Monday, May 18, 2009

Irrevelant Information

This isn't quite important but lately I have heard the term "Peace Officer" used. I thought people were just being dumb and lazy and not using Police Officer in their newspapers. I WAS WRONG. Here is what Wikipedia has to say(I learned something new!!!):

A law enforcement officer (also called peace officer), in North America, is any public-sector or authorized, government-contracted private-police officer, charged with upholding the peace, mainly police officers, customs officers, correctional officers, probation officers, parole officers, auxiliary officers, and sheriffs or marshals and their deputies. A security guard, however, is generally not referred to as a law enforcement officer.

Modern legal codes use the term peace officer (or in some jurisdictions, law enforcement officer) to include every person vested by the legislating state with law-enforcement authority—traditionally, anyone "sworn, badged, and armable" but, basically, who can arrest, or refer such arrest for a criminal prosecution. Hence, city police officers, county sheriffs' deputies, and state troopers are usually vested with the same authority within a given jurisdiction.

Jurisdictions may restrict the powers granted to those who have "peace-officer status" instead of "police-officer status". For example, in New York, all New York State Court Officers,[1] as well as Court clerks,[2] assigned to the 1st and 2nd Judicial Departments are classified as peace officers who can carry a firearm both on and off duty.

1 comments:

Sandy Jean n Will Demar said...

Nice Laura, you were always so curious! I'm so glad you found me! Yea this is fun! I hope all is well! Are you enjoying IL? It sound like you are!!!