- ID
- 5444365
- Banca
- CESPE / CEBRASPE
- Órgão
- PM-AL
- Ano
- 2021
- Provas
- Disciplina
- Inglês
- Assuntos
The body of officers representing the civil authority of
government is known as police. Police typically are responsible
for maintaining public order and safety, enforcing the law, and
preventing, detecting, and investigating criminal activities. These
functions are known as policing. Police are often also entrusted
with various licensing and regulatory activities. However, police
scholars have criticized this popular understanding of the word
“police” — that it refers to members of a public organization
having the legal competence to maintain order and enforce the
law — for two reasons. First, it defines police by their ends rather
than by the specific means that they use to achieve their goals.
Second, the variety of situations in which police are asked to
intervene is much greater than law enforcement and order
maintenance.
There is now a consensus among researchers that the
common feature among all the different agencies engaged in
policing is the legal competence to enforce coercive,
nonnegotiable measures to resolve problematic situations. Such
situations are characterized by their potential for harm and the
need to solve them urgently before they develop that potential.
Hence, the actual use of coercion or the threat of using it allows
police to put a quick, nonnegotiated, and conclusive end to
problematic situations.
Internet: <www.britannica.com> (adapted).
Based on the text above, judge the following item.
According to the view presented in the second paragraph, the
main characteristic of police agencies is the competence to
deal with potentially harmful circumstances.