Week 1

Every agency within the criminal justice system needs to maintain a budget for the new fiscal year. Within the budget includes expenses required to keep the organization that includes training, advertising, maintenance, vehicles, salaries, etc. Every year a request is made in pursuit of a financial budget to ensure all needs can be met within the department.

However, the criminal justice system focuses on ensuring public safety; the emphasis is on ensuring the public will have available officers. Finances need to certify that the budget for the new year will not require cuts within the department. That, as a result, could harm the effectiveness of law enforcement officer’s availability to the public. The city of Las Vegas had lost 426 police officers due to budget cuts in the past few years. However, now that there has been an implementation to support more hiring opportunities with the More Cops Fund, which involved raising taxes. There has been an expectation to hire more officers to ensure public safety remains a top priority (Lvmpd, 2014).

Political and public policies do maintain a direct influence over law enforcement budget. City needs such as criminal justice buildings, policies, and other city official implications require the budgets of all law enforcement agencies to adapt. This causes budgets within law enforcement agencies to be carefully calculated. In the city of Las Vegas, there have been issues surrounding programs such as D.A.R.E. to be completely removed from the program because of the budget shortfalls. The largest concern is to maintain public order and safety in a city of this size (Lvmpd, 2014).

It becomes necessary to make city decisions such as raising property taxes to reduce the issues pertaining to the hiring or termination of officers. However, the need for programs focused on relieving the rising number of criminal acts within the city of Las Vegas and Clark County also need to be innovative. Although, some of the budget concerns...