Role
Among the responsibilities that may be entrusted to a coast guard service are:
- search and rescue,
- enforcement of maritime law,
- safety of vessels,
- maintenance of seamarks and
- border control
During wartime, some coast guard organizations might have responsibilities in harbor defense, port security, naval counter-intelligence and coastal patrols.
The coast guard may, varying by jurisdiction, be part of the country's military, a law enforcement agency, or a search and rescue body. For example, the U.S. Coast Guard is a military branch with a law enforcement capacity, whereas the United Kingdom's Her Majesty's Coastguard is a civilian organisation whose only role is search and rescue. Most coast guards operate ships and aircraft including helicopters and seaplanes that are either owned or leased by the agency in order to fulfill their respective roles.
Some coast guards, such as the Irish Coast Guard have only a very limited law enforcement role, usually in enforcing maritime safety law, such as by inspecting ships docked in their jurisdiction. In cases where the coast guard is primarily concerned with coordinating rather than executing rescue operations, lifeboats are often provided by civilian voluntary organizations, such as the Royal National Lifeboat Institution in the United Kingdom, whilst aircraft may be provided by the countries' armed forces, such as Sea Kings operated by the RAF and Royal Navy in addition to any of the coast guard's own assets.
Read more about this topic: Coast Guard
Famous quotes containing the word role:
“Our role is to support anything positive in black life and destroy anything negative that touches it. You have no other reason for being. I don’t understand art for art’s sake. Art is the guts of the people.”
—Elma Lewis (b. 1921)
“American feminists have generally stressed the ways in which men and women should be equal and have therefore tried to put aside differences.... Social feminists [in Europe] ... believe that men and society at large should provide systematic support to women in recognition of their dual role as mothers and workers.”
—Sylvia Ann Hewitt (20th century)
“Where we come from in America no longer signifies—it’s where we go, and what we do when we get there, that tells us who we are.
The irony of the role of women in my business, and in so many other places, too, was that while we began by demanding that we be allowed to mimic the ways of men, we wound up knowing we would have to change those ways. Not only because those ways were not like ours, but because they simply did not work.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)