All articles starting with L
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Law enforcement
Law enforcement: government agencies and individuals that enforce laws, maintain public order, and investigate, apprehend, and detain criminal suspects; spans local, state, and federal levels such as sheriffs, highway patrol, FBI, and DEA.
Law enforcement agency
Law enforcement agency: any public body, from municipal police to national services, charged with preventing and responding to crime; includes military units performing law enforcement tasks. Covers its 19th-century origins (Metropolitan Police 1829, Boston 1838), functions, accountability, and current reform.
Law enforcement characters of The Wire
Law enforcement characters of The Wire: Baltimore Police officers and prosecutors in HBO's The Wire (2002–2008), including McNulty, Daniels, Freamon, Rawls, Colvin, and Kima, shaped by creators David Simon and Ed Burns and the 'real police' ideal.
Law enforcement in India
Law enforcement in India: state police forces and central agencies (NIA, Enforcement Directorate) under the Ministry of Home Affairs (गृह मंत्रालय). Policing is a state subject under the Constitution; the Police Act 1861 and the 2023 criminal codes frame the system.
Law enforcement in Italy
Law enforcement in Italy (Polizia di Stato, Carabinieri, Guardia di Finanza): national forces with countrywide jurisdiction, reorganized by Law 121/1981, coordinated by prefects and engaged in anti-mafia and EU cooperation.
Law enforcement in Japan
Law enforcement in Japan: 47 prefectural police forces under the National Police Agency and National Public Safety Commission, per the 1954 Police Law; koban system, 23-day custody, and 2026 reforms.
Law enforcement in the United Kingdom
Law enforcement in the UK is delivered by 45 territorial police forces (43 in England and Wales, Police Scotland, PSNI) plus national bodies like the NCA and specialist forces such as the BTP, CNC and MoD Police, founded on the 1829 Metropolitan Police model and facing major 2026 reform.
Law enforcement in the United States
Law enforcement in the United States: the decentralized system of roughly 18,000 municipal, county, state, tribal, and federal agencies that enforce laws, split across levels where states hold the general police power. Distinguished by local dominance (over 75% of sworn officers), federal specialization (FBI, DEA, ICE), and ongoing disputes over accountability and reform.
Law enforcement officer
Law enforcement officer: a public official with legal authority to enforce criminal laws through arrest, detention, and force; also called police officer, peace officer. Covers statutory definitions, duties, use-of-force rules, history since 1829/1838, certification, and oversight.
Law Enforcement Officers Safety Act
Law Enforcement Officers Safety Act (LEOSA), P.L. 108-277, also called H.R. 218, is a 2004 US federal law letting qualified current and retired police officers carry concealed firearms nationwide under 18 U.S.C. 926B and 926C, amended in 2010 and 2013.
Law firm
Law firm: a business organization of lawyers providing legal advice and court representation. Covers Roman and medieval origins, partnership, LLP and professional corporation structures, and modern consolidation and market trends.
Law of 1 December 1934 on Terror Cases
The Law of 1 December 1934 on Terror Cases (Закон от 1 декабря 1934 года) is a Soviet decree issued the day Sergei Kirov was murdered, allowing no appeal.
Law of 1514 on the Peasant Revolt (Dózsa legislation)
The Law of 1514 on the Peasant Revolt (1514. évi törvénycikkek) is the Hungarian decree of 1514 that bound peasants to the land in perpetual servitude after Dózsa's revolt.
Law of 1570 on Indian enslavement
The Law of 1570 on Indian enslavement (Lei de 20 de março de 1570) was a Portuguese law issued by King Sebastian in 1570 declaring Brazil's indigenous peoples free.
Law of 20 May 1802
The Law of 20 May 1802 (Loi du 20 mai 1802) was a French law of the Consulate that maintained slavery in colonies returned by the Treaty of Amiens.
Law of 7 August 1932
The Law of 7 August 1932 (Закон от 7 августа 1932 года) was a Soviet decree prescribing execution or ten years' imprisonment for theft of kolkhoz property.
Law of agency
Law of agency: common law doctrine of principal-agent relationships, covering actual, apparent, and inherent authority, ratification, fiduciary duties, and civil law comparison.
Law of attraction (New Thought)
The law of attraction is the New Thought teaching that thoughts attract corresponding people and circumstances, first stated at book length by William Walker Atkinson in 1906.
Law of averages
The law of averages is an informal, non-mathematical phrase claiming random outcomes even out over time; probability theory rejects its short-run version as the gambler's fallacy.
Law of cosines
The law of cosines, also called the cosine rule, is a Euclidean geometry theorem relating a triangle's sides to one angle, generalizing the Pythagorean theorem.
Law of definite proportions
The law of definite proportions, or law of constant composition, states that a chemical compound always contains its elements in the same proportions by mass regardless of source, as formulated by Joseph Louis Proust.
Law of demand
The law of demand is the principle that buyers purchase less of a good as its price rises and more as its price falls, all else equal.
Law of Demeter
The Law of Demeter, or Principle of Least Knowledge, is an object-oriented design guideline, formulated in 1987, under which a method talks only to its immediate friends.
Law of Desire
Law of Desire (La ley del deseo) is Pedro Almodóvar's 1987 Spanish melodrama-thriller, El Deseo's first production, about gay filmmaker Pablo, his lover Antonio, and trans sister Tina; it won a Berlin Teddy Award.
Law of excluded middle
The law of excluded middle (tertium non datur) is the classical logic principle that every proposition is either true or false, rejected in intuitionistic logic.
Law of India
Law of India: a common law system under a written constitution, with nineteenth-century codes (Transfer of Property Act 1882) and religion-based personal laws governing Hindu, Muslim and Christian succession rather than a uniform civil code.
Law of Jante
Law of Jante (Janteloven): Scandinavian social norm of ten rules from Aksel Sandemose's 1933 novel En flyktning krysser sitt spor, warning against thinking oneself special; distinct from tall poppy syndrome as a proactive norm.
Law of June 14, 1910
The Law of June 14, 1910 (Закон 14 июня 1910 г.) was a Russian statute securing peasant allotment land as household property, a pillar of the Stolypin agrarian reform.
Law of large numbers
The law of large numbers is a theorem of probability theory stating that the average of many independent random variables converges to their expected value.
Law of mass action
The law of mass action, also called the Guldberg-Waage law, is a chemical principle stating that reaction rates depend on reactant concentrations, proposed in 1864 by Norwegian chemists Cato Guldberg and Peter Waage.