Mockingjay – Part one, the third movie in the Hunger Games trilogy is coming out next week, so what could be better than a blog post showing how Utah is just like District 12? Well, maybe not exactly like District 12…but closer than you might think. In the Hunger Games trilogy, the Capitol has immense power and it maintains its power, in part, by establishing laws to maintain peace and order in its districts. The Capitol enforces its laws by way of the “Peacekeepers”—a law enforcement force which uses harsh tactics to monitor and regulate the people with an iron fist. The strict laws and the broad discretion given to the Peacekeepers allow the Peacekeepers to exercise their power over the people without worry of being punished for unjust or malicious actions. In Utah, there are approximately 10,700 criminal laws on the books at the city, county, and state level. There are at least another 4,500 federal crimes (Congressman James Sensenbrenner asked the Congressional Research Service to compile a list of all of the federal crimes and he was told the office didn’t have the manpower and resources to make such a list). Every year, the Utah State Legislature passes hundreds of new laws, but despite this influx of new laws, usually only a handful of old criminal laws are removed. To enforce these laws, the State and its various local municipalities employ various forms of law enforcement. While there is much more oversight and regulation of a police force than we see over the Peacekeepers of District 12, officers still hold an incredible amount of power. For example, the U.S. Constitution prohibits unreasonable searches or seizures, requiring that any arrest or detainment be reasonable. The U.S. Supreme Court set guidelines for the evidence required to define what is “reasonable” in various […]
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