Police power (United States constitutional law)

In United States constitutional law, police power is the capacity of the states to regulate behavior and enforce order within their territory for the betterment of the health, safety, morals, and general welfare of their inhabitants. Under the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, the powers not delegated to the Federal Government are reserved to the states or to the people. This implies that the Federal Government does not possess all possible powers, because most of these are reserved to the State governments, and others are reserved to the people.

Police power is exercised by the legislative and executive branches of the various states through the enactment and enforcement of laws. States have the power to compel obedience to these laws through whatever measures they see fit, provided these measures do not infringe upon any of the rights protected by the United States Constitution or in the various state constitutions, and are not unreasonably arbitrary or oppressive. Methods of enforcement can include legal sanctions, physical means, and other forms of coercion and inducement. Controversies over the exercise of state police power can arise when exercise by state authorities conflicts with individual rights and freedoms.

The authority for use of police power under American Constitutional law has its roots in English and European common law traditions. Even more fundamentally, use of police power draws on two (Latin) principles, sic utere tuo ut alienum non laedas ("use that which is yours so as not to injure others"), and salus populi suprema lex esto ("the welfare of the people shall be the supreme law"), to justify restriction of individual liberties in order to protect the general welfare. The concept of police power in America was further expanded in a series of notable court cases in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, including the landmark 1851 Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court case Commonwealth v. Alger, and the 1905 Supreme Court case Jacobson v. Massachusetts.

...
Wikipedia