Bundespolizei; these care about border protection and security on train stations/airports), a massive amount of state cops caring for literally everything from the ordinary bar fight to arresting terrorists, and in some rare cities there are "city cops" (Stadtpolizei) taking care about enforcing parking tickets and other city regulations.
But individual agencies do not have their own police powers (okay, maybe except the military - they have the Feldjäger, but these have only authority over military personnel and are rarely seen outside barracks).
And do the majority of cities not enforce parking tickets?
The situation is a bit different in some places in continental Europe. Building security at several offices I visited in Italy were armed and when I first encountered that I found that quite shocking, but firearms are generally more available and of course they have a particular problem with organized crime.
The key to UK policing's low violence rate compared to the US is, bluntly, that people care when members of the public are shot by police. It's regarded as a failure of the alternative methods. Whereas in the US people go beyond merely defending the police into practically cheering the street execution of a "criminal".
This just leads to Alcohol Beverage Commission "agents" pulling guns on a young woman buying a crate of water.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/blogs/sideshow/uva-girl-water-bee...
It's fucking stupid for a gang of out of uniform people to approach her and pull guns, and then charge her when she panics.
Take the guns off those people. Give the guns to police. Give the police rigorous training to use the guns, but also a lot more training in de-escalation.
The report states spending jumped 106% from 55 million to 106 million over the period. I would like to know what benefit was garnered from doubling spending on arming these agencies with deadly weapons (and paintball guns, apparently).
Paintball guns are a less lethal weapon used by both border control agents and by animal control agencies.
2011: http://bulletin.accurateshooter.com/2011/04/border-patrol-re...
http://www.nelsonpaintball.com/animal-control/
I'm not sure how many paintball guns you get for $300,000.
The benefit is hopefully fewer incidents like this where US border agents shot across the border, killing a Mexican child in Mexico. http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/10/12/us-border-patrol-age... (Throwing rocks at people is obviously illegal and needs to be dealt with. I struggle to understand why extra judicial killing is an appropriate punishment for this crime.)
However... The context in this report is also enough to highlight the obvious misspending and mistakes in reporting as well. The HHS being unable to account for ~6 million dollars labeled as military spending is scary. For 6 million dollars, someone could obtain some pretty nasty stuff. There are several more things that don't add up as well... If you look up the number of personnel authorized to carry firearms, and graph that against the number of rounds purchased, it's a fairly linear graph... Except for a few agencies, who are spending millions of dollars each year on ammo for a very small number of agents. It doesn't add up, and it's likely becoming pocket change for some Dick or Jane who's living high off of your tax dollars.
Reports like this are important because they take a pessimistic look at a budget (which is how you should ALWAYS look at a budget in business), and the inconsistencies rise to the top where we can all see them.
(Dang it.)
I believe they traditionally have dealt with a lot of mail fraud and child pornography investigations.
Amtrak police are federal agents with nationwide jurisdiction. That makes some degree of sense when you realize that pursuit might easily cover several states. The crime itself might even cover several states -- imagine someone burglarizing sleeping compartments on the train. When he hits the first one the train is in Minnesota, but by the time he finishes, the train is in Wisconsin. Having federal jurisdiction avoids pissing contests about which state has authority.
The situation is similar for the sky marshals on planes.
His job is to protect the law AND the rights of the people from federal law that would strip their rights away.
2. Women can be Sheriffs.
There's very little you can say in the US that has a legal penalty associated with it. Short of inciting violence or advocating for a government official's assassination, I can say whatever stupid thing(s) I want and the only repercussions will be that people think I'm an idiot.
Contrast to say, Germany, where saying something objectively wrong but still harmless like the Holocaust didn't happen will land you in prison.
> > - For the time being, no constant surveillance state
Compared to the UK with cameras everywhere and your every move recorded? If being tracked is a legitimate concern of yours it's possible to live largely off the grid in the US.
> > - Comparatively low taxes for the services provided
I'll concede some places have lower taxes but as a software developer I can't earn nearly what I can earn in the US (even in the middle of nowhere rural US where I am now) anywhere else. Any move, even with a lower marginal/effective tax rate, will leave me with less money in my pocket.
Is this a problem?
> I'll concede some places have lower taxes
I believe this won't help you, as you will have to pay the US rate at a minimum. It's hard to to say something sarcastic about that rule, because maybe other countries do it too?
> Compared to the UK with cameras everywhere and your every move recorded
Uh... have you heard about the NSA lately?
I very much doubt it, they're civilians. Why would they need to be armed?
The UK has plenty of police violence -- a (disappointingly) high rate of tasering for compliance (where previously we'd see a bit of truncheon action). We just don't kill 'em because they're not going to be killing us.
North Philadelphia isn't the safest place to begin with, but 28,000+ college students fresh out of the nest make easy targets for criminals. There's likely around a dozen "incidents" almost daily. Of the 2 or 3 years I was there, two students were murdered, another committed suicide in the middle of campus, and a few others were shot and survived. The campus police department does its best to make a safe zone around campus with either uniformed officers and/or safety officers on the corners every few blocks outside of campus.
Why does this health problem require police attendance?
Who else is the front line for mental health problems? A medical doctor or psychiatrist isn't going to be on standby rushing waiting for a student to become sucicidal.
Campus faculty aren't likely to be trained on this stuff.
Two examples: The University of Notre Dame is in Notre Dame, Indiana, which happens to be surrounded by South Bend, Indiana. Same with Stanford... which is technically in Stanford, California.
It actually is and is what they are for. Psychiatrists do clinics etc but occasionally end up absent if a call comes through. It's a bit easier if a big hospital for a big city is near the uni however.
So could I. And with the right equipment pigs might fly.
But really how likely is it?
I'd say the odds a random person on the street in Charlottesville, VA is legally armed is probably 3-5%, given the number of CHPs issued by the state.
It's also interesting to note that no license or permit is required in Virginia to carry a loaded handgun in the glovebox of your vehicle.
This is still the case at many universities. Offenses which would be classified as criminal (i.e. public intoxication) are handled internally by the university. From one perspective, handling the mistakes of students like this is a way of protecting the university's revenue stream, as parents often withdraw their children from the university after a criminal offense.
But then I recalled an article earlier this year about how "campus PD" have been intervening in sexual assault cases and trying to get them handled by the university instead of the justice system, where there's public record and of course publicity.
And there's no doubt that it could not have this reputation with more lenient policing than you'll see anywhere else. Certainly moreso than the policing in the inner city ghetto a mile away.
I've seen campus police consistently do nothing over drug possession issues that would, without question get jail time anywhere else in the city.
The dissonance is disturbing to me.
It might be. I just had a look around for a citation and didn't find much. However I do recall a law student finding something in the university by-laws about it (however that shouldn't overrule state law... unless it does). I found http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/UWSLawRw/2002/3.html but the University of Melbourne seems to be victorian crown land (since at least 2000 http://www.legislation.vic.gov.au/domino/Web_Notes/LDMS/PubP...) rather than commonwealth crown land. I don't know enough about property and title in Victoria to make a call here.
(AFAIK, the regular police don't have any jurisdictional limits stopping them from acting within university premises, but the University of Cambridge can appoint its own additional officers.)
Because a substantial portion of the work of many agencies involves specialized law enforcement in the domain of responsibility, and it's organizationally inefficient for that to invo love coordinating units where the lowest common level of management is the President of the United States.
The spotty history of the FBI notwithstanding, it makes more sense to have smaller decentralized law enforcement units specialized in their given area than to have one large agency made up of the same specialized groups.
A normal state or local cop would have likely just said "hi, good morning, where's your fishing license?" A completely different, though not unpleasant, interaction that would have left me with a different "feeling" about how it happened.
And yes, he was armed. Sidearm in a holster and likely at least one shotgun in the car.
It might be a small factor, but not really. Legal gun owners aren't typically the ones using them against law enforcement anyway (it's not much different than Europe).
Remember that you (as US wildlife enforcement) are a long way away from civilization and medical aid. As such, the chance that you'll potentially be dealing with animals with sharp teeth, claws, and fangs is substantially higher than the average person going fishing on Saturday once every few months. This is the reason geological survey crews (like the USGS) tend to be armed as well.
Contrast this to Western Europe, where any animal of sufficient size to harm a human is endangered if not already extinct. The density of civilization is much greater than it is in the US; if you are injured by something a gun can defend against it's much more likely you'll be quickly rescued. The requirement you be armed out there is much less.
This may be efficient, but we should consider whether inefficiency may actually be a feature. Each individual enforcement arm is weaker, less easily coordinated with others, and less likely to be commandeered in pursuit of overarching federal goals. A common federal law enforcement entity could come to disconcertingly resemble a domestically deployed military.
Next time he does a traffic stop you can bet he's going to be humourless and aggressive in making sure that the drivers hands are visible - probably with his hand on his weapon. I expect most of the colleagues who spoke to him would also let this influence their attitude.
Being from the UK probably helps - but I have tremendous sympathy for anyone policing under those conditions and how hard it must be to maintain balance.
So, instead of specialized law enforcement for agencies like the park service and forest service, you want to have generic federal cops accompanying unarmed park/forest specialists, and so on throughout the government? That sounds like it would be somewhere between merely grossly inefficient and utterly disastrous in practice in many cases.
> I realize police work involves more than kicking in doors and shooting bad guys, but surely most of these organizations do not need folks running around with guns.
Maybe some of them don't, and I'd like to hear specific arguments for specific agencies as to how things would be better if they didn't.
But in my working career I've seen enough of people distant from a particular organizations work deciding "surely they don't need <resource> in that organization" and producing bad results thereby that I'm highly.skeptical of such claims without some kind of specific, convincing analysis of why the alternative actually is superior for the specific case.
In any case, the current hyper-local US system for both police and other services is disastrous in practice for many groups of people, and has its own gross inefficiencies (economies of scale are smaller, weaker bargaining positions when purchasing things, etc.).
To the degree that that's true, the basic non-domain specialized training is already shared. [0] There are also, I believe, jointly-developed shard equipment standards and mutiagency equipment purchasing. Even if there weren't, you don't need to put operational authority in a central LE agency to achieve that.
What is the specific benefit to be gained by centralization?
> In any case, the current hyper-local US system for both police and other services is disastrous in practice for many groups of people
A specific argument on this point, particularly about how this is relevant to the subject-matter division of federal agencies rather than the territorial divides of city/county/state general-purpose option policing agencies would be welcome.
I've had a neighbor call the cops (in this case sheriff's office) because our horses got out at night. I much prefer dealing with the local deputy who might have a few head of beef cattle himself (and so understand the issues with keeping large animals where you want them to be) vs. a cop from the nearest city who's never had to personally deal with anything other than his cat running around the backyard.
Think of it as community policing on a larger scale.