- For the animal rights group, see Justice Department
.
The
United States Department of Justice (often
referred to as the
Justice Department or
DOJ), is the
United States
federal executive department responsible for the enforcement of
the
law and administration of
justice, equivalent to the
justice or
interior ministries of other
countries.
The Department is led by the
Attorney General, who is
nominated by the
President and
confirmed by the
Senate and is a member of the
Cabinet. The current Attorney General
is
Eric Holder.
Duties
- Responsible for investigating and prosecuting violations of federal laws.
- Represents the United States as a party in all legal matters, including cases
before the Supreme Court of the United
States
.
- Enforces all immigration laws, provides information, and
processes applications for citizenship
- Maintains the federal
prison system, halfway houses, and community programs.
History
The Attorney General was initially a one-person, part-time job,
established by the
Judiciary Act
of 1789, but this grew with the
bureaucracy. At one time the Attorney General
gave legal advice to the
U.S. Congress as well as the
President, but this
had stopped by 1819 on account of the workload involved.
In 1867, the
U.S. House Committee on the
Judiciary, led by Congressman
William Lawrence, conducted an
inquiry into the creation of a "law department" headed by the
Attorney General and composed of the various department solicitors
and
United States attorneys.
On February 19, 1868, Lawrence introduced a bill in Congress to
create the Department of Justice. This first bill was unsuccessful,
however, as Lawrence could not devote enough time to ensure its
passage owing to his occupation with the
impeachment of President
Andrew Johnson.
A second
bill was introduced to Congress by Rhode Island
Representative Thomas
Jenckes on February 25, 1870, and both the Senate and House passed the
bill. President
Ulysses S.
Grant then signed the bill into law
on June 22, 1870. The Department of Justice officially began
operations on July 1, 1870.
The bill, called the
"Act to Establish the Department of Justice",
did little to change the Attorney General's responsibilities, and
his salary and tenure remained the same.
The law did create a
new office, that of Solicitor General, to
supervise and conduct government litigation in the Supreme Court of
the United States.
With the passage of the
Interstate Commerce Act in 1887, the
Federal
government in the U.S. began to take on some law enforcement
responsibilities, with the Department of Justice tasked to carry
out these duties.
In 1872,
control of federal prisons was transferred to the new department,
from the Department of Interior
. New facilities were built, including the
penitentiary at Leavenworth
in 1895, and a facility for women located in
West
Virginia
, at Alderson was established in
1924.
By 2008 several current and former assistant U.S. attorneys were
known to have engaged in a wide variety of criminal conduct
including association with prostitution rings, sexual battery,
sexual abuse of children, and failures to make mandatory
conflict of interest disclosures. A
separate
Office of
Professional Responsibility (OPR) within the DOJ is responsible
for investigating attorney employees of the DOJ who have been
accused of misconduct or criminal activity with respect to their
professional functions as DOJ attorneys. Former U.S. Attorney
General
John D. Ashcroft acknowledged challenges facing the
Department of Justice:
In the real world of limited resources, we know that we
can only detect, investigate and prosecute a small percentage of
those officials who are corrupt.
I remain convinced that there is no more important area
in the fight against corruption than the challenge for us within
the law enforcement and justice sectors to keep our own houses
clean.
Headquarters
The U.S. Department of Justice building was completed in 1935 from
a design by
Milton Bennett
Medary. Upon Medary's death in 1929, the other partners of his
Philadelphia firm
Zantzinger, Borie and Medary
took over the project. On a lot bordered by Constitution and
Pennsylvania Avenues and Ninth and Tenth Streets, Northwest, it
holds over one million square feet of space. The sculptor
C. Paul
Jennewein served as overall design consultant for the entire
building, contributing more than 50 separate sculptural elements
inside and outside.
Various efforts, none entirely successful, have been made to
determine the meaning of the
Latin motto
appearing on the Department of Justice seal,
Qui Pro Domina
Justitia Sequitur. It is not even known exactly when the
original version of the DOJ seal itself was adopted, or when the
motto first appeared on the seal. The most authoritative opinion of
the DOJ suggests that the motto refers to the Attorney General (and
thus to the Department of Justice) "who prosecutes on behalf of
justice (or the Lady Justice)".
The building was renamed in honor of former Attorney General
Robert F. Kennedy in 2001. It is sometimes referred
to as "Main Justice."
Organization
Leadership offices
Divisions
Law enforcement agencies
Several federal
law enforcement
agencies are administered by the Department of Justice:
Offices
Other offices and programs
In March
2003, the United
States Immigration and Naturalization Service was abolished and
its functions transferred to the United States Department of Homeland
Security
. The
Executive Office for
Immigration Review and the
Board of Immigration Appeals
which review decisions made by government officials under
Immigration and Nationality law remain under jurisdiction of the
Department of Justice. Similarly the Office of Domestic
Preparedness left the Justice Department for the Department of
Homeland Security, but only for executive purposes. The Office of
Domestic Preparedness is still centralized within the Department of
Justice, since its personnel are still officially employed within
the Department of Justice.
Also in 2003, the Department of Justice created the website
LifeAndLiberty.gov which supported the PATRIOT ACT.
LifeAndLiberty.gov currently promotes reenacting the PROTECT
AMERICA ACT before it expires. This web site has received criticism
from government watchdog groups.
References
- Law and Politics Worldwide, August 20 2003
- .gov Watch, October 18, 2007
External links
(FBI)
, U.S.
National Central Bureau
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