The Role Of Defensive Law Enforcement Operations In Relation To Acts Of Terrorism In The USA (Article Critique Sample)

Thinking outside the Box Name Professor Institution Course Date Thinking outside the Box Introduction The article ‘Thinking Outside the Box: Melding Community Policing with Homeland Security Law Operations’, by Sue Diane Weaver critiques both offensive and defensive law enforcement operations aimed at protecting the country from terrorist activities. The article articulates the forms of law enforcement operations concerning preparedness and recovery activities, and how these elements should be enhanced trough the integration of law enforcement operations and community policing. The author insists that a community oriented policing is paramount for homeland security to boost its intelligence-led policing in detecting potential and averting terrorist activities. The author further analyzes the policing eras and concurs that those eras of policing are clearly defined by political, reform, currently, and community eras. Author’s credentials The author, Sue Diane Weaver, has a rich collection of credentials that provided her authority to research and write the article. She began her career as a law enforcement officer working on patrol, K-9, fraud investigation, and SWAT. She was recruited in the mid-1970s and worked for a span of 23 years, where she retired at the rank a senior training officer. Upon retirement, she was certified and went on to teach police academy for five years, as well as provided special training for the State Bureau of Investigations and Air Force base military police. She also holds several degrees including A.A. in Early Childhood Ed; B.S. in Psychology, M.A. in Dynamics of Criminality, and Ph.D. in Criminal Justice Administration. Additionally, she lectured as an assistant professor of criminal justice at Emmanuel College, Northeast Georgia. Joining hip-to-hip Community Policing with Homeland Security Law Operations It is true that, for efficient and successful implementation and evaluation of law enforcement counterterrorism operations, community policing must be melded with homeland security operations. Such an integrated approach to counterterrorism must involve thinking out the box concerning preparedness, response, and recovery from terrorism activities, as well as potential acts of terror (Weaver, 2014). Therefore, the integrated framework is essential for bringing together intelligence-led policing, community policing, and homeland security. It is imperative that the United States has been playing the role of defensive law enforcement operations after acts of terrorism have been committed. It is also important to note that playing a defensive role diminishes the ability of the law enforcement against the opponents who are playing offensively. Therefore, law enforcement agencies should improve both the offensive and defensive counterterrorism tactics and approaches to enable them to build a stronger and less vulnerable team. It is prudent to include community policing through concepts such as open communication, community cooperation, and positive relations that are precious recipes for fighting terrorism (Weaver, 2014). Therefore, incorporating both proactive and reactive approaches to policing brings the idea of community policing era, which began in the early 1980s to early 2000s. Community policing era features policing components that are proactive and focus on crime prevention, problem-solving, and strategic oriented policing techniques. The reactive policing approach focuses on strategies that attempt to mitigate the threat of terrorism by gathering intelligence related to terrorism while proactive policing approaches disseminate pertinent information on terrorism threats to decision makers for strategy development and prevention (Weaver, 2014). Weaver (2014) agrees that immediately after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the United States started operating in the defensive mode. However, it is important for the operations to shift into the offensive mode so that the opponents appear as underdogs. Therefore, restructuring of the federal government is needed to make the defensive strategies more efficient and better prepared, as well as shifting to offensive mode will help avert future attacks. It is important for the law enforcement agencies to share information with other agencies, such as private security agencies. Such an approach of creating joint ventures with the private sector would enhance the capacities of the community policing in implementing problem-solving processes and combat terrorism. Therefore, various forms of proactive policing approaches should be employed in detecting and preventing terrorism (Weaver, 2014). Current Era of Policing It is not certain that the current era of policing started in 1980 and continues to the present day because there are no clear demarcations according to the ...