Law enforcement agency powers

A law enforcement agency (LEA) has powers, which other government subjects do not, to enable the LEA to undertake its responsibilities. These powers are generally in one of six forms:

The types of powers and law exemptions available to a LEA vary from country to country.

They depend on the social, legal, and technical maturity of the country, and on the resources available to LEAs generally in the country. Some countries may have no laws regarding a particular type of activity by its subjects at all, while other countries might have very stringent laws on the same type of activity. This will impact significantly on the legal structures, if any, that govern how an LEA can operate, and on how the LEA's use of powers is overviewed.

Law enforcement agency powers are part of a broad range of techniques used for law enforcement, many of which require no specific legislative support or independent overview.

The powers and law exemptions granted to an LEA allow the LEA to act in a way which would typically be regarded as violating the rights of law complying subjects. Accordingly, to minimse the risk that these powers and law exemptions might be misused or abused, many countries have in place strong overview regimes to monitor the use and application of the LEA's powers and law exemptions. Overview regimes can involve judicial officers, be provided by internal audit services, by independent authorities, by the LEA's governing body, or some other civil mechanism.

Generally, the use of powers and law exemptions fall into two loose categories:

While a LEA's powers and law exemptions are not usually explicitly categorised in this way, they do fall into these two broad categories in this manner and can be identified by the types and level of overview applied to the use of the powers and law exemptions. The former group can have strong and multiple levels of overview, typically for every exercising of the power or law exemption, and the latter group can have no overview other than an exceptional response for some extreme malutilisation of the power or law exemption.

Due to their nature, specifically allocated powers have a greater impact on subjects, whereas law exemptions have a lesser impact on subjects. For example, the use of deadly force is normally an explicitly granted power. This is distinct from the carrying of a firearm in a public place. The latter is normally a law exemption. The discharging of a firearm is normally subject to significant overview, whether or not person injury or property damage occurred, whereas the carrying of a firearm in compliance with the law exemption requiries no reporting or overview.

Typically personnel of an LEA cannot just exercise a power of their own volition. In order to exercise a power, an officer of an LEA must argue for and get approval, from either a senior officer of the LEA or a judicial officer. The senior officer or the judicial officer have a responsibility to ensure that use of a power is necessary and does not unnecessarily violate the rights of subjects.

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