Do police have powers that civilians don&#39;t? Citizens can do many things the police can do: Citizens can detain people, get court orders, and so on. Citizens can't send people to jail (although these days many jails are private). Is there any distinction between citizens and police? Are police just a government-sponsored security guards?
Yes new-south-wales A non-exhaustive list: At common law, a police officer can arrest without warrant any person the officer reasonably suspects has committed a felony. A private citizen can arrest without warrant only where a felony has actually been committed. Both police officers and private citizens can arrest without a warrant a person who commits a breach of the peace, or where it is reasonably believed that the person is about to commit a breach of the peace. In NSW a police officer’s common law duty to take a person before a justice as soon as practicable after arrest has been replaced by a statutory scheme introduced by the Crimes Amendment (Detention After Arrest) Act 1997. Under Part 10A police may detain a person for investigation for 4 hours, or for a further period not exceeding 8 hours if a warrant to extend the investigation period is obtained. Police can detain people 'for their own good' - for example, an intoxicated or drug-affected person; private citizens can't. Police can stop and search a suspect before an arrest on reasonable grounds; private citizens can't. Police can give directions to the public (the 'move-along' power); private citizens can't. Police can demand a person's name and address; private citizens can't. Police can demand disclosure of the identity of a driver and passengers in a motor vehicle; private citizens can't. Police can stop and search vehicles (including the road block power); private citizens can't. Police can conduct forensic procedures; private citizens can't. Police can conduct customs inspections (as can customs officers); private citizens can't. Police can search for internally concealed drugs; private citizens can't. Police can execute search warrants; private citizens can't. etc.
In the US, police do not put a person under house arrest, instead, the courts do, as an alternative to standard imprisonment (either awaiting trial, or serving their sentence). The police are not involved at all; the courts cannot be sued for lenient sentencing. If a person leaves their house (even to buy a bottle of milk), they will have violated the terms of their more lenient sentence, and will be arrested and sent to regular jail. Generally, police are not liable for damages, especially when they fail to be omnipotent in their efforts to prevent others from doing wrong.
According to the ACLU, there are certain questions you have to answer when entering the US, and in some states you may have to identify yourself when stopped and told to identify yourself. Nonimmigrant non-citizen may be required to answer questions about immigrant status posed by an immigration officer. Otherwise, you are not required to answer questions by police. A judge can order you to answer questions, but the police cannot. Also, "obstruction of justice" covers things such as destroying evidence, assaulting a process server, communicating with a juror, and can cover investigative demands by prosecutors, but not being uncooperative with police.
Let's say you leave fake drugs in someone's yard. Eg, you expect the police to be dumb enough to believe it and arrest the other person Obstructing a public officer, specifically "deliberately hindering a public officer from carrying out official duties". Trespassing.
NO It is decided state-by-state (for state-wide agencies like state troopers), and county by county, and city-by-city whether or not to buy and use cameras. Also, they are not usually always running. Policies as to when officers are required to turn them on vary as well as when the public and the involved officers get access to the recordings.
It is illegal to take or publish a picture of someone without his consent in France. There are five exceptions : people related to news events of public interest, public information purposes (when right to inform the public is bigger than right to privacy), people present in a public location when focus is not on them, public figures during their public functions and activities, people shown in a large group without distinction of one or several individuals. If you respect one of the 5 conditions, you do not require consent. Policemen do not have extended or extra protection regarding these rights: they are treated as any individual. This is described in a report from the CNDS (Commission National de Déontologie de la Sécurité): "[Les forces de l'ordre] doivent considérer comme normale l’attention que des citoyens ou des groupes de citoyens peuvent porter à leur mode d’action. Le fait d’être photographiés ou filmés durant leurs interventions ne peut constituer aucune gêne pour des policiers soucieux du respect des règles déontologiques." which translates approx. to: "Policemen must consider as normal the attention that citizens or citizen groups can pay to their mode of action. Being photographed or filmed during their interventions cannot be seen as as an embarrassment to the officers concerned to comply with ethical rules." See also this Wikimedia Commons internal policy that summarise the French law and (fr) the exceptions on droit-image.fr
Most jurisdictions don't require special licensure for bodyguards and don't regulate it as a profession or occupation. Body guards in those jurisdictions don't have any special legal authority or any special legal responsibilities other than a fiduciary duty to protect the client. They have the same rights to make citizens arrests and carry weapons that any ordinary citizen would. If a jurisdiction does regulate bodyguards, the answer depends upon the law of the jurisdiction which varies considerably. Only a minority of jurisdictions in the world even recognize the concept of cash bond, or the concept of a bail enforcement agent. Logically, it is unlikely that the regulation of bail enforcement agents in places where bail bonds exist is unlikely to be the same as that of a bodyguard. A bail enforcement agent's authority flows from the adjudication of a court that a particular person has diminished rights while on bail, and that the bail bonding company through its bail enforcement agent, has extraordinary authority (analogous to that of a parent or legal guardian) over that particular person for whom the bail bond agency has taken responsibility. A bail enforcement agent doesn't have special authority over anyone else as a general rule. In contrast, a bodyguard is generally seeking to protect one person from the entire rest of the world, when the entire rest of the world is not subject to any court orders temporarily diminishing their rights. So, it wouldn't make sense for a bail enforcement agent to have the same legal treatment as a bodyguard, even if both were regulated occupations or professions. A body guard is more analogous to a private security guard for a business, or premises, or vehicle, which a minority of jurisdictions regulate as a licensed occupation or profession. Of course, if the skills and qualifications for both bail enforcement agents and bodyguards are similar in a jurisdiction where both profession or occupations are regulated, nothing would prevent the same individual from obtaining both kinds of licenses. In your fictional world, however, you can do whatever you want.
The police are mistaken because they don't understand immigration law. Usually, the first step to resolve this problem would be to explain the situation in a letter to or telephone call with the town attorney, elevating it from a police officer who has no training in citizenship and naturalization paperwork, to an attorney, who should either know better, or should be able to find out more easily.