Every law enforcement agency (and industry-wide third party responsible for creating a national database for comparison purposes) should be required to keep their own records of every case in which a search was conducted, in which a person was arrested and in which a person was charged with a crime. Every single one of these cases would be tracked through to their final legal resolution.

Each law enforcement agency would earn a certain number of credit points for each case conducted within their jurisdiction depending upon the particular facts of each case. The basic crediting structure would be as follows. A full credit point would be given when a suspect charged with a crime was actually convicted of the crime. A half credit point would be given for each crime a suspect is found to have committed which was not part of the original charges. These half-credits could still be applied regardless of whether the original accusation turns out to be true or false. Credits could also be subtracted from law enforcement agencies when their searches, arrests, or charges turn out to be unfounded. For example, a quarter credit would be subtracted when searches turn out to be unfounded. Half-credits would be subtracted when arrests turn out to be unfounded. A full credit would be subtracted when a suspect has been accused of a crime he did not commit.

This type of crediting structure would tend to incentivize increasingly accurate intelligence gathering methods and decision-making as well as to create a more streamlined and systemic approach to law enforcement in which the courts could more efficiently prosecute against crimes with the flexibility that is often needed as new information is uncovered. The whole idea behind assigning these credits is to develop a system by which law enforcement agencies can prove to the public that they have a reputation for accuracy. This way, whenever they act to arrest or search someone, they would have sufficient credibility (based on their past actions) to automatically justify such actions to any reasonable member of the public. Law enforcement agencies without a sufficiently high credit rating would be significantly restricted (to different degrees depending on their actual credit rating) in how they can autonomously arrest and search individuals. In some cases, certain agencies may be prohibited in autonomously arresting or searching individuals because they have such a poor credit record.

Nevertheless, most law enforcement agencies should not always be required to obtain permission (search warrants, arrest warrants, etc.) from higher authorities or external agencies, like judges or courts, either to carry out searches of people or locations or to arrest and detain individuals. Rather, every law enforcement agency should each be allowed to independently earn the privilege to self-authorize, arrange, approve and perform searches, arrests, etc., by earning a sufficiently high credit rating.

The ‘credit’ rating should be determined in a standard way either statewide or nationwide (preferably) so that a comparison between jurisdictions could be more easily achieved.

These full and half credit points would be combined with the subtracted full and half points and then divided by the total number of arrests and searches taking place within that political jurisdiction (or area over which the law enforcement agency has jurisdiction). The resulting figure would illustrate the total level of actual law enforcement effectiveness of that law enforcement agency or jurisdiction.

However, perhaps a more important credit figure could be determined by dividing the number of full credit points with the total number of searches and arrests conducted throughout that law enforcement’s jurisdiction. This figure would directly reveal what percentage of the time the law enforcement agency accurately suspected criminal activity before taking further action against people. The higher this score or rating is, the more accurate this law enforcement agency is in arresting the correct people and conducting the correct searches. Thus, law enforcement agencies with such ratings below a certain threshold (say 90%, for example) should be required to obtain search warrants and/or arrest warrants from the courts, whereas those with higher credit ratings could approve searches and arrests themselves. In other words, law enforcement agencies need to be correct 9 out of 10 times in order to have earned the privilege to make warrantless arrests and searches. Agencies who abuse this power would have it reflected in their poor credit rating and their ability to conduct warantless arrests and searches would be curtailed or eliminated altogether.

This principle of using a credit system can be applied in a similar way to the use of torture.

Government inspectors (such as for health and safety) should be allowed surprise entry and unrestricted access to all parts of the property being inspected. Likewise, subordinates (employees, athletes, students, etc.) should be drug tested at the will of their supervisors (as long as the testing is not too invasive or time consuming). Any proper law enforcement entity should have the right to conduct surprise inspections of any person or any place under their jurisdiction so long as such actions can be fairly reasonably justified or if such actions are part of an advertised deterrent technique (such as random drug testing).

The police and other law enforcement agencies should use sting operations as a tool to keep crime at their lowest possible levels. Sting operations should be especially used as a lure to catch individuals with criminal inclinations when the level of reported crimes increase or intelligence indicates that one or a few individuals may be responsible for a string of crimes (two or more). Criminals caught through sting operations would face punishments that are no different than if the crimes were committed against real, private individuals. The only difference is that the ‘victim’ in such cases would be the government agency which set up the sting. All compensatory damages as well as punitive awards would be paid to such government agencies.

Law enforcement agencies could work either by themselves or in conjunction with any other parties they see fit for purposes of catching criminals. Although such practices should be discouraged, illicit goods (drugs, guns, etc.) could be bought and sold by law enforcement if so doing will likely lead to the finding of compelling incriminating evidence. Trafficking in such illicit goods for such purposes should always be approved and permitted by the courts. Otherwise, a law enforcement agency with a high enough credit rating could self approve such activities by gaining the approval of the highest elements with that law enforcement agency.

The law enforcement agencies of every individual political jurisdiction on the planet should make every effort to cooperate with all other political jurisdictions regarding law enforcement activities.

This means that law enforcement agencies should be allowed to briefly make minor intrusions into neighboring political jurisdictions in order to capture a criminal who may be fleeing into that jurisdiction or which for some reason, the native law enforcement authorities take too long to arrive and cannot get to the criminal in a timely manner. However, immediate notification and attempts to coordinate with the law enforcement agencies of the intruded jurisdictions should be a top priority.

Part of this cooperation between law enforcement agencies also entails the responsibility of each political jurisdiction to prevent, or make a reasonable effort to prevent, any crime committed within its own jurisdiction from spilling over and negatively affecting a different jurisdiction. If it is unable to do this for any reason including lack of funding, expertise or corruption, then that jurisdiction which is negatively affected by a crime spilling over from a different jurisdiction should automatically be granted the authority to enter the offending jurisdiction to stop or prevent that crime from either occurring or negatively affecting its own jurisdiction.

For criminals whose crimes take place in two or more political jurisdictions, including if those jurisdictions are countries, each jurisdiction should be entitled to impose its punishment on that criminal for the crimes he committed in that jurisdiction. This does not mean that a trial must be held in every jurisdiction, but just that each jurisdiction has the right to make sure that crimes committed in that jurisdiction are properly punished. If one jurisdiction does not agree with the type or amount of punishment levied against the criminal, that jurisdiction should have the right to appeal that decision to some higher court. Each jurisdiction should have the right to reap the benefits of any punishments levied on the criminal for the crimes committed in that jurisdiction.

High Speed Police Chases

As a general rule, police should not engage in long vehicular pursuits of suspects because of the inherent danger that it poses. Instead, they should either immediately take decisive action to end such pursuits or, the better option would be to let them go but monitor their tracks remotely, then move in when it is safer to do so. A network of security cameras throughout everywhere would in this effort. permanent high-resolution aerial surveillance, such as through drone mounted cameras, would be a very effective measure of tracking.

Domestic Obligation to Enable Enforcement of the Internal Laws of Foreign Countries

No country should be allowed to facilitate any activity taking place within its borders if it is known that that activity is part of an illegal activity according to the laws of that other country. For example, many countries do not consider it a crime to evade other countries’ taxes. When such activities are suspected, but especially when that other country has reported its own suspicions about such activities, it is incumbent upon the host nation to at least cooperate with the foreign country in its investigations on the matter.

Site Specific Police

Major government installations (bases, national monuments, government buildings like the Capital, the White House, etc.) and large infrastructural complexes (airports, seaports, major parks, etc.) should be allowed to have special police forces for those specific areas to augment the regular police forces of that political jurisdiction. These special police forces would be given the same basic training as the regular general police in that jurisdiction and would have the same comprehensive police authority in those areas, just like the regular police forces would continue to have. They would be able to arrest anyone, give ticket for anything they want, and do anything the regular police forces could do.  However, they may undergo some additional special training to prepare them for the specialized nature of policing around their assigned site.  There should be no specific delimiting boundary within which these police forces could operate but they would merely be operating generally within and around their assigned sites.

Special Police

The number of special forces with the authority to carry firearms, execute warrants, and make arrests should be very limited.  Over the past few decades, too many agencies have been armed with this authority, contributing to an unacceptable rate of erroneous threats, raids and arrests. Inexperience, underdeveloped enforcement policies, and attitudes that often give rise to unjustifiably overzealous or even reckless enforcement methods seem to be more common within civil agencies who have been given these powers than within agencies which have traditionally been responsible for criminal enforcement, such as the FBI.

The authority to carry firearms, conduct searches and make arrests should generally fall only to local (city or state) or federal (FBI) law enforcement personnel. Of course, there should be exceptions in which personnel from other agencies should be allowed to carry firearms and make arrests (like U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement). However, the standard way for agencies to seek enforcement of their various rules and regulations should be to contact the law enforcement elements with such authority (maybe even ride along with them in an observer and informative way), describe the nature of the violation and what people, evidence or information they are seeking.

For example, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Department of Labor, the Department of Education, the National Park Service, the Bureau of Land Management, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have the power to carry firearms, conduct raids and make arrests. Generally, violations relating to these organizations are civil, not criminal, in nature.  Raids do not need to involve surprise swarms of agents breaking in with weapons drawn.  Usually, this use of overwhelming force is completely unjustifiable and results in resentment and distrust towards the government from the parties that were affected.

Suspicious packages ought not to be destroyed by explosion or other destructive technique, but should be mechanically disassembled in a safe or remote area. Most of the time, these packages are harmless. The minority of the times that they are real explosives, the precautions taken to insure the safety of everyone around would be sufficient to keep everyone safe in case it explodes.
Prisoners trained in explosive defusing, preferably those sentenced to death, should be allowed to sign up for specific defusing assignments in order to earn money to pay for their crimes.