Probable Cause

• Mandatory

What is probable cause? How does probable cause affect the actions of police? How well do police officers meet the criteria of probable cause before taking action with regard to a criminal activity? Probable cause is a level of reasonable belief that a crime is been committed; it has been or is in progress and can be articulated in a court of law. Police officers work in every area of our daily living, but for explanation purposes let’s study the traffic officer. A traffic officer should be experienced in traffic law. There are hundreds of infractions a vehicle operator can commit to give an officer justification to perform a traffic stop (the police officer assumption or believe that a violation may be committed, is that probable cause). Basically, probable cause allows an officer to investigate if the crime has been committed and decide on possible resolution, which can include; verbal warning, written warning, citations, and arrests. Officer should always be on the lookout of irregular activities and they only need to have reasonable suspicion that a criminal activity may be taking place in order to have the authority to look into it. To perform an arrest they must have probable cause because they will have to explain in a court of law the specifics of that violation or crime. The success of how well they act can be measured by the number of convictions.

What is police jurisdiction? How has the historical development of police agencies impacted police jurisdiction? What judgments can you make about police jurisdictions and what might the future look like in the next 10 to 20 years? Explain.

Police jurisdiction is that area that covers the political boundaries of a State, city, county or town. Those areas are designated by many factors such as budgets, residents, and geographical areas. In some cases some of this department have overlapping jurisdiction like in the case of State troopers, county police highway patrol etc. Since we do not...