I keep getting things confused in my mind hope I'm not the only one as to what the purpose of an auror is. I was under the impression that they were akin to the FBI or CIA with high profile crimes, stopping dangerous criminals, dealing with the mob, undercover work in finding drug rings, ect.

Only sometimes I get the impression that when we talk about them they are more like the police. Doing minor crime things like speeding tickets or chasing down pick pockets as they patrol the streets rather than going after a wizard/witch on the most dangerous list.

So I guess what I was asking is are there two aspects to wizarding law enforcement with a policing petty crime unit and the auror/FBI unit? Or do we just combine the two in this world?

I think the Wizarding world is small enough that they serve both functions. What they don't do is deal with petty offenses, like accidental magic and secrecy (those have their own Ministry committees). Make sense?

I agree- there are different branches of law enforcement. In the books for example, Mr. Weasley worked in the ministry in a department about Muggle items that had been charmed or cursed. That's law enforcement, but a completely separate branch of it than Mad Eye Moody was once a part of or from the aurors that showed up at the World Cup when there was rioting.

I think you're right that we blur the lines on the site though. Level 2 aurors would definitely be the ones handling the crime syndicate and investigating all to do with Garrow, but they probably wouldn't be too concerned about a pickpocket.... unless of course that pickpocket was stealing from them, in which case they'd probably open a can of whoopass.

From what I've read, aurors deal with issues related to the dark arts whereas hit wizards deal with the criminal types. Lexicon says that aurors are trained for stuff like concealment, disguise, stealth, and tracking while hit wizards are trained for defensive charms, counter-curses, restraining lawbreakers without breaking statutes...so aurors are more FBI/CIA and hit wizards are more soldier/police? Petty crimes are handled by other ministry groups, when there isn't a high risk of being hexed or killed.

This could be an interesting subject to bring up in the L2 meeting...how maybe, since the rest of the ministry is in a shambles, and they're missing all their leadership, the aurors and hit wizards/witches have been forced to do menial tasks that are below their training while the bigger badder criminals get away with murder?

*will add more later, needs to nap*