Criminology

Homeland security is a term used to describe the security efforts of the US federal government against threats of terrorism. The two primary roles the US government has to offer in homeland security are the preservation of freedom and security of the country which also includes the preparation and responsive plans for any hazards, attacks and disasters.

Homeland security has been described as an intensive national effort to avert terrorist attacks within the United States, lessen US susceptibility to any act of terrorism and reduce the damage and manage the recovery plans if terrorist attacks do occur.  This definition has been conventionally viewed as synonymous to the definition of homeland defense. However, homeland defense still has its specific definition distinct to homeland security. In the U.S. Department of Defense June 2005 document entitled Strategy on Homeland Defense and Civil Support, homeland defense has been defined as the protection of United States of Americas sovereignty, territory, local citizens and critical defense infrastructure against external threats and attacks viewed by the Department of Defense and other attacks viewed by the President as detrimental to the sovereignty of the country (Department Subcomponents and Agencies, 2010). With these two distinct but related definitions, homeland security and homeland defense have been separately maintained by two related branch of the US government, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security for homeland security and the U.S. Department of Defense for homeland defense. In a lighter sense, the Department of Homeland security is the one responsible for the broad set of legal authorities of every law enforcement organization that have been assigned for the US citizens protection against external attacks while the Department of Defense is the one delegated for the military forces war combating operations related to the external threats against the countrys sovereignty and citizens.

As a national agency, the Department of Homeland Security contains multiple agencies of the federal, state and local governments that are interconnected to reliably maintain and achieve the mission of preservation of sovereignty and national security. The department is mainly divided into three 1) the department components, 2) office of the secretary and 3) advisory panels and committees.

Among the list of the components under the Department of Homeland Security are the Directorate for National Protection and Programs, the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office, the Office of Intelligence and Analysis, the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, the United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the United States Coast Guard and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).  The functions of each department are considered to be distinct from each other- from risk reduction functions and protection of borders, waterways and harbors up to career training of professionals and preparation for hazards and treats to national security.

The Office of the Secretary, on the other hand, is the one responsible for the supervision of activities from local to federal government agencies which all efforts for strengthening the nations borders, intelligence analysis, counter weapons of mass destruction through improvement of technology and intensive response and recovery system are integrated. Under the Office of the Secretary are the Privacy Office, the Office of the Inspector General, the Office of the Counter Narcotics Enforcement (CNE) and the Office of the Intergovernmental Affairs (IGA).

As the last sub-component of the department, the Advisory Panels and Committees Division is responsible for the advices and recommendations for the continual management and improvement of the programs related to homeland security. This division is also in-charge of the coordination between Federal government and private sectors and non-government organizations for the programs in connection with the homeland security.

As the founding purpose of the Department of National Security, counter-terrorism includes detection of explosives and biological weapons for mass destruction, and protection of cyber networks from external threats and attacks. In order to achieve its main goal, the department has designed various systems within the organization. The Homeland Security Advisory System is one of the designed systems of the department which is described as a protective guide measure consists of information about threats, threats major vulnerability evaluation and ensures the proper communication to public officials and its citizens. Another major development in countering terrorism is the use of biometrics for the identification of different people that may pose risk to the country (Stout, 2002).