Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Law Enforcement/Scope

THE SCOPE

Included

The following are the main subject areas of articles that fall within the scope of WikiProject Law enforcement:

• Types of police (e.g., Constabulary, Gendarmerie, State police)

• Specific police forces, departments, units, and specialized agencies (e.g., Interpol, Amtrak Police, RCMP, CID, Hostage Barricade Team)

• Organizations, associations, and institutions directly related to the police (e.g., EuroCOP, RCMP Heritage Centre, Centrex, IACP)

• Pioneers and historical developments in law enforcement (e.g., August Vollmer, Bow Street Runners, Boston Police Strike)

• Policing issues and controversies (e.g., Suicide by cop, Racial profiling)

• Law enforcement terminology and theory (e.g., Fixing Broken Windows, Resisting arrest)

• Governing bodies and legislation (e.g., Police authority, Police Complaints Board, Police Act 1946)

• Notable police individuals (e.g., Frank Serpico,Shirley McKie). Judgement will have to be made individually on each article about an officers who is on wikipedia because he or she is killed in the line of duty.

• Police titles/ranks (e.g., Constable, Detective, Station Sergeant)

• Law enforcement equipment, uniforms, stations, vehicles, and related material (e.g., Handcuffs, Custodian helmet, Neighbourhood Police Centre, Panda car)

• Rehabilitation programs, prisons, and related workers (e.g., Youth Offending Team, Kingston Penitentiary, Corrections officer, Probation officer)

• Investigation procedures, techniques, technologies, and forensic sciences used by law enforcement officers (e.g., fingerprinting, Police lineup, Bloodstain pattern analysis, Geographic profiling)

• Miscellaneous subjects directly related to the police (e.g., World Police and Fire Games, National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial)

Not included

Because law enforcement can include an almost limitless range of activities in different contexts, it is necessary to exclude some subject areas that police may be involved in from time to time, but which are better suited to other current or potential WikiProjects:

• Subjects only minimally related to law enforcement (e.g., George Orwell, Larry Campbell, Home Office, Evidence)

• Crime, criminology, sociology and legal topics are related to police work, but which tell us more about society or the criminal justice system than law enforcement specifically (e.g., Baby Face Nelson, Embezzlement, Criminalization, Civil disorder)

• Forensic sciences used in police investigations, but not applied by law enforcement officers (e.g., STR analysis, FACES Lab, Genetic fingerprinting)

• Subjects more notable for their association with the military than law enforcement specifically (e.g., Military police, Sergeant, Epaulette)

• Subjects predominantly related to intelligence, espionage, surveillance, and national security (e.g., CIA, Cryptanalysis, Cyber-terrorism, Open source intelligence)

• Fictional police (e.g., Sherlock Holmes, Dragnet, Thought Police)

Discussion of above

I have added those that I can think of so far. SGGH 21:39, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Great idea; we are finally sifting through all the articles and sorting them out!!! Dep. Garcia ( Talk | Help Desk | Complaints ) 15:49, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Related/Overlapping WikiProjects (and some other thoughts)

Something to keep in mind are other projects that we share articles with, which might help guide decisions about what to include (such a list could also be included on the main project page).

• Wikipedia:WikiProject Law- We shouldnt have any of theirs, we handle enforcement, not articles on what we are enforcing
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history- This covers the grey area of military police, which I have always thought ought to be left to the MILHIST project, because they are part of the military
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Australian crime- also, I don't think we should have actual crimes in our project, like famous robberies or so on
• Wikipedia:WikiProject British crime- see above
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Criminal Biography see the brit crime and aussie crime above
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Sociology- articles on reasons why people offend, or studies into that, criminology and such, shouldn't be in this project i don't think
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Trains & Wikipedia:WikiProject Rapid transit (rail and rapid transit police - most of these articles appear to need work, and several are up for mergers) I think articles only about the transit police ought to be in our project
• Wikipedia:WikiProject FBI- this is a bit of a grey area, I think FBI articles should be in our project too, but make sure the FBI project tag is above ours
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Organized Labour (not much overlap right now, but personally I’d like to see some more articles on police unionism) - oo... not sure about that one
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Terrorism and counter-terrorism (probably should be more overlap, since police agencies have always been involved in counter-terrorism; also check out their list of categories that defines the project’s scope) agencies that also handle other kinds of law enforcement (i.e. FBI but not CIA) can be in this project, but when it comes to terrorist personalities and such, they shouldnt be in

• Some more, but with uncertain status:
  • User:MadMax/Organized crime (proposed) that would cover criminals and gangs, which we dont do
  • Wikipedia:WikiProject Intelligence Agency (inactive) inactive, but it would be CIA type things anyway

Of course, there are others, like national projects, but these seem to be our natural allies. Some articles, like Lieutenant should probably be left to the military folks, and the other articles proposed to be de-LE'd by EMT1871 also seem to be only marginally related to law enforcement. My understanding of the scope is that policing agencies are the meat of the project, and following from SGGH, the guiding principle should be how closely related the article is, and we shouldn't bother with peripheral topics. Given the nature of policing, which is almost limitless in what it includes in various contexts, there's some related subjects that make the scope less than obvious:

• private security - private agencies do what public police do in other contexts; Pinkerton's, for example, did a lot of contract work for police back in the day, and pioneered a lot of what would become "police work" in the US. It seems intuitive to not include private security articles such as Brinks, but Company police seem within our scope. (this appears to be more muddled in American policing).
• intelligence - definitely a policing activity, but where is the line separating it as a military activity and not a policing activity? MI5, for example, doesn't have a LE tag, but is categorized as a law enforcement agency. (Btw, is necessary to have both a "Category:Law enforcement agencies of the United Kingdom" and a "Category:Law enforcement in the United Kingdom?") The article also says its modern role is similar to the FBI, which is in LE territory.
• counter-terrorism/national security (see above)
• crime/criminology - This doesn't seem to be a problem here, but I've looked at a lot of books that were supposed about police, and they turned out to be true crime books. Criminology, though, will have a lot of overlap where we should be consistent in making a distinction.
• forensics (and other 'police sciences') - same with criminology. Obviously a significant aspect of police investigations, but it'd be nice to have a clear line drawn. I think practical forensics like fingerprinting we can have, but theories and such are more sociology or biology, chemistry etc.

There undoubtedly will always be gray areas and exceptions to any rule we come up with (like Henry Fielding for the 50% rule), and some of my concerns are more academic than practical problems, but I wanted to see what others think. Compiling a list of relevant categories like the Terrorism WikiProject would probably be a good idea for us; I might get a chance tomorrow to do that. Ideally, I'd like to get some of this sorted out and end up with some clear hierarchy to refer to of articles that need work according to importance, and get some collaborative work going (Police desperately needs a major overhaul, and many of the "_____ police" articles are a collective mess). Oh yeah, and I agree with SGGH's lists so far. Bobanny 07:54, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I hope you don't mind Bobanny, but I've made my suggestions next to each of your points. SGGH 12:38, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Straw poll

I cruised around the related categories today and would like to do some work in that department. I'm a little clearer now on what i think about the scope. For law articles, it seems legislation governing policing are the only ones we should be concerned with (e.g., Police Act 1946), but I did notice a number of LE articles categorized under "law", such as specific police departments. These need to be removed, because the "law enforcement" category is a subcategory of "law," making it redundant.

I'd like to see if there's a consensus on topics to exclude from the project's purview. I'm going to go a little further than SGGH and propose that we don't include forensics at all, even fingerprinting, along with other scientific technologies used in investigations. There's several articles related to fingerprinting, and they get pretty esoteric in the science end, and don't have much to say about law enforcement other than that it is used in investigations. It fits much better under 'crime' than policing, IMO. I would also include things like Polygraph and wiretapping, which also are strongly associated with policing but are better suited to science and criminology than us. At a second glance, I'm also not sure what "Articles on techniques used by offenders to break the law" should be included here.

All of the following have been proposed to be excluded from WikiProject Law enforcement:

1. Predominantly intelligence and espionage-related articles (e.g., CIA)
2. Topics associated more with the military than law enforcement, such as Military police and Sergeant, (but not, for example, Station Sergeant)
3. Predominantly crime and criminology related subjects (such as famous criminals, psychological and sociological theories of crime, etc.)
4. Forensics, and other investigative techniques that are highly technical science-wise (e.g., fingerprinting, wiretapping, polygraph, Geographic profiling)

Please add more if I missed any, and comment on whether you think these should be excluded. I'd like to exclude them all, but maybe that's just the mood I'm in. So far, exceptions to 3 and 4 have been expressed. Bobanny 04:57, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, things like the fingerprinting article are those to be discussed, which is what is happening :). I'm open to it being removed from the project, and I agree with all your other points. Could you copy your list into mine above? Just so we only have the one and it doesn't get confusing. Cheers SGGH 11:07, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I also agree on the first three points, but I think things like fingerprinting are very closely related to LE, as well as most forensic sciences, and should probably be considered on a case by case basis rather then just excluded on it's face.EMT1871 14:28, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, SGGH - I didn't mean to replicate the scope list proposal you posted, and I will add to your list. I just didn't want to mess it up before getting some kind of consensus, since I'm suggesting modifications. Are you okay with scrapping the last point on the include list? (law-breaking techniques) If not, can you give examples that would be relevant to us?

On the forensic science question, how about if we include those techniques used by law enforcement officers, but exclude those conducted exclusively by non-police in investigations. So something performed by a biochemist employed by the FBI would be excluded. Fingerprinting and bloodstain pattern analysis, for example, would be in, but STR analysis, STR multiplex systems, and FACES Lab would be out. Sorry for being a stickler, but a lot of these articles are stubs with little information and, not being a forensic scientist or LEO myself, I don't have much to guide case-by-case judgments, and would prefer not having to bring individual articles back to the group if possible. Bobanny 18:30, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Agreed on all points, go for it! and good work! SGGH 20:57, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Okay, its on the main page now, I've added a note at the top in bold reminding people to read all of it, even if they have already found what they wanted, because, for example, at the top it says organisations involved in policing are okay, and a person might create an article we ought not to have in our project because he didn't read further and see "not intelligence agencies" in the don't include list. SGGH 12:03, 7 February 2007 (UTC)