Talk:Police power

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Contents 1 NPOV 2 Fact vs opinion 3 People Confusing Concepts 4 Definition of police power 5 "Modern" Divine Right 6 Antecedent Basis for ALL law, Constitutions, and Police Power 7 This article is a mess

[edit] NPOV

This article seems to lack a neutral point of view.

characterizing it as "power of a state to make laws and to use physical violence in order to coerce its subjects into obeying those laws" seems to miss the point of this legal concept and tells the reader more about the writer's dislike of it.

Black's Law dictionary defines it as follows:

"The inherent and plenary power of a sovereign to make all laws necessary and proper to preserve the public security, order, health, morality, and justice. It is a fundamental power essential to government, and it cannot be surrendered by the legislature or irrevocably transferred away from government."

So defining it as the ability to make laws and use coercion really isn't accurate. The federal government can also make laws and use coercion, but it lacks the police power. Thus there is no federal family code, property code, etc.

The essential legal concept, which the article hints at, is the difference between governments of inherent authority versus governments of delegated authority. The U.S. Congress as the latter can only act under a specific delegation of power (like the commerce clause). But states have a presumption of power to do anything needed for the public good, limited only by what the Constitution has taken away.

Thus the difference: presumption of no power unless specifically granted versus presumption of power unless specifically taken away.

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well put! violence is certainly not the defining characteristic...

[edit] Fact vs opinion

If the article "seemed" to lack a neutral point of view before, it definitely lacks one now. The addition of the phrase "when necessary" turns the definition of police power into an opinion, rather than a fact.

The statement added to the first paragraph that asserts that police power has some kind of metaphysical source is also an opinion, and should be labelled accordingly. It should read something like this:

Police power is regarded by legal professionals as having one of several sources, yadda yadda yadda.

..which would more clearly convey neutrality, but would still require citation.

That police use violence to make people obey laws is a fact. That the violence is "necessary" is an opinion.

Necessity is an opinion that depends on how much lawbreaking the police are willing to tolerate. From the POV of Draco (lawgiver), it seemed "necessary" to punish even the most minor infraction with death. On the other extreme, from the point of view of anarchists, all police violence seems totally unnecessary. Your point of view is probably somewhere in between. None of these points of view, not even the centrist point of view, is equivalent to the neutral point of view.

The idea that laws promote "justice" is also an opinion, only valid from some people's point of view. From other points of view, laws seem to create injustice. Again, the article can't comment on the justice or injustice of police power or any aspect of it because that would give the article a non-neutral point of view.

And please sign your posts to this page with four "~" characters.

72.49.75.99 18:29, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] People Confusing Concepts

I think people are getting hung up on the term "police". When the concept of "police powers" originated, it wasn't linked to the bobbies in blue hats hitting robbers over the head with big sticks. "Police powers" have nothing to do with "police officers" or even "police departments". It is not a concept intrinsically linked to violence, or crime, or protection of citizens. "Police powers" are commonly invoked to justify a large variety of legislative actions that are thought to be generally for the benefit of citizens or the state.

66.236.15.114 17:51, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

the term "police" has a long history that predates the American legal system, and "police power" is about the exercise of state power, whether through the courts, constitutional arrangements, or the club-wielding Bobby. Outside of law school, "police power" does denote the powers of the state invested in the boys and girls in blue. Try searching for "police power" on Amazon, and see how many books about policing come up. But you are right that the specific legalistic definition needs to be disentangled from the others to make the article less muddled.

Bobanny 01:42, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree that the specific phrase "police powers" has a definition that is intrinsically tied to the inherent powers of a sovereign state (supranational entities of delegated sovereignty such as the federal governments of the U.S. and E.U. lack the police power). At the same time, there is clearly a colloquial use of the phrase police power which typically is used to describe the abuse of power by law enforcement officers (or law enforcement agencies). I think the easiest solution is either to develop two different articles, or two distinct sections within this article, that can direct people to the relevant section.

134.67.6.15 00:06, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Definition of police power

An anonymous writer wrote:

So defining it as the ability to make laws and use coercion really isn't accurate. The federal government can also make laws and use coercion, but it lacks the police power. Thus there is no federal family code, property code, etc.

But the Federal government is not a state. Therefore, this argument is irrelevant. The definition was correct and NPOV before someone removed the fact that making laws is included in police power and before the words "when necessary" were added.

In contrast, the law dictionary describes police power from the point of view of lawyers and jurists, including their belief that laws really do rule, as per the physically-impossible "rule of law" doctrine. The law dictionary does not express a neutral point of view.

72.49.75.99 19:01, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Modern" Divine Right

Removed the "modern" section under 'Divine Right'..whoever included that obviously has no idea what he's talking about. User:Spock 205.174.162.86 06:29, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Antecedent Basis for ALL law, Constitutions, and Police Power

Black's definition does not remove any ambiguity. The definition is misleading.

"The inherent and plenary power of a sovereign to make all laws necessary and proper to preserve the public security, order, health, morality, and justice. It is a fundamental power essential to government, and it cannot be surrendered by the legislature or irrevocably transferred away from government."

First, the "plenary power of a sovereign" does not apply go government. The sovereign(s) is/are the People. All governmental power derives from the People. Such power is essential to government, but does not originate nor lie with government if not enumerated in the Constitution. It cannot be surrendered by the legislature, because in their limited, constitutional, and representative role they are the voice of the People as expressed through the consent of the governed. It also cannot be transferred away from government because government in its limited, enumerated, and Constitutional sense is the People.

This is why the "police power" is not mentioned in the constitutions, and aptly referred to as the inherent or reserved power of the state. The State does not have sovereignty greater than that of the People. The People collectively deposit a bit of their sovereignty into the political body, the State, for the sole purpose of protecting and preserving their individual lives, liberties, and property.

The government of the State that manifests through the will of the People, or State, in the constitution is merely a political artifice for putting into effect the wishes of the People; again, solely and legitimitely for preserving their individual lives, liberties, and property. Therefore, the People, possessing all sovereignty, are therefore the "sovereign", and the possessors of the police power. The police power is not the property or authority of the government, but that of the People. If the government should act in a way that threatens or diminishes the health, safety, welfare, or morals of the People then the People possess the power, through the exercise of their inherent and reserved "police powers", to defend themselves against government.

The government often cites that the "sovereign" is not subject to statutes, in possession of the police power..... but the government is not sovereign. The State is sovereign, but only because of the sovereignty of the People in thier natural capacity to form a collective political body that they bestow a limited and specific part of their sovereignty. The People are always the origin of State sovereignty, and the masters of government.

The history of police power which dates back to England, where the sovereign at that time was the monarchy and not representative of the People, is often misquoted by our government to imply that the State takes on a life of its own and exists as its own entity in full possession of sovereignty over the People. Following the Declaration of Independence and Constitution of the united States of America, it was understood that individual liberty is paramount to that of the State because the exercise of liberty stops where it infringes upon another's. The People, therefore, are the police power.

The Federal Government cannot possess any police power because said power rests with the People. The Federal Government is not a creation of the People, but of the States. Since the Federal Government is a political body begotten from a political body, and not a natural body, it possesses none of the inherent sovereignty aside from that which stands in contrast to other sovereign nations. One of the preceeding statements is true, regarding the modern interpretation of law by lawyers and jurists favoring the notion that law originates with government, but those viewpoints are inconsistent with the notion of popular sovereignty postulated by John Locke [1] and Algernon Sydney [2]. Things which are created can never be greater than the creator. Since People created the government, the government can never, legitimately, possess or exercise more power over the People. —Preceding [[Wikipedia:Signatures|Marcmckoy 01:53, 3 November 2007 (UTC)]] comment added by 75.132.245.87 (talk) 14:21, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] This article is a mess

Someone who remembers the "police power" cases from law school better than I do needs to clean up this pigpen. There are a LOT of cases from the U.S. Supreme Court and the state supreme courts on the proper scope of police power (as in the general plenary power of the sovereign to regulate things). It seems to me that a lot of ignorant people are confusing it with issues of police procedure, police brutality or criminal procedure. --Coolcaesar (talk) 16:52, 19 December 2007 (UTC)