Food for thought. What systems do you use?

Self: you get your own justice. In many ancient cultures, if you couldn't hunt down and kill a criminal yourself, you weren't a real man and deserved to get robbed. Often called 'frontier justice', this sort of justice tends to lead to cycles of escalating revenge.

Watch: In many isolated towns and villages the constant threat of attack by raiders, roaming bands of ogres/aliens and other beasties, require a group of men who volunteer to maintain a constant watch over the town. Since they're already keeping an eye on things, they might as well keep and eye out for petty thieves, murderers, con artists, and other ne'er-do-wells too.

Constable: The constable is the watchman free of his duty to serve as an on-call defensive military. The constable is also a professional, not a volunteer. As such, the constable patrols the street keeping an eye out for thieves, murderers, con artists, and other ne'er-do-wells full time. Usually constables do not have the authority to use deadly force.

Sheriff: The sheriff is charged with keeping the peace. So his role is not so much solving crime as maintaining civil order, stopping crimes before they start or apprehending criminals caught in the act. Sheriffs can have a lot of unofficial discretion about the application of their authority. This is because a sheriff is selected by the people of the community. Sheriffs also have the power to use deadly force. A unique power of the sheriff is the authority to deputize civilians as fully empowered law enforcers.

Marshal: The marshal usually does not patrol, but pursues criminals. The marshal has more official authority than the sheriff does. His jurisdiction is broader, and he has the official authority to act as something of his own judge, jury, and executioner. The marshal's extended authority derives from a higher level of government.

Fed: The fed is an agent of the national government and their authority trumps the local authorities. They are still constrained by whatever rules the legal system places on law enforcers.

Street Judge: He is police, judge, jury, and executioner. He has broad authority in the pursuit of criminals, the gathering of evidence. The arrest of a criminal is also the trial and sentencing hearing.

Detective: The detective is a special category of law enforcement. Instead of patrolling to prevent crime or to catch criminals in the act, the detective is called in after a crime is committed and given the job of figuring out who did it and catching them. As such they have the power to search for and gather evidence and question suspects.

Bounty Hunter: The bounty hunter is a marshal for hire. They are private citizens given the authority to pursue criminals and bring them to justice. Because they operate outside the constraints of department they can get away with a lot of abuse of the 'rules'.

Enforcer: Unlike the sheriff who keeps the peace, or the marshal, who pursues criminals to bring them in for trial, the enforcer's job is 'preemptive punishment'. They don't bring you back for trial; they just beat you up for violating the rules. A society that uses enforcers rarely pays any heed to 'civil rights' even in the best of cases.

Secret Police: or State Police operate outside the chain of the legal system. They have both the full resources of the state and the freedom from its rules. In the name of state security, you can justify a lot of things: torture, arrest without cause, search and seizure, even murder. The secret police operate (as the name suggests) covertly. They rarely wear uniforms and employ many informants and spies, often through blackmail.

Consul: In places under martial law, the military doubles as the police force. In ancient Rome the consul's power derived from a document that allowed the general to execute soldiers for disobeying orders. Thus the military governor has nearly absolute powers in the exercise of his authority. In other words, he can have you executed just because he wants to, no trial, no defense, no evidence.

Bounty hunters will exist in my world... but the main law enforcement in the city is more like a secret police. They let most things go but if its bad they'll get caught etc. My city has a section, where the first part is taking place, that is avoided by the law.

Bounty Hunters are popular, but Secret Police, because of the brutalities that can occur in that system, are not so common. They offer lots of interesting plot additions.

Brutality is a part of my world. It's pretty much a civilized world with an underground "fight club" esque setup.

That could be really cool. It also gives a gritty feel to the story. (likes grit and grunge)

I just need to plan more...

I understand that. I'm entering back into the planning stages as I go to write the third book in my trilogy. I didn't really miss this stage.

For my NaNo 2011 project, it's a police force, San Angelina Police Department and a ninja superhero vigilante.

Now that is one I didn't include. Well, sorta.... vigilante could fall under self...

These posts are up on this side as well!
(I should have realized they would )

For the section of Murel's history that I'm working on ATM: the elves use consul; the humans use a lot of watch, some self, and a little bit of constable and bounty hunter; and the dwarves probably use consul.

I'm not entirely sure for the dwarves though since they are the race that has gotten the least amount of world building.

I only posted Law Enforcement and Money, Mark. I figured they were relative over here, too. All the other posts of HWSF are just for HWSF.

*must go over and see these Sci-Fi threads*

In the Enclave things are probably Consul. Most places in Enderion are likely Consul, though there's definitely self, bounty hunter, and secret police in there. Qaluros would be a cross between secret police and Consul (the military are secret police. )

Thanks for posting, Kait.

eru

Where did I say the secret police were like the military?!

I think he's saying that the Qaluran army would act as the police but they would act secretly... kind of like the Gestapo?

Not really. Vigilantism is against crime in general, whether they harmed your or not. It doesn't even really need a trial to determine guilty or not.

That is true. Good point.

@Kait: Yeah, Sui caught it. What I meant was that in that case they'd be...both roles.

eru

Oh! Got it.

Yup.

I think some of the cities in my world will be guarded from inside and out by rangers. These rangers will play the roles of: marshall, sheriff (a version of, anyway), secret police, and probably more. Rangers themselves mostly just take care of each other.

*nods * Why did you choose that system for your world?

Um, I guess 'cause that seems to be what rangers would do? I'm really not sure how it will work out, but maybe I should've just said that they will play the roles of bounty hunter and marshal, but often in more epic circumstances than a thief, or even a common murderer. Though if a ranger saw that someone had wrongfully killed someone, the killer had better beware. Rangers are the most honorable humans in my world, and it hurts them to see wrong and not do anything about it, so they do try to help city dwellers when they can. That said, they aren't the same as Tolkien's Dunedain, which were at least sometimes assigned a city to watch over. My rangers are a sort of passively nomadic (does that make sense?), they have 'towns' of log cabins in some cases, but they often live in tents, or just spread their outer cloak on the ground and wrap themselves in it to turn in when they are on a journey. In short, my rangers 'range' all over the place, when they find that a good city near them is having trouble with dragons, some of the rangers will likely try to help. Rangers are also known to kill professional killers, assassins, or monsters.

So, it would have been more accurate I suppose, to say that if you lived in a city and were robbed or wronged in some other way, you pretty much did what you thought you should do. Except, in the more civilized cities, there would be some marshal-type people that could be called on, but there are not often enough of these to supply an entire city...

Ah, that makes more sense.

Good. A lot of times I can't tell if I'm making sense or not...sorry about my chaotic thought processes...

There is one option you didn't include, I think, Airianna... I don't blame you though, because I have never heard of it except in one place, and that one place is in my world. Not exactly common. That option is – a mercenary police force. You included bounty hunters, but that is a different thing entirely from what I mean. What I am talking about is unique in that it, first: is a large entity, not one or even a band of people. Two: it is very organized. Three: it is hired by the people, not the government. (Though it is allowed by the government – what government there is.) Four: it is entirely just and law-abiding, not hire-able force. I have no generic name for it...in the instance I mentioned they are called the outriders. But that is the name of that specific entity.

Cool, Juliet. Yes, if it is only native to your world, I did not know to include it. Terribly sorry!

I think a mash up of some of these could be quite interesting...

Definitely interesting...