Criminal Justice -- Homeland Security Essay

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Specifically, the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) is one of the premier law enforcement organizations in the world. However, it was conceived, designed, and structured more for the purpose of investigating past crimes and apprehending and prosecuting criminals. For example, the FBI is, by design, a decentralized agency so that field offices in different states can pursue independent investigations. In the field of counterterrorism, the exact opposite structure is required: the counterterrorism mission demands a highly centralized structure whereby intelligence collected from many different locations and by many different agencies and entities is funneled into an integrated analysis center (Larsen, 2007). In many respects that deficiency still pervades the national homeland security mission, as evidenced by the failure of authorities to identify the perpetrator of the Northwest 253 plot on the basis of information that had previously been made available to the national counterterrorism and intelligence infrastructure.

Weapons of Mass Destruction and Emergency Management

Weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) present a serious concern for the entire emergency response community by virtue of the tremendous damage they are capable of causing to society (DHS-FEMA, 2006; Larsen, 2007). However, in principle, the risk from WMDs is not different from those associated with other risks to public health and safety. Like other types of threats, WMD risks and concerns must be evaluated according to a matrix that represents the magnitude of potential harm in conjunction with the likelihood of an emergency caused by WMD attacks (DHS-FEMA, 2006; Larsen, 2007).

However, from a practical or operational perspective, WMDs merely represent circumstances in which emergency management systems and entities must respond to emergencies likely to be larger in scale and, depending on the particular type and size of the WMD unleashed, that may involve more types of specific concerns simultaneously than most other emergencies or even conventional terrorist attacks (DHS-FEMA, 2006; Larsen, 2007).

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Hurricane Katrina demonstrated the types of issues capable of arising in the emergency planning and response that would be required to provide adequate emergency response to any WMD attack. In addition to coordination and communications protocols between and among multiple agencies and entities, the prospect of WMD attacks also requires a plan for dealing with panic on a large scale that could otherwise overwhelm authorities and hamper emergency response rescue and support efforts. In that respect, WMDs represent different situations from other types of risks for which emergency management is designed to respond. Otherwise, even WMD concerns are analyzed according to the same threat matrix as other risks to public safety and security (

Emergency Management Authority

In all likelihood, neither exclusive federal or state and local authority is appropriate to administrate national emergency management. Certainly, a large component of emergency management authority must reside in the federal government, partly because of the need to administrate federal funds and other resources to local regions ( However, the sheer size of the nation and the existence of so many separate state and local communities and the modern structure of law enforcement at the state level means that it is likely impossible to administrate local emergency management without equal involvement and authority of local government and law enforcement.

Nevertheless, the federal government must fulfill a central role in providing leadership and a certain measure of authority over state efforts to prepare emergency management functions, typically through the spending authority inherent in the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution (Dershowitz, 2002). In some respects, state authorities are better situated to perform certain functions but the federal government must play a concurrent role (particularly in leadership and conceptual design) in much the same way that it (in effect) administrates interstate travel by outright federal authority and intrastate travel through the spending.....

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"Criminal Justice -- Homeland Security" (2009, December 28) Retrieved May 2, 2024, from
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