Talk:Police power

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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)Not sure what these tildes are for66.236.15.114 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)

[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)