Discover the different law enforcement types and identify their levels and jobs. Explore the various law enforcement branches, agencies, and hierarchies.
Updated: 11/21/2023
Law Enforcement | Types & Levels
Table of Contents
- What is Law Enforcement?
- Understanding the Levels of Law Enforcement
- What are the Various Types of Law Enforcement Jobs?
- Lesson Summary
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the different law enforcement jobs?
There are several different levels and types of law enforcement jobs. The most common of these are uniformed police officers, plainclothes officers, and federal agents, though there are also numerous support personnel jobs as well.
What are the five levels of government law enforcement agencies?
The different levels of law enforcement agencies include federal agencies such as the FBI, DEA, and U.S. Marshals, and state agencies such as state bureaus of investigation, state troopers, and state highway patrol. Counties have local sheriff departments, and cities and municipalities have local police departments.
Table of Contents
- What is Law Enforcement?
- Understanding the Levels of Law Enforcement
- What are the Various Types of Law Enforcement Jobs?
- Lesson Summary
The term "law enforcement" refers to the collection of agencies that are charged with protecting citizens and communities, maintaining peace, and enforcing the laws of the different states and municipalities around the United States. Because that is such a large-scale operation, the task of law enforcement is divided by jurisdictions: federal, state, county, and local cities and towns. The largest of these are federal law enforcement agencies, which are responsible for the country as a whole. State agencies work at the state level, while county and city agencies handle situations in those communities as local law enforcement.
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There are different levels of law enforcement depending on the type of crime and where it was committed.
- Federal law enforcement agencies are responsible for maintaining the laws at the federal level and are overseen by the federal Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security. These agencies include the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), and U.S. Marshalls.
- State law enforcement agencies usually include the State Bureau of Investigation, various state troopers, and highway patrol departments.
- The county level consists of sheriff departments as local law enforcement agencies.
- City and municipalities also provide local law enforcement. They have local police departments that have various types of police officers.
The main differences between the levels of law enforcement have to do with jurisdiction. While police officers are responsible for their cities and communities, state patrol officers are responsible for enforcing state laws and can handle crimes that happen across city and county lines. For example, local police officers will usually handle traffic violations and accidents that happen within their cities and communities, but state patrol officers will often handle incidents that occur on interstate highways. State law enforcement agencies also step in when crimes occur in places where there is no local police force, such as in certain small towns and unincorporated areas.
Federal agents work on a much larger scale, handling crimes that violate federal laws. They also step in when crimes are committed that cross state lines, such as kidnappings where the victim is transported from one state to another and serial bank robbers who commit crimes in multiple states. Federal agents usually work within different organizations depending on their focus. The Drug Enforcement Administration focuses on drug crimes, such as interstate drug trafficking and the importation of drugs into the country. The Federal Bureau of Investigation handles crimes that violate federal laws, such as domestic terrorism and bank robberies.
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Within each level of law enforcement, there is a wide variety of different types of personnel and job positions. Although it is difficult to answer the question of how many police officers there are in the United States, there are approximately 20,000 police forces in the country.
Uniformed Officers
Uniformed Officers typically work at the municipal, county, and state levels. They are usually the first line of responders to assist citizens in need and work to maintain the peace in their assigned jurisdictions. Typical duties for uniformed officers include patrolling routes (both on foot and in marked patrol vehicles), handling traffic violations and vehicle accidents, directing traffic, and assisting in providing first aid to injured citizens. This is typically considered an entry-level law enforcement position. Uniformed officers include:
- Local police officers
- Deputy sheriffs
- State troopers
Plainclothes Officers
Plainclothes Officers are not in uniform, as their title suggests. They do not typically patrol routes and instead work more in the investigation of crimes, including questioning witnesses and suspects and making arrests. They may also work undercover and many of them specialize in various departments, such as homicide, robbery, or drug enforcement. Plainclothes officers include:
- Detectives
- Criminal investigators
Federal Agents
Federal Agents work at the federal level and usually specialize in different types of criminal investigation. FBI agents, for example, investigate things like bank robberies, kidnappings, financial and business fraud, foreign espionage, organized crime, and serial murder crimes that occur across state lines. DEA agents investigate drug crimes, including trafficking, manufacturing, and distribution crimes. U.S. Marshalls provide security for federal courts, manage the Witness Protection Program, and track and arrest federal fugitives. Federal agents include:
- FBI agents
- Air marshals
- U.S. Secret Service special agents
In addition to these officers and agents, there are also many legal and support personnel positions. Additional personnel on the law enforcement side include those who aid in criminal investigation, such as crime scene technicians (officers who examine crime scenes and collect evidence) and forensic pathologists (usually doctors who examine the bodies of deceased victims to help determine information such as cause and manner of death). Law enforcement personnel also include corrections officers who work in jails and state and federal prisons. Those who work in the court system include bailiffs, court reporters, lawyers, prosecutors, and judges.
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The term "law enforcement" refers to the enormous task of enforcing laws, protecting and assisting the public, and maintaining the peace throughout the United States. There are several different levels of law enforcement, and each agency has specific jurisdictions, or areas of responsibility. Federal law enforcement agencies are under the jurisdiction of the Department of Justice and Homeland Security and handle crimes at the national level, including crimes committed in more than one state. State law enforcement agencies handle crimes committed at the state level. They also handle crimes committed where there is no local law enforcement, such as unincorporated areas. Local law enforcement handles crimes committed within each county, city, and local municipality.
Within the field of law enforcement, there are numerous careers and jobs. The entry-level positions are usually the uniformed officers, who work directly with the public, patrolling their jurisdictions, handling traffic violations, and maintaining the safety and peace in their communities. Plainclothes officers work on investigating crimes committed within their jurisdictions, and federal agents handle large-scale crimes that occur at the federal level. There are also many legal and support personnel within every level of law enforcement.
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Video Transcript
Law Enforcement
Kim loves to watch true crime television shows. She finds it fascinating when, each episode, the narrator talks about a crime that was committed and then about how the criminal got caught. Each show includes interviews with the people who cracked the case and arrested the perpetrator.
But Kim has noticed something strange. Sometimes, the people investigating the crime are called police officers, and sometimes they're called marshals or rangers or FBI agents. What's the difference between all these different titles?
Law enforcement is an umbrella term that refers to a professional group of people tasked with keeping order through the investigation and prevention of crime. So whether someone is an officer, detective, marshal, or an agent, they are part of law enforcement.
In the United States, there are three general levels of law enforcement: federal, state, and local. Let's take a closer look at each one.
Federal
Kim is watching a show one day, and she notices that the law enforcement official being interviewed is from the FBI. She wonders what the FBI oversees and when they get involved in a case.
The FBI is one of many different agencies that are part of federal law enforcement, or departments in charge of upholding federal law and supporting state and local law enforcement agencies. In fact, FBI stands for Federal Bureau of Investigation, so the fact that it's a federal law enforcement agency is right in the title! Other federal law enforcement agencies include the Federal Marshal Service, the Bureau of Prisons, Customs and Border Protection, Secret Service, and Transportation Security Administration, among others.
Federal law enforcement agencies are overseen by either the Department of Justice or the Department of Homeland Security. For example, the FBI (along with the marshals and others) is overseen by the Department of Justice. Customs, on the other hand, is overseen by the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees several other agencies, as well.
Federal law enforcement only has the power to investigate and enforce laws at the federal level. Kim has heard some crimes referred to as federal crimes, which is one example of when a federal law enforcement agency might get involved. They also investigate when criminal activity happens across multiple jurisdictions. For example, if someone steals a television set from a store, it is a local crime. But if that person then drives across state lines to sell the stolen television, they are acting in multiple states, or jurisdictions, so it becomes a federal issue.
The other thing that federal law enforcement does is to help support state and local law enforcement. If a town or state does not have the resources necessary to investigate a crime, they can ask federal law enforcement to step in and help.
State
Kim understands that there are a lot of federal agencies and that their primary purpose is to investigate crimes that involve federal crimes or multiple jurisdictions and to provide support for state and local law enforcement if they ask. But what, exactly, does state law enforcement do? And how does it differ from what local law enforcement does?
State law enforcement is made up of investigators and officers in charge of crime detection and prevention at the state level. The primary law enforcement agency in each state is generally called state police, state patrol, or highway patrol. They are in charge of patrol and investigations throughout the entire state, including rural areas where there might not be a local police force. For example, if someone is driving drunk on a highway in the middle of nowhere, the state police are the ones who will pull that person over and arrest them.
In addition to the state patrol, each state has its own Bureau of Investigations that works out of the Attorney General's office. The purpose of these law enforcement agents is to investigate crimes that take place over several jurisdictions. They may be called investigators or rangers.
Local
In contrast, local law enforcement is tasked with upholding the law in a specific place, like a county or a city. Local law enforcement can range from a single person, like a town marshal or sheriff, to a city police force that has tens of thousands of officers. The point is that they are in charge of only one small corner of a state.
This is starting to make sense to Kim. She remembers a television show where the New York City Police Department worked on a case. They had tens of thousands of officers! In another show, there was a town where there were only two officers, a sheriff and a deputy.
But Kim is still confused about something. In one show she watched, a Texas ranger was working alongside a local sheriff. The rangers, as she's learned, work for the state, out of the Attorney General's office. But the town sheriff is part of local law enforcement. So when do they work together?
Local and state law enforcement may work together, but in general, the local police have jurisdiction (that is, they are in charge). The exceptions to this are if there is an area of the state with no local police presence (as we saw with the drunk driver from before) or if a perpetrator has covered many localities, like moving from one county to another.
This follows the pattern of the localization of law enforcement, where (for the most part) local law enforcement takes precedence over state law enforcement, which takes precedence over federal law enforcement. As we've seen, there are exceptions to this, but in general, that's the way it's structured.
The final reason that state and local law enforcement might work together is if local law enforcement asks for assistance. Because state law enforcement often has extra resources that the local law enforcement doesn't, they might ask for help with an investigation.
Lesson Summary
Law enforcement is tasked with keeping order through the investigation and prevention of crime. There are three general levels of law enforcement in the United States. Federal law enforcement works on federal crimes and offenders who commit crimes in multiple jurisdictions, as well as supporting state and local law enforcement. Federal law enforcement agencies are overseen by the Department of Justice or the Department of Homeland Security.
State law enforcement provides law enforcement in areas of the state where there is no local jurisdiction and for crimes that are committed in multiple jurisdictions within the state. They are divided into the state police, which is also called the state patrol or highway patrol, and investigators and rangers that are part of the state Attorney General's office.
Finally, local law enforcement provides protection in specific areas, like cities or counties. They are in charge of law enforcement within their jurisdiction, though they can turn to the state police for help if they need it.
Learning Outcome
After reviewing this lesson, you should have the ability to:
- Describe the different responsibilities of the three general levels of law enforcement in the United States
- Identify examples of each type of law enforcement
- Explain how local, state, and federal law enforcement might work together
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Law Enforcement | Types & Levels
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