Re:Non-military federal agencies’ purchases of guns, ammunit...
by mcguire on Thursday February 02, 2017 @12:33PM
(#13552431)
One question: are there police offices dedicated to particular agencies, or do the agencies rely on "general police" with no special experience with the laws and issues of the agency? If the equivalent of a National Park Service employee finds evidence of poaching, does she call in an officer with experience arresting poachers?
And do the majority of cities not enforce parking tickets?
In Germany, we have solved this massive waste of money and resources by having police help other agencies. We call this "Amtshilfe". So for example if the tax office wants to raid a business in order to seize records, they request appropriate police assistance.
Basically we have three different kind of police: some "border cops" (former Bundesgrenzschutz, now Bundespolizei; these care about border protection and security on train stations/airports), a massive amount of state cops caring for literally everything from the ordinary bar fight to arresting terrorists, and in some rare cities there are "city cops" (Stadtpolizei) taking care about enforcing parking tickets and other city regulations.
But individual agencies do not have their own police powers (okay, maybe except the military - they have the Feldjäger, but these have only authority over military personnel and are rarely seen outside barracks).