Criminal investigation in the Federation.

[TopperHenly]

There has been plenty of episodes that has been about starship crews dealing with criminals, the most obvious that comes to mind Harry Mudd.

However, I wonder if there is a specific organisation in the Federation dedicated to dealing with cross planet criminality like Interpol and to a sense the FBI in America that deal with crime spanning multiple states?

If there is not then how would interplanetary crime be dealt with in terms of intelligence gathering, jurisdiction and co-ordination between multiple planetary authorities?

 

[NCC-73515]

I guess each planet has its own police force

 

[Timo]

...It's just curious that we never see such a police force on any UFP planet.

But on most, we wouldn't expect to run into the police. It's only on Earth that we have multiple plots that call for police intervention, and that police is always and unerringly Starfleet. Even outside the arguable garrison city of San Francisco on occasion.

The only police officers who haven't sported the Starfleet arrowhead so far have been explicit non-UFP ones, plus that one Earth traffic cop in the 2009 movie. But it is a Federation, so there's at least one Federal organ in evidence: Federation Security arrests McCoy in ST3:TSfS - and then immediately delivers him to a brig guarded by Starfleet-arrowhead personnel!

The other angle to this is that crime is not universal, even across the Federation. Vulcan has duels to death, and Ardana has racist slavery - and Kirk and the Federation can do absolutely nothing about it, and Kirk would in fact get into trouble if he even attempted it. Yet duels to death and slavery are not accepted by Kirk, so there isn't UFP-wide legal protection for them, either, just as there is none against them.

The third angle is that punishment is going out of fashion in TOS, replaced by Dr. Adams' advanced psycho-manipulation methods. Even though the man himself eventually falls hard, the methods appear to persist. How this would affect interstellar law enforcement is unknown: Kirk still feels he can arrest just about anybody in the general case, but would his Alphabetan counterpart bother if his planet still wanted punishment but the criminal would face Earth or Gammadeltan therapy instead? Or vice versa, would Kirk arrest somebody if he knew the victim would then be punished?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Phily B]

We see a Federation police officer in one of the TOS movies, I want to say 3. We also see in 2009 Trek that they do have some form of active police patrol, probably in certain spots related to drunken shenanigans.

 

[Tenacity]

how would interplanetary crime be dealt with in terms of intelligence gathering, jurisdiction and co-ordination between multiple planetary authorities

In TVH, team Kirk seemed safe on Vulcan, implying that neither Starfleet, nor the Federation had any say in the matter.

I guess each planet has its own police force

In The Cloud Minders, there was a police force.

And then there was this guy ...

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

Per Gambit, Part II, V'Shar ("Vulcan Security") still operates both internally and externally as of 2370. Either they or the Vulcan Expeditionary Group are the likely candidates for the operating authority of the "Vulcan defense ships" from Unification, Part II.

 

[The Wormhole]

There's the Federation Security Agency, the guys who arrested McCoy for talking about Genesis at the bar in TSFS, which the novels depict as a sort of Federation wide federal police service.

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

There's the Federation Security Agency, the guys who arrested McCoy for talking about Genesis at the bar in TSFS, which the novels depict as a sort of Federation wide federal police service.

Something of a CIA/Secret Service hybrid IIRC.

Starfleet Intelligence and/or Starfleet Security seem to handle the "national security" stuff outside of matters directly relating to the President and maybe the Cabinet.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Starfleet Intelligence and/or Starfleet Security seem to handle the "national security" stuff outside of matters directly relating to the President and maybe the Cabinet.

SI only handles military intelligence. Federation state security is the FSA's purview.

There is also civilian law enforcement, like the cop on the hoverbike in ST09.

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

There is also civilian law enforcement, like the cop on the hoverbike in ST09.

United Earth Police (from Ghost [SCE]) seems like a decent candidate for the top level command for Earth-based law enforcement and safety operations.

 

[Sci]

I think one of the reasons we rarely see any sort of Federation law enforcement service is that in a society that has abolished poverty and inequality, there would only rarely even be a need for police. Much of police work is essentially done to preserve the existing hierarchical social order and in reaction to people committing acts coded as "criminal" because of the various forms of oppression to which they are subjected. In a society like the Federation, where everyone's material, medical, and mental health needs are met, there would rarely ever be a need for a police force.

In any event, the canonical evidence and some non-canonical evidence has been gathered in this thread. We know from TSFS that there's something called Federation Security (established as having the full name of the Federation Security Agency) which had the authority to place McCoy under arrest in 2285 for attempting to book passage to the Genesis Planet after it had been cordoned off within UFP territory. We know there was some sort of traffic enforcement service that Young James T. Kirk was attempting to evade circa 2245. We know from the novels (non-canon) that there's something called the United Earth Police, and that there are also peace officers on the planet Izar and local municipal police forces in the capital city of Cestus III.

As a supporter of the police abolition movement, I would speculate that an enlightened society like the Federation would keep these services on an extremely tight leash, and that their operational ethos is fundamentally different from that of modern policing services. I would imagine that there would only very rarely ever be a need for true cops -- I imagine the traffic enforcer we saw in ST09 might not be a "cop" in the modern sense because they may only have authority to regulate vehicular traffic and have no authority to use force except in extreme circumstances.

Re: The Federation Security Agency in the novels. The books have established the following functions for the FSA:

• Foreign intelligence (in rivalry/coordination with Starfleet Intelligence and the Federation Reconnaissance Office [aka, the Federation Intelligence Community])
• Counter-intelligence
• Civilian interstellar traffic enforcement
• Presidential and VIP protection detail
• Federation-level domestic law enforcement

Its foreign intelligence division seems to correspond in duties to the CIA or MI6; its counter-intelligence and domestic law enforcement missions seem comparable to those of the FBI or MI5; its interstellar traffic enforcement mission seems comparable to the U.S. Coast Guard; and its protection division seems comparable to the Secret Service or Scotland Yard Special Branch.

 

[Shawnster]

Odo was the head of the civilian law enforcement agency on DS9. He had his own subordinates. Of course, this was not a Federation member world.

We rarely see anything outside of Starfleet security because we rarely see anything of the Federation outside of Starfleet ships, personnel, or facilities. When we do see non Starfleet facilities, there is no legal entanglement where the plot would require the presence of civilian authorities.

 

[Sci]

Odo was the head of the civilian law enforcement agency on DS9.

No, he was chief of security in the Bajoran Militia, and his deputies were part of the Militia. Hence their use of the Bajoran Militia uniform.

 

[valkyrie013]

Wonder if there is a federation Interpol ? A criminal skips to other planets and say a Vulcan goes to andoria to find him/her. But not federation business per se.
There will still be cops of some form or the other.

Alot of the minor crimes would go away but there would still be murders, roberies, people jacked up on future version drugs, crime in itself won't go away. No matter how "enlightened" the society.

 

[NCC-73515]

...It's just curious that we never see such a police force on any UFP planet.

Timo Saloniemi

perhaps because we rarely see any crime on them

 

[Nyotarules]

I think one of the reasons we rarely see any sort of Federation law enforcement service is that in a society that has abolished poverty and inequality, there would only rarely even be a need for police.

And yet Harry Mudd exists (TOS/DISC), humans join the Orion syndicate (DS9), beings might still break flying or driving speed limits, drunken brawls still happen (ST09) and young men are murdered in their girlfriend's apartments (Picard).
Its not only the poor who break the law....
I would expect every law enforcement station to have a telepath officer that would make the wheels of justice move faster

 

[The Wormhole]

Odo was the head of the civilian law enforcement agency on DS9.

No, he was chief of security in the Bajoran Militia, and his deputies were part of the Militia. Hence their use of the Bajoran Militia uniform.

Yeah, if anything, Odo and his Bajoran security officers struck me as the Bajoran Militia equivalent of military police.

 

[1001001]

Next show?

CSI Federation

 

[Nerys Myk]

Wonder if there is a federation Interpol ? A criminal skips to other planets and say a Vulcan goes to andoria to find him/her. But not federation business per se.
There will still be cops of some form or the other.

Alot of the minor crimes would go away but there would still be murders, roberies, people jacked up on future version drugs, crime in itself won't go away. No matter how "enlightened" the society.

Andoria and Vulcan are both Federation members. An Interpol like organization would only come into play if a non-Federation world was involved.

 

[tesral]

Largely Star Trek is like learning about Earth by reading the logs of US Navy ships. You are going to get a limited, highly biased viewpoint.

Second, TV writers are not really Civics * Government majors. That includes the people on the writing staff. The result is we do not get great verisimilitude when dealing with civilian issues. (I dislike the term "realism" ST is not real).

Some people will say "Well, it's just a Tee Vee show. They would be right. It is. But we care maybe too much.