Local Police Response to Terrorism
The Council of State Governments
The council of State Governments is a body of representatives of all states, Territories within the ambit of the U.S. And Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. It is an organization that provides vital data and statistics towards excellence in running the matters of the state. It seeks to enable the three apex institutions, viz., legislature, judiciary and the executive with intellectual inputs with a national perspective, innovative technological tools grooming effective and quality leadership and maintaining the autonomy of the states at the same time. It provides as a base for resolution of intra and inter-sate conflicts and mutually beneficial action plans.
Terrorism
Terrorism is an illegal act of force or violence to exact on any public domain to put the government under duress and thereby extract social or political mileage and seek objectives for a particular community or group. Terrorism, in the same vein has been classified as local or international with regard to its location of origin, the perspective it carries and its area of operation (White, J., 2006).
There is an inherent problem in defining it thus, however. For, acts of violence for its own political motives are used by, both, the state as well as by groups owing no state affiliation, alike. The legitimacy of use of violet, intimidating tactics is prone to debate revolving around whom, at whom, and for what purpose. As the definitions of terrorism available are largely a work of state agencies the branding of state as a terrorist is obviously, by design given the miss.
Introduction
In all cases of terrorist acts that affects public-at-large it is but natural that the casualty to structures and human beings is attended to by the local reaction agencies and respite providing organs, state-sponsored as well as other non-governmental bodies. That is not to say that the federal government has not stepped up its efforts at prevention of terrorist attacks and reprisal of situations arising because of it. However, aftermath of the terrorist attack of the unimaginable magnitude has cast its shadow in no unambiguous terms policing is done now. It has since become important to exploit all resources at hand to their maximum and reorient the way law enforcement should act. The importance of coordination of the various arms of security and law enforcement at all levels; local, state and federal needs a serious rethink.
COPS, Community Oriented Policing Services, an arm under the U.S. Department of Justice has taken concrete efforts that highlight the steps undertaken by its grantees and also furnishes the list of resources it may need to implement and activate its own line of action. The grants were utilized to prevent recurrence of such attacks as well as for response actions to be taken. The grants have worked along the following lines;
Up gradation of Intelligence data collection and processing
Increased use of technological innovations
Increased involvement with other agencies in the security providing domain
Adequate response for mitigating fear in the general populace and preemptive measures for those most vulnerable
A more comprehensive outlook towards anti-terrorism however would be to involve more public participation as a means of human intelligence inputs sought. It is also to forge closer working relationship between law enforcement agencies and the peripheral services. (Chapman et al., 2002).
The horrific incident forced a perceptive change in the priorities of the FBI (almost all other law enforcement agencies followed suit) and formation of the Department of Homeland Security. The focus of all law agencies shifted almost instantaneously towards prevention of terrorist acts and the response action that it left in its wake. This single-minded attention of almost the entire executive to the new challenge has opened up a gap in the areas that they were previously concentrating and controlling: Financial crimes, drug trafficking, bank robbery and the mobsters that perpetuated the organized crimes. (FBI in coordination with state and local agencies were mostly involved in tackling issues in these areas prior to the 9/11 horror. It would be anticipated that with the larger and better equipped machinery at its disposal, the federal agencies like FBI and DHS would shift its focus and the administration would empower the state and local agencies to tackle the more regional criminal activities. Quite on the contrary, federal financial assistance to these local and state law enforcement arms (including even Edward Byrne Memorial State and Local Law Enforcement Assistance Grant and Community Oriented Policing Services) has been almost done...
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