Why Are There So Many Types of Law Enforcement? (Federal, State, and Local Police Explained)
Everyone’s familiar with the police. No matter where you are or where you’ve been, you’ve likely seen some sort of police presence. But police is a catch all term here, as there are various levels of law enforcement throughout the United States. They can range from Federal, State, County, City, Town, you name it. But what’s the point? Why are there so many different types of police? What do they do differently?
Keep reading, because we’re going to answer all of those questions for you and much more.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
FEDERAL, STATE, AND LOCAL POLICE: OVERVIEW
FEDERAL, STATE, AND LOCAL POLICE: ZONES OF JURISDICTION
FEDERAL, STATE, AND LOCAL POLICE: THE FEDERAL POLICE
FEDERAL, STATE, AND LOCAL POLICE: STATE POLICE
FEDERAL, STATE, AND LOCAL POLICE: LOCAL POLICE
FEDERAL, STATE, AND LOCAL POLICE: SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES
FEDERAL, STATE, AND LOCAL POLICE: CONCLUSION
FEDERAL, STATE, AND LOCAL POLICE: OVERVIEW
If you have no clue what any of the law enforcement branches we have mentioned above are, let’s give you some examples.
For Federal Law Enforcement, there’s agencies like the FBI, DEA, U.S. Marshals, Border Patrol, Secret Service, and the ATF.
For State, there’s agencies like the California, Texas, and Florida Highway Patrols, New York State Police, Alaska State Troopers, and the Kentucky State Police. You can find these in 49 states. Fun fact: Hawaii is the only state without a statewide police force.
And lastly for the local police, some examples are the NYPD, LAPD, and Chicago PD, and then the Los Angeles Sheriff’s, Las Vegas Metropolitan, and Broward County Police Departments.
This is barely scratching the surface. There are thousands and thousands more.
Sorry, mall cops, you didn’t make the blog this time.
FEDERAL, STATE, AND LOCAL POLICE: ZONES OF JURISDICTION
Now that you’re familiar with some of these departments, let’s kick things off with a fun example of how jurisdiction works. For you cops and lawyers reading this, don’t fret, this is going to be a simple explanation of jurisdiction.
You just robbed a bank in the little town of Nowhere, Kentucky, and various types of police are hot on your tail. You must have taken a lot of money!
You just made it out of town, now the town cops have to back off. Now you just passed through Nausea City, and the city cops have to back off. Then you make it out of Tinnitus County, whew, that was close! The county police back off. Now you have to make it out of Kentucky, which you successfully do. Luck is definitely on your side. The Kentucky state police back off. Uh oh, now you have the feds on your trail because you crossed state lines. You’re going to have to make a break for it to Canada or Mexico if you even want a shot at your freedom. You’re now on the FBI’s most wanted list, congratulations!
Now, while that was fun to show you, it doesn’t work that simply. This isn’t Grand Theft Auto video game where you can hide in a bush and the cops forget about you 30 seconds later. Likely, if you robbed a bank, an APB would be put out on your location and the Town or City, County, and even State police would get involved almost immediately. On top of that, if you cross state lines, you’ve now involved the federal government. See how quickly this can stack against you?
And it’s not like the police would just stop pursuing you because you went outside their jurisdiction. Once an officer sees you commit a violation within their jurisdiction, the jurisdiction becomes irrelevant. They can chase you as far as necessary, something called “fresh pursuit”. A local cop may be limited by his department’s own policy on how far he can chase you, but for all intents and purposes, it doesn’t matter. Don’t think that the cops will see a sign for the next town and just give up.
FEDERAL, STATE, AND LOCAL POLICE: THE FEDERAL POLICE
Federal “Police” are usually referred to as Agents, not Police. The feds enforce the federal law of the United States.
The feds are overseen by the Department of Justice or Department of Homeland Security. As you probably figured out, federal law enforcement is the biggest entity out of the three levels we will be discussing. Federal law enforcement comes in several different forms, with 65 federal agencies and 27 offices of inspector general that employ full time personnel authorized to make arrests and carry firearms.
With a body that size, they also get the most funding. The DOJ and DHS’s budget combined for Fiscal Year 2022 is around 126.1 billion dollars. Now compare that to the largest state agency’s budget, the California Highway Patrol, which is around 2.9 billion. That’s a huge difference!
Federal Agencies enforce federal law, not state law. An example of this is with the legalization of marijuana. While it may be legal in certain states, a federal agent can still arrest you for the possession of marijuana because it is not legal under federal law. So you can be following the law in your state, but still be breaking the law to the federal government of the United States.
FEDERAL, STATE, AND LOCAL POLICE: STATE POLICE
While we’re using the term state police, in reality, only 23 states call their departments by that name. Some states use terms like “Highway Patrol”, “State Highway Patrol”, “State Patrol”, and “State Troopers”. Despite the different names, the functions of these agencies are usually the same. And to get things a little more complicated for you, Alaska and Arkansas are the only states with both a highway patrol and state police.
Regardless of the title, state police all have one thing in common: They enforce their respective state’s law. The Vermont police aren't interested in enforcing the law over in Nebraska, and vice versa. For example, you’re not going to see a South Carolina Highway Patrol officer traveling to Colorado to arrest someone for smoking marijuana in Colorado, despite that being illegal in South Carolina. They simply don’t have the jurisdiction to enforce that.
State police typically deal with patrolling highways and dealing with traffic, however, they respond and deal with all sorts of scenarios and crimes, especially in rural areas where there isn’t much local police patrolling the areas. This is especially the case in Alaska, where the Alaska State Police can be the only police for hundreds, even thousands, of square miles. Alaska doesn’t have any counties; it has boroughs!
Fun fact: state police can trace its roots all the way back to the Texas Rangers, which were the first statewide police force in the United States!
FEDERAL, STATE, AND LOCAL POLICE: LOCAL POLICE
To remind you, by local we mean County, City, or Town.
County police are typically referred to as Sheriff’s Departments. City police are typically called municipal police. And Town police are the smallest of the bunch, usually in the suburbs of major cities or towns that can afford to have its own police department. Each of these departments enforce the laws of the United States, their respective state laws, and their respective ordinances, such as county, city, and town laws.
While we’re mentioning local police, not every locality has its own police department. There are entire counties and areas that don’t have their own police force. If a county doesn’t have a police force, the state police step in. If a town doesn’t have a police force, the county or state police can step in. So wherever there are gaps, the state police and county police, if applicable, fill those gaps.
Just because local police departments have a smaller jurisdiction by no means implicates its strength or size. The NYPD, which can only enforce the laws within New York City, has over 35,000 sworn officers. That’s bigger than several countries' entire militaries. It all really depends on the size and budget of the city, town, or county. For example, LAPD has its own specialized SWAT team, but don’t forget that the city of LA has a population of nearly 4 million people.
You’re most likely not going to see a town of 50 people having the same level of SWAT team as the LAPD’s because 1. There’s no need; and 2. There wouldn’t be enough funding from 50 taxpayers to have a SWAT team to that degree. A small rural town in the middle of nowhere that has 1 police officer isn’t going to have that officer trained in every aspect of SWAT, narcotics, detective work, explosives, and forensics. That cop will fit the needs of their community. While we are only discussing county, city, and town police, there are in fact several other forms of local police that we won’t get into for the sake of this blog post, such as school, campus, and transit police, but just know that they do exist. And no, mall cops, you still haven’t made it here.
FEDERAL, STATE, AND LOCAL POLICE: SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES
While there are several different levels of law enforcement, they all do the same thing: enforce the laws within the United States to maintain law and order. While a town cop might not have the federal jurisdiction that a federal agent has, if you break a federal law in their town, more likely than not, they can enforce it. However, they’ll be more concerned with violations of state law.
Federal law enforcement agencies typically have their own specialties to tackle different realms of crime, like the DEA for drugs and ATF for weapons, whereas a State police department will have departments within that agency to combat those sorts of crimes. Keep in mind that there is an overlap, the FBI makes arrests for guns and other crimes outside of its specialty, just as much as the DEA can make an arrest not having to do with drugs.
All levels of law enforcement have some sort of SWAT component. Whether that’s the Hostage Rescue Team for the FBI, SORT for the New York State Police, or your local sheriff’s office SWAT team, there are specialty units designed to respond to high risk scenarios at virtually every level of law enforcement.
Which brings us to our next point, despite their differences, there are plenty of opportunities and instances where all levels of police work together. You can find town cops, county cops, and state cops embedded in a federal task force, like the JTTF for example.
It can go further. State cops from different states may work together. City cops from different cities can work together. And the same goes with county cops and town cops.
However, it may seem cliche, and you’ve probably seen it in the movies. The feds can step in and take control of an investigation if it turns into a federal matter. Despite the cohesiveness, there are degrees of separation.
Yes, county and city cops might work together, but you won’t see a county cop patrolling the city all willy nilly. Typically, they will leave enforcement in the city to the city cops, and only assist under certain circumstances. Cops will typically patrol in their designated areas.
There’s also no common standard for entering law enforcement across the board. While each department will have a set of minimum requirements for what they teach in their academies according to their location, some departments might only require a high school diploma, whereas others might require a 2 year college degree. When you start moving into the federal level, they start looking at four year degrees for entry. There are also age restrictions, and it gets much more detailed than that.
In addition, depending on your area of focus, the training you receive will vary. For example, park police will receive more training having to do with the geographical challenges of parks than a city cop will, but both will be trained to a standard for firearms. They’ll all be peace officers capable of enforcing the law, just with different expertise and specialties. While one police academy may be 3 months long, another will be 6 months long. At the end of the day, they’re still trained to do what needs to be done in the world of law enforcement.
FEDERAL, STATE, AND LOCAL POLICE: CONCLUSION
To sum this all up, at the federal level, the standards of procedure are more uniform and predictable compared to state and local departments. You know what you’re getting and what to expect. To a certain extent. It gets a bit tricky the more local you get. A county law enforcement agency in California isn’t going to be identical to one in Massachusetts. There are nuances across every police department. Bottom line: The more local you look, the more differences you’ll find. There’s no one size fits all. The whole point of this blog post was to give you a basic understanding of how each of these three levels of law enforcement work.
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