Policing on Behalf of the Community
City Square: The Online Journal of the Fordham Urban Law Review (2018)
9 Pages Posted: 18 Jan 2018
Date Written: January 18, 2018
This paper advocates an "institutional" approach to criminal procedure, one that explores the relevance, to criminal procedure, of the municipal police as a public, executive institution, with different levels of organization and decision-making. The institutional approach contrasts with a traditional, "rights-based" approach to criminal procedure that emphasizes episodic encounters between the state and the public.
Using the institutional approach, the paper then asks some questions about the nature of the police, and in particular their claim to police "on behalf of the public." The paper then considers and rejects some of the different justifications for the police claim to police on behalf of the public, and instead suggests the police should be content to police on behalf of the state.
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