German State Police officer in Hamburg, with the rank of Polizeihauptmeister mit Zulage (Police Chief Master with upgraded pay)
The police are a constituted body of persons empowered by a state, with the aim to enforce the law, to ensure the safety, health and possessions of citizens, and to prevent crime and civil disorder. Their lawful powers include arrest and the use of force legitimized by the state via the monopoly on violence. The term is most commonly associated with the police forces of a sovereign state that are authorized to exercise the police power
of that state within a defined legal or territorial area of
responsibility. Police forces are often defined as being separate from
the military and other organizations involved in the defense of the state against foreign aggressors; however, gendarmerie are military units charged with civil policing. Police forces are usually public sector services, funded through taxes.
Law enforcement is only part of policing activity.
Policing has included an array of activities in different situations,
but the predominant ones are concerned with the preservation of order. In some societies, in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, these developed within the context of maintaining the class system and the protection of private property.
Police forces have become ubiquitous in modern societies. Nevertheless,
their role can be controversial, as some are involved to varying
degrees in corruption, police brutality and the enforcement of authoritarian rule.
A police force may also be referred to as a police department, police service, constabulary, gendarmerie, crime prevention, protective services, law enforcement agency, civil guard or civic guard. Members may be referred to as police officers, troopers, sheriffs, constables, rangers, peace officers or civic/civil guards. Ireland differs from other English-speaking countries by using the Irish language terms Garda (singular) and Gardaí (plural), for both the national police force and its members. The word "police" is the most universal and similar terms can be seen in many non-English speaking countries.
Numerous slang terms exist for the police. Many slang terms for police officers
are decades or centuries old with lost etymology. One of the oldest,
"cop", has largely lost its slang connotations and become a common
colloquial term used both by the public and police officers to refer to
their profession.
Etymology
First attested in English in the early 15th century, initially in a
range of senses encompassing '(public) policy; state; public order', the
word police comes from Middle French police ('public order, administration, government'), in turn from Latin politia, which is the Latinisation of the Greek πολιτεία (politeia), "citizenship, administration, civil polity". This is derived from πόλις (polis), "city".
History
Ancient policing
Law enforcement in ancient China was carried out by "prefects" for thousands of years since it developed in both the Chu and Jin kingdoms of the Spring and Autumn period.
In Jin, dozens of prefects were spread across the state, each having
limited authority and employment period. They were appointed by local
magistrates, who reported to higher authorities such as governors, who
in turn were appointed by the emperor, and they oversaw the civil
administration of their "prefecture", or jurisdiction. Under each
prefect were "subprefects" who helped collectively with law enforcement
in the area. Some prefects were responsible for handling investigations,
much like modern police detectives. Prefects could also be women.
Local citizens could report minor judicial offenses against them such
as robberies at a local prefectural office. The concept of the
"prefecture system" spread to other cultures such as Korea and Japan.
In Babylonia,
law enforcement tasks were initially entrusted to individuals with
military backgrounds or imperial magnates during the Old Babylonian
period, but eventually, law enforcement was delegated to officers known
as paqūdus, who were present in both cities and rural settlements. A paqūdu was responsible for investigating petty crimes and carrying out arrests.
In ancient Egypt evidence of law enforcement exists as far back as the Old Kingdom period. There are records of an office known as "Judge Commandant of the Police" dating to the fourth dynasty. During the fifth dynasty
at the end of the Old Kingdom period, officers armed with wooden sticks
were tasked with guarding public places such as markets, temples, and
parks, and apprehending criminals. They are known to have made use of
trained monkeys, baboons, and dogs in guard duties and catching
criminals. After the Old Kingdom collapsed, ushering in the First Intermediate Period, it is thought that the same model applied. During this period, Bedouins were hired to guard the borders and protect trade caravans. During the Middle Kingdom
period, a professional police force was created with a specific focus
on enforcing the law, as opposed to the previous informal arrangement of
using warriors as police. The police force was further reformed during
the New Kingdom
period. Police officers served as interrogators, prosecutors, and court
bailiffs, and were responsible for administering punishments handed
down by judges. In addition, there were special units of police officers
trained as priests who were responsible for guarding temples and tombs
and preventing inappropriate behavior at festivals or improper
observation of religious rites during services. Other police units were
tasked with guarding caravans, guarding border crossings, protecting
royal necropolises, guarding slaves at work or during transport, patrolling the Nile River,
and guarding administrative buildings. The police did not guard rural
communities, which often took care of their own judicial problems by
appealing to village elders, but many of them had a constable to enforce
state laws.
In ancient Greece, publicly owned slaves were used by magistrates as police. In Athens, a group of 300 Scythian slaves (the ῥαβδοῦχοι, "rod-bearers") was used to guard public meetings to keep order and for crowd control, and also assisted with dealing with criminals,
handling prisoners, and making arrests. Other duties associated with
modern policing, such as investigating crimes, were left to the citizens
themselves. In Sparta, a secret police force called the krypteia existed to watch the large population of helots, or slaves.
In the Roman Empire,
the army, rather than a dedicated police organization, initially
provided security. Local watchmen were hired by cities to provide some
extra security. Magistrates such as procurators fiscal and quaestors
investigated crimes. There was no concept of public prosecution, so
victims of crime or their families had to organize and manage the
prosecution themselves. Under the reign of Augustus, when the capital had grown to almost one million inhabitants, 14 wards were created; the wards were protected by seven squads of 1,000 men called "vigiles",
who acted as firemen and nightwatchmen. Their duties included
apprehending thieves and robbers, capturing runaway slaves, guarding the
baths at night, and stopping disturbances of the peace. The vigiles
primarily dealt with petty crime, while violent crime, sedition, and
rioting was handled by the Urban Cohorts and even the Praetorian Guard if necessary, though the vigiles could act in a supporting role in these situations.
Law enforcement systems existed in the various kingdoms and empires of ancient India. The Apastamba Dharmasutra
prescribes that kings should appoint officers and subordinates in the
towns and villages to protect their subjects from crime. Various
inscriptions and literature from ancient India suggest that a variety of
roles existed for law enforcement officials such as those of a
constable, thief catcher, watchman, and detective.
The Persian Empire
had well-organized police forces. A police force existed in every place
of importance. In the cities, each ward was under the command of a
Superintendent of Police, known as a Kuipan, who was expected to
command implicit obedience in his subordinates. Police officers also
acted as prosecutors and carried out punishments imposed by the courts.
They were required to know the court procedure for prosecuting cases and
advancing accusations.
In ancient Israel and Judah,
officials with the responsibility of making declarations to the people,
guarding the king's person, supervising public works, and executing the
orders of the courts existed in the urban areas. They are repeatedly
mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, and this system lasted into the period of Roman rule. The first century Jewish historian Josephus related that every judge had two such officers under his command. Levites
were preferred for this role. Cities and towns also had night watchmen.
Besides officers of the town, there were officers for every tribe. The
temple in Jerusalem had special temple police to guard it. The Talmud
also mentions various local police officials in the Jewish communities
the Land of Israel and Babylon who supervised economic activity. Their
Greek-sounding titles suggest that the roles were introduced under
Hellenic influence. Most of these officials received their authority
from local courts and their salaries were drawn from the town treasury.
The Talmud also mentions city watchmen and mounted and armed watchmen in
the suburbs.
In many regions of pre-colonial Africa, particularly West and Central Africa, guild-like secret societies
emerged as law enforcement. In the absence of a court system or written
legal code, they carried out police-like activities, employing varying
degrees of coercion to enforce conformity and deter antisocial behavior. In ancient Ethiopia, armed retainers of the nobility enforced law in the countryside according to the will of their leaders. The Songhai Empire had officials known as assara-munidios, or "enforcers", acting as police.
Pre-Colombian Mesoamarican civilizations also had organized law enforcement. The city-states of the Maya civilization had constables known as tupils, as well as bailiffs. In the Aztec Empire, judges had officers serving under them who were empowered to perform arrests, even of dignitaries. In the Inca Empire, officials called curaca enforced the law among the households they were assigned to oversee, with inspectors known as tokoyrikoq (lit. "he who sees all") also stationed throughout the provinces to keep order.
Post-classical policing
The Santas Hermandades of medieval Spain were formed to protect pilgrims on the Camino de Santiago.
In medieval Spain, Santas Hermandades,
or "holy brotherhoods", peacekeeping associations of armed individuals,
were a characteristic of municipal life, especially in Castile.
As medieval Spanish kings often could not offer adequate protection,
protective municipal leagues began to emerge in the twelfth century
against banditry and other rural criminals, and against the lawless nobility or to support one or another claimant to a crown.
These organizations were intended to be temporary, but became a
long-standing fixture of Spain. The first recorded case of the formation
of an hermandad occurred when the towns and the peasantry of the north united to police the pilgrim road to Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, and protect the pilgrims against robber knights.
Throughout the Middle Ages such alliances were frequently formed
by combinations of towns to protect the roads connecting them, and were
occasionally extended to political purposes. Among the most powerful was
the league of North Castilian and Basque ports, the Hermandad de las
marismas: Toledo, Talavera, and Villarreal.
As one of their first acts after end of the War of the Castilian Succession in 1479, Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile established the centrally-organized and efficient Holy Brotherhood
as a national police force. They adapted an existing brotherhood to the
purpose of a general police acting under officials appointed by
themselves, and endowed with great powers of summary jurisdiction even
in capital cases. The original brotherhoods continued to serve as modest
local police-units until their final suppression in 1835.
The Vehmic courts
of Germany provided some policing in the absence of strong state
institutions. Such courts had a chairman who presided over a session and
lay judges
who passed judgement and carried out law enforcement tasks. Among the
responsibilities that lay judges had were giving formal warnings to
known troublemakers, issuing warrants, and carrying out executions.
In the medieval Islamic Caliphates, police were known as Shurta. Bodies termed "Shurta" existed perhaps as early as the Caliphate of Uthman. It is known in the Abbasid and Umayyad Caliphates. Their primary roles were to act as police and internal security
forces but could also be used for other duties such as customs and tax
enforcement, rubbish collection, and acting as bodyguards for governors.
From the 10th century, the importance of the Shurta declined as the
army assumed internal security tasks while cities became more autonomous
and handled their own policing needs locally, such as by hiring
watchmen. In addition, officials called muhtasibs were responsible for supervising bazaars and economic activity in general in the medieval Islamic world.
In France during the Middle Ages, there were two Great Officers of the Crown of France with police responsibilities: The Marshal of France and the Grand Constable of France.
The military policing responsibilities of the Marshal of France were
delegated to the Marshal's provost, whose force was known as the
Marshalcy because its authority ultimately derived from the Marshal. The
marshalcy dates back to the Hundred Years' War, and some historians trace it back to the early 12th century. Another organisation, the Constabulary (French: Connétablie), was under the command of the Constable of France. The constabulary was regularised as a military body in 1337. Under Francis I of France
(who reigned 1515–1547), the Maréchaussée was merged with the
Constabulary. The resulting force was also known as the Maréchaussée,
or, formally, the Constabulary and Marshalcy of France.
The English system of maintaining public order since the Norman conquest was a private system of tithings known as the mutual pledge system. This system was introduced under Alfred the Great.
Communities were divided into groups of ten families called tithings,
each of which was overseen by a chief tithingman. Every household head
was responsible for the good behavior of his own family and the good
behavior of other members of his tithing. Every male aged 12 and over
was required to participate in a tithing. Members of tithings were
responsible for raising "hue and cry" upon witnessing or learning of a
crime, and the men of his tithing were responsible for capturing the
criminal. The person the tithing captured would then be brought before
the chief tithingman, who would determine guilt or innocence and
punishment. All members of the criminal's tithing would be responsible
for paying the fine. A group of ten tithings was known as a "hundred"
and every hundred was overseen by an official known as a reeve.
Hundreds ensured that if a criminal escaped to a neighboring village,
he could be captured and returned to his village. If a criminal was not
apprehended, then the entire hundred could be fined. The hundreds were
governed by administrative divisions known as shires, the rough equivalent of a modern county, which were overseen by an official known as a shire-reeve, from which the term Sheriff evolved. The shire-reeve had the power of posse comitatus, meaning he could gather the men of his shire to pursue a criminal. Following the Norman conquest of England in 1066, the tithing system was tightened with the frankpledge
system. By the end of the 13th century, the office of constable
developed. Constables had the same responsibilities as chief tithingmen
and additionally as royal officers. The constable was elected by his parish every year. Eventually, constables became the first 'police' official to be tax-supported. In urban areas, watchmen
were tasked with keeping order and enforcing nighttime curfew. Watchmen
guarded the town gates at night, patrolled the streets, arrested those
on the streets at night without good reason, and also acted as
firefighters. Eventually the office of justice of the peace was established, with a justice of the peace overseeing constables. There was also a system of investigative "juries".
The Assize of Arms of 1252, which required the appointment of constables to summon men to arms, quell breaches of the peace, and to deliver offenders to the sheriff or reeve, is cited as one of the earliest antecedents of the English police. The Statute of Winchester of 1285 is also cited as the primary legislation regulating the policing of the country between the Norman Conquest and the Metropolitan Police Act 1829.
From about 1500, private watchmen were funded by private
individuals and organisations to carry out police functions. They were
later nicknamed 'Charlies', probably after the reigning monarch King
Charles II. Thief-takers were also rewarded for catching thieves and returning the stolen property.
The earliest English use of the word "police" seems to have been
the term "Polles" mentioned in the book "The Second Part of the
Institutes of the Lawes of England" published in 1642.
Early modern policing
The first centrally organised and uniformed police force was created by the government of King Louis XIV in 1667 to police the city of Paris, then the largest city in Europe. The royal edict, registered by the Parlement of Paris on March 15, 1667 created the office of lieutenant général de police
("lieutenant general of police"), who was to be the head of the new
Paris police force, and defined the task of the police as "ensuring the
peace and quiet of the public and of private individuals, purging the
city of what may cause disturbances, procuring abundance, and having
each and everyone live according to their station and their duties".
Gabriel Nicolas de la Reynie, founder of the first uniformed police force in the world.
This office was first held by Gabriel Nicolas de la Reynie, who had 44 commissaires de police (police commissioners) under his authority. In 1709, these commissioners were assisted by inspecteurs de police (police inspectors). The city of Paris was divided into 16 districts policed by the commissaires,
each assigned to a particular district and assisted by a growing
bureaucracy. The scheme of the Paris police force was extended to the
rest of France by a royal edict of October 1699, resulting in the
creation of lieutenants general of police in all large French cities and
towns.
After the French Revolution, Napoléon I reorganized the police in Paris and other cities with more than 5,000 inhabitants on February 17, 1800 as the Prefecture of Police. On March 12, 1829, a government decree created the first uniformed police in France, known as sergents de ville ("city sergeants"), which the Paris Prefecture of Police's website claims were the first uniformed policemen in the world.
In 1737, George II began paying some London and Middlesex watchmen with tax monies, beginning the shift to government control. In 1749 Henry Fielding began organizing a force of quasi-professional constables known as the Bow Street Runners. The Macdaniel affair added further impetus for a publicly salaried police force that did not depend on rewards. Nonetheless, In 1828, there were privately financed police units in no fewer than 45 parishes within a 10-mile radius of London.
The word "police" was borrowed
from French into the English language in the 18th century, but for a
long time it applied only to French and continental European police
forces. The word, and the concept of police itself, were "disliked as a
symbol of foreign oppression" (according to Britannica 1911).
Before the 19th century, the first use of the word "police" recorded in
government documents in the United Kingdom was the appointment of
Commissioners of Police for Scotland in 1714 and the creation of the Marine Police in 1798.
Modern police
Scotland and Ireland
Following early police forces established in 1779 and 1788 in Glasgow, Scotland, the Glasgow authorities successfully petitioned the government to pass the Glasgow Police Act establishing the City of Glasgow Police in 1800. Other Scottish towns soon followed suit and set up their own police forces through acts of parliament. In Ireland, the Irish Constabulary Act of 1822 marked the beginning of the Royal Irish Constabulary. The Act established a force in each barony with chief constables and inspectors general under the control of the civil administration at Dublin Castle. By 1841 this force numbered over 8,600 men.
London
Patrick Colquhoun, founder of the Thames River Police.
In 1797, Patrick Colquhoun was able to persuade the West Indies merchants who operated at the Pool of London on the River Thames,
to establish a police force at the docks to prevent rampant theft that
was causing annual estimated losses of £500,000 worth of cargo. The idea of a police, as it then existed in France,
was considered as a potentially undesirable foreign import. In building
the case for the police in the face of England's firm anti-police
sentiment, Colquhoun framed the political rationale on economic
indicators to show that a police dedicated to crime prevention was
"perfectly congenial to the principle of the British constitution".
Moreover, he went so far as to praise the French system, which had
reached "the greatest degree of perfection" in his estimation.
Poster against "detested" Police at the town of Aberystwyth, Wales; April 1850.
With the initial investment of £4,200, the new trial force of the Thames River Police
began with about 50 men charged with policing 33,000 workers in the
river trades, of whom Colquhoun claimed 11,000 were known criminals and
"on the game". The force was a success after its first year, and his men
had "established their worth by saving £122,000 worth of cargo and by
the rescuing of several lives". Word of this success spread quickly, and
the government passed the Marine Police Bill on 28 July 1800,
transforming it from a private to public police agency; now the oldest
police force in the world. Colquhoun published a book on the experiment,
The Commerce and Policing of the River Thames. It found receptive audiences far outside London, and inspired similar forces in other cities, notably, New York City, Dublin, and Sydney.
Colquhoun's utilitarian approach to the problem – using a cost-benefit argument to obtain support from businesses standing to benefit – allowed him to achieve what Henry and John Fielding
failed for their Bow Street detectives. Unlike the stipendiary system
at Bow Street, the river police were full-time, salaried officers
prohibited from taking private fees. His other contribution was the concept of preventive policing; his police were to act as a highly visible deterrent to crime by their permanent presence on the Thames. Colquhoun's innovations were a critical development leading up to Robert Peel's "new" police three decades later.
Metropolitan police force
A Peeler of the Metropolitan Police Service in the 1850s.
London was fast reaching a size unprecedented in world history, due to the onset of the Industrial Revolution.
It became clear that the locally maintained system of volunteer
constables and "watchmen" was ineffective, both in detecting and
preventing crime. A parliamentary committee was appointed to investigate
the system of policing in London. Upon Sir Robert Peel being appointed as Home Secretary in 1822, he established a second and more effective committee, and acted upon its findings.
Royal assent to the Metropolitan Police Act 1829 was given and the Metropolitan Police Service was established on September 29, 1829 in London as the first modern and professional police force in the world.
Peel, widely regarded as the father of modern policing, was heavily influenced by the social and legal philosophy of Jeremy Bentham,
who called for a strong and centralised, but politically neutral,
police force for the maintenance of social order, for the protection of
people from crime and to act as a visible deterrent to urban crime and disorder.
Peel decided to standardise the police force as an official paid
profession, to organise it in a civilian fashion, and to make it
answerable to the public.
Albertine i politilægens venteværelse (1885–1887), painting by Christian Krohg.
Due to public fears concerning the deployment of the military in
domestic matters, Peel organised the force along civilian lines, rather
than paramilitary.
To appear neutral, the uniform was deliberately manufactured in blue,
rather than red which was then a military colour, along with the
officers being armed only with a wooden truncheon and a rattle to signal the need for assistance. Along with this, police ranks did not include military titles, with the exception of Sergeant.
To distance the new police force from the initial public view of
it as a new tool of government repression, Peel publicised the so-called
Peelian principles, which set down basic guidelines for ethical policing:
- Every police officer should be issued a warrant card with a unique identification number to assure accountability for his actions.
- Whether the police are effective is not measured on the number of arrests but on the deterrence of crime.
- Above all else, an effective authority figure knows trust and accountability are paramount. Hence, Peel's most often quoted principle that "The police are the public and the public are the police."
The 1829 Metropolitan Police Act created a modern police force by
limiting the purview of the force and its powers, and envisioning it as
merely an organ of the judicial system. Their job was apolitical; to
maintain the peace and apprehend criminals for the courts to process
according to the law. This was very different from the "continental model" of the police force that had been developed in France, where the police force worked within the parameters of the absolutist state as an extension of the authority of the monarch and functioned as part of the governing state.
In 1863, the Metropolitan Police were issued with the distinctive custodian helmet, and in 1884 they switched to the use of whistles that could be heard from much further away. The Metropolitan Police became a model for the police forces in many countries, such as the United States, and most of the British Empire. Bobbies can still be found in many parts of the Commonwealth of Nations.
Other countries
Australia
Police motorcycles are commonly used for patrols and escorts, as seen here in Australia
In Australia, the first police force having centralised command as well as jurisdiction over an entire colony was the South Australia Police, formed in 1838 under Henry Inman.
However, whilst the New South Wales Police Force
was established in 1862, it was made up from a large number of policing
and military units operating within the then Colony of New South Wales
and traces its links back to the Royal Marines. The passing of the
Police Regulation Act of 1862 essentially tightly regulated and
centralised all of the police forces operating throughout the Colony of
New South Wales.
The New South Wales Police Force
remains the largest police force in Australia in terms of personnel and
physical resources. It is also the only police force that requires its
recruits to undertake university studies at the recruit level and has
the recruit pay for their own education.
Brazil
Brazil's National Public Security Force (Força Nacional de Segurança Pública)
In 1566, the first police investigator of Rio de Janeiro was recruited. By the 17th century, most captaincies already had local units with law enforcement functions. On July 9, 1775 a Cavalry Regiment was created in the state of Minas Gerais
for maintaining law and order. In 1808, the Portuguese royal family
relocated to Brazil, because of the French invasion of Portugal. King João VI established the "Intendência Geral de Polícia" (General Police Intendancy) for investigations. He also created a Royal Police Guard for Rio de Janeiro in 1809. In 1831, after independence, each province started organizing its local "military police", with order maintenance tasks. The Federal Railroad Police was created in 1852, Federal Highway Police, was established in 1928, and Federal Police in 1967.
Canada
Established in 1729, the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary (RNC) was the first policing service founded in Canada. The establishment of modern policing services in the Canadas
occurred during the 1830s, modelling their services after the London
Metropolitan Police, and adopting the ideas of the Peelian principles. The Toronto Police Service was established in 1834, whereas the Service de police de la Ville de Québec was established in 1840.
A national police service, the Dominion Police,
was founded in 1868. Initially the Dominion Police provided security
for parliament, but its responsibilities quickly grew. In 1870, Rupert's Land and the North-Western Territory
were incorporated into the country. In an effort to police its newly
acquired territory, the Canadian government established the North-West Mounted Police in 1873 (renamed Royal North-West Mounted Police in 1904). In 1920, the Dominion Police, and the Royal Northwest Mounted Police were amalgamated into the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP).
The RCMP provides federal law enforcement; and law enforcement in eight provinces, and all three territories. The provinces of Ontario, and Quebec maintain their own provincial police forces, the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP), and the Sûreté du Québec (SQ). Policing in Newfoundland and Labrador
is provided by the RCMP, and the RNC. The aforementioned services also
provides municipal policing, although larger Canadian municipalities may
establish form their own police service.
Lebanon
In Lebanon, modern police were established in 1861, with creation of the Gendarmerie.
India
Policemen on patrol in Khaki uniform in the Greater Chennai Police patrol car in India.
In India, the police are under the control of respective States and union territories and is known to be under State Police Services (SPS). The candidates selected for the SPS are usually posted as Deputy Superintendent of Police or Assistant Commissioner of Police once their probationary period ends. On prescribed satisfactory service in the SPS, the officers are nominated to the Indian Police Service. The service color is usually dark blue and red, while the uniform color is Khaki.
United States
In British North America,
policing was initially provided by local elected officials. For
instance, the New York Sheriff's Office was founded in 1626, and the Albany County Sheriff's Department in the 1660s. In the colonial period, policing was provided by elected sheriffs and local militias.
In the 1700s, the Province of Carolina (later North- and South Carolina) established slave patrols in order to prevent slave rebellions and enslaved people from escaping. For example, by 1785 the Charleston Guard and Watch had "a distinct chain of command, uniforms, sole responsibility for policing, salary, authorized use of force, and a focus on preventing 'crime'."
In 1789 the United States Marshals Service was established, followed by other federal services such as the U.S. Parks Police (1791) and U.S. Mint Police (1792). The first city police services were established in Philadelphia in 1751, Richmond, Virginia in 1807, Boston in 1838, and New York in 1845. The U.S. Secret Service was founded in 1865 and was for some time the main investigative body for the federal government.
A Deputy U.S. Marshal covers his fellow officers with an M4 carbine during a "knock-and-announce" procedure
In the American Old West,
law enforcement was carried out by local sheriffs, rangers, constables,
and federal marshals. There were also town marshals responsible for
serving civil and criminal warrants, maintaining the jails, and carrying
out arrests for petty crime.
In recent years, in addition to federal, state, and local forces, some special districts
have been formed to provide extra police protection in designated
areas. These districts may be known as neighborhood improvement
districts, crime prevention districts, or security districts.
Development of theory
Michel Foucault
claims that the contemporary concept of police as a paid and funded
functionary of the state was developed by German and French legal
scholars and practitioners in Public administration and Statistics in the 17th and early 18th centuries, most notably with Nicolas Delamare's Traité de la Police ("Treatise on the Police"), first published in 1705. The German Polizeiwissenschaft (Science of Police) first theorized by Philipp von Hörnigk a 17th-century Austrian Political economist and civil servant and much more famously by Johann Heinrich Gottlob Justi who produced an important theoretical work known as Cameral science on the formulation of police. Foucault cites Magdalene Humpert author of Bibliographie der Kameralwissenschaften
(1937) in which the author makes note of a substantial bibliography was
produced of over 4000 pieces of the practice of Polizeiwissenschaft
however, this maybe a mistranslation of Foucault's own work the actual
source of Magdalene Humpert states over 14,000 items were produced from
the 16th century dates ranging from 1520–1850.
As conceptualized by the Polizeiwissenschaft, according to Foucault the police had an administrative, economic and social duty ("procuring abundance"). It was in charge of demographic concerns and needed to be incorporated within the western political philosophy system of raison d'état and therefore giving the superficial appearance of empowering the population (and unwittingly supervising the population), which, according to mercantilist theory, was to be the main strength of the state. Thus, its functions largely overreached simple law enforcement activities and included public health concerns, urban planning (which was important because of the miasma theory of disease; thus, cemeteries were moved out of town, etc.), and surveillance of prices.
Jeremy Bentham, philosopher who advocated for the establishment of preventive police forces and influenced the reforms of Sir Robert Peel.
The concept of preventive policing, or policing to deter crime from
taking place, gained influence in the late 18th century. Police
Magistrate John Fielding, head of the Bow Street Runners, argued that "...it is much better to prevent even one man from being a rogue than apprehending and bringing forty to justice."
The Utilitarian philosopher, Jeremy Bentham, promoted the views of Italian Marquis Cesare Beccaria,
and disseminated a translated version of "Essay on Crime in
Punishment". Bentham espoused the guiding principle of "the greatest
good for the greatest number:
It is better to prevent crimes than to punish them. This is the chief aim of every good system of legislation, which is the art of leading men to the greatest possible happiness or to the least possible misery, according to calculation of all the goods and evils of life.
Patrick Colquhoun's influential work, A Treatise on the Police of the Metropolis (1797) was heavily influenced by Benthamite thought. Colquhoun's Thames River Police was founded on these principles, and in contrast to the Bow Street Runners,
acted as a deterrent by their continual presence on the riverfront, in
addition to being able to intervene if they spotted a crime in progress.
Edwin Chadwick's 1829 article, "Preventive police" in the London Review, argued that prevention ought to be the primary
concern of a police body, which was not the case in practice. The
reason, argued Chadwick, was that "A preventive police would act more
immediately by placing difficulties in obtaining the objects of
temptation." In contrast to a deterrent of punishment, a preventive
police force would deter criminality by making crime cost-ineffective –
"crime doesn't pay". In the second draft of his 1829 Police Act, the
"object" of the new Metropolitan Police, was changed by Robert Peel to
the "principal object," which was the "prevention of crime."
Later historians would attribute the perception of England's
"appearance of orderliness and love of public order" to the preventive
principle entrenched in Peel's police system.
Development of modern police forces around the world was
contemporary to the formation of the state, later defined by sociologist
Max Weber as achieving a "monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force" and which was primarily exercised by the police and the military. Marxist
theory situates the development of the modern state as part of the rise
of capitalism, in which the police are one component of the bourgeoisie's repressive apparatus for subjugating the working class. By contrast, the Peelian principles
argue that "the power of the police...is dependent on public approval
of their existence, actions and behavior", a philosophy known as policing by consent.
Personnel and organization
Police forces include both preventive (uniformed) police and detectives. Terminology varies from country to country. Police functions include protecting life and property, enforcing criminal law,
criminal investigations, regulating traffic, crowd control, public
safety duties, civil defense, emergency management, searching for
missing persons, lost property and other duties concerned with public
order. Regardless of size, police forces are generally organized as a hierarchy with multiple ranks. The exact structures and the names of rank vary considerably by country.
Uniformed police
Brazilian Federal Highway Police at work.
The police who wear uniforms make up the majority of a police service's personnel. Their main duty is to respond to calls to the emergency telephone number.
When not responding to these call-outs, they will do work aimed at
preventing crime, such as patrols. The uniformed police are known by
varying names such as preventive police, the uniform branch/division,
administrative police, order police, the patrol bureau/division or
patrol. In Australia and the United Kingdom, patrol personnel are also
known as "general duties" officers. Atypically, Brazil's preventive police are known as Military Police.
As implied by the name, uniformed police wear uniforms. They
perform functions that require an immediate recognition of an officer's
legal authority and a potential need for force. Most commonly this means
intervening to stop a crime in progress and securing the scene of a
crime that has already happened. Besides dealing with crime, these
officers may also manage and monitor traffic, carry out community policing duties, maintain order at public events or carry out searches for missing people (in 2012, the latter accounted for 14% of police time in the United Kingdom). As most of these duties must be available as a 24/7 service, uniformed police are required to do shift work.
Detectives
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Unmarked police cars may be used by detectives or officers to carry out their duties unnoticed by the public
Police detectives
are responsible for investigations and detective work. Detectives may
be called Investigations Police, Judiciary/Judicial Police, and Criminal
Police. In the UK, they are often referred to by the name of their department, the Criminal Investigation Department (CID). Detectives typically make up roughly 15–25% of a police service's personnel.
Detectives, in contrast to uniformed police, typically wear
'business attire' in bureaucratic and investigative functions where a
uniformed presence would be either a distraction or intimidating, but a
need to establish police authority still exists. "Plainclothes" officers
dress in attire consistent with that worn by the general public for
purposes of blending in.
In some cases, police are assigned to work "undercover", where they conceal their police identity to investigate crimes, such as organized crime or narcotics crime, that are unsolvable by other means. In some cases this type of policing shares aspects with espionage.
The relationship between detective and uniformed branches varies
by country. In the United States, there is high variation within the
country itself. Many US police departments require detectives to spend
some time on temporary assignments in the patrol division. The argument is that rotating officers helps the detectives to better understand the uniformed officers' work, to promote cross-training in a wider variety of skills, and prevent "cliques" that can contribute to corruption or other unethical behavior.
Conversely, some countries regard detective work as being an entirely
separate profession, with detectives working in separate agencies and
recruited without having to serve in uniform. A common compromise in
English-speaking countries is that most detectives are recruited from
the uniformed branch, but once qualified they tend to spend the rest of
their careers in the detective branch.
Another point of variation is whether detectives have extra status. In some forces, such as the New York Police Department and Philadelphia Police Department, a regular detective holds a higher rank than a regular police officer. In others, such as British police forces and Canadian police forces,
a regular detective has equal status with regular uniformed officers.
Officers still have to take exams to move to the detective branch, but
the move is regarded as being a specialization, rather than a promotion.
Volunteers and auxiliary police
Police services often include part-time or volunteer officers, some
of whom have other jobs outside policing. These may be paid positions or
entirely volunteer. These are known by a variety of names, such as
reserves, auxiliary police or special constables.
Other volunteer organizations work with the police and perform some of their duties. Groups in the U.S. including Retired and Senior Volunteer Program, Community Emergency Response Team and the Boy Scout's Police Explorers provide training, traffic and crowd control, disaster response and other policing duties. In the U.S., the Volunteers in Police Service program assists over 200,000 volunteers in almost 2,000 programs. Volunteers may also work on the support staff. Examples of these schemes are Volunteers in Police Service in the US, Police Support Volunteers in the UK and Volunteers in Policing in New South Wales.
Specialized units
After the 2008 Mumbai attacks, the Mumbai Police created specialized, quick response teams to deal with terror threats.
Specialized preventive and detective groups, or Specialist Investigation Departments
exist within many law enforcement organizations either for dealing with
particular types of crime, such as traffic law enforcement, K9, crash
investigation, homicide, or fraud; or for situations requiring specialized skills, such as underwater search, aviation, explosive device disposal ("bomb squad"), and computer crime.
Most larger jurisdictions also employ specially selected and trained quasi-military units
armed with military-grade weapons for the purposes of dealing with
particularly violent situations beyond the capability of a patrol
officer response, including high-risk warrant service and barricaded
suspects. In the United States these units go by a variety of names, but
are commonly known as SWAT (Special Weapons And Tactics) teams.
In counterinsurgency-type campaigns, select and specially trained units of police armed and equipped as light infantry have been designated as police field forces who perform paramilitary-type patrols and ambushes whilst retaining their police powers in areas that were highly dangerous.
Because their situational mandate typically focuses on removing
innocent bystanders from dangerous people and dangerous situations, not
violent resolution, they are often equipped with non-lethal tactical
tools like chemical agents, "flashbang" and concussion grenades, and rubber bullets. The Specialist Firearms Command (CO19)
of the Metropolitan Police in London is a group of armed police used in
dangerous situations including hostage taking, armed robbery/assault
and terrorism.
Administrative duties
Police may have administrative duties that are not directly related
to enforcing the law, such as issuing firearms licenses. The extent that
police have these functions varies among countries, with police in France, Germany, and other continental European countries handling such tasks to a greater extent than British counterparts.
Military police
A Police Service of Northern Ireland barracks in Northern Ireland. The high walls are to protect against mortar bomb attacks.
Military police may refer to:
- a section of the military solely responsible for policing the armed forces (referred to as provosts)
- a section of the military responsible for policing in both the armed forces and in the civilian population (most gendarmeries, such as the French Gendarmerie, the Italian Carabinieri, the Spanish Guardia Civil and the Portuguese Republican National Guard also known as GNR)
- a section of the military solely responsible for policing the civilian population (such as the Romanian Gendarmerie)
- the civilian preventive police of a Brazilian state (Policia Militar)
- a special military law enforcement service, like the Russian Military Police
Religious police
Two
members of the Taliban religious police (Amr bil Ma-roof, or Department
for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice) beating a woman for
removing her burqa in public.
Some Islamic societies have religious police, who enforce the application of Islamic Sharia law.
Their authority may include the power to arrest unrelated men and women
caught socializing, anyone engaged in homosexual behavior or
prostitution; to enforce Islamic dress codes, and store closures during Islamic prayer time.
They enforce Muslim dietary laws, prohibit the consumption or sale of alcoholic beverages and pork,
and seize banned consumer products and media regarded as un-Islamic,
such as CDs/DVDs of various Western musical groups, television shows and
film. In Saudi Arabia, the Mutaween actively prevent the practice or proselytizing of non-Islamic religions within Saudi Arabia, where they are banned.
International policing
Most countries are members of the International Criminal Police Organization
(Interpol), established to detect and fight transnational crime and
provide for international co-operation and co-ordination of other police
activities, such as notifying relatives of the death of foreign
nationals. Interpol does not conduct investigations or arrests by
itself, but only serves as a central point for information on crime,
suspects and criminals. Political crimes are excluded from its competencies.
The terms international policing, transnational policing, and/or
global policing began to be used from the early 1990s onwards to
describe forms of policing that transcended the boundaries of the
sovereign nation-state (Nadelmann, 1993), (Sheptycki, 1995).
These terms refer in variable ways to practices and forms for policing
that, in some sense, transcend national borders. This includes a variety
of practices, but international police cooperation, criminal
intelligence exchange between police agencies working in different
nation-states, and police development-aid to weak, failed or failing
states are the three types that have received the most scholarly
attention.
Historical studies reveal that policing agents have undertaken a
variety of cross-border police missions for many years (Deflem, 2002).
For example, in the 19th century a number of European policing agencies
undertook cross-border surveillance because of concerns about anarchist
agitators and other political radicals. A notable example of this was
the occasional surveillance by Prussian police of Karl Marx
during the years he remained resident in London. The interests of
public police agencies in cross-border co-operation in the control of
political radicalism and ordinary law crime were primarily initiated in
Europe, which eventually led to the establishment of Interpol before the Second World War.
There are also many interesting examples of cross-border policing under
private auspices and by municipal police forces that date back to the
19th century (Nadelmann, 1993).
It has been established that modern policing has transgressed national
boundaries from time to time almost from its inception. It is also
generally agreed that in the post–Cold War era this type of practice became more significant and frequent (Sheptycki, 2000).
Not a lot of empirical work on the practices of
inter/transnational information and intelligence sharing has been
undertaken. A notable exception is James Sheptycki's study of police cooperation in the English Channel region (2002),
which provides a systematic content analysis of information exchange
files and a description of how these transnational information and
intelligence exchanges are transformed into police case-work. The study
showed that transnational police information sharing was routinized in
the cross-Channel region from 1968 on the basis of agreements directly
between the police agencies and without any formal agreement between the
countries concerned. By 1992, with the signing of the Schengen Treaty, which formalized aspects of police information exchange across the territory of the European Union,
there were worries that much, if not all, of this intelligence sharing
was opaque, raising questions about the efficacy of the accountability
mechanisms governing police information sharing in Europe (Joubert and
Bevers, 1996).
Studies of this kind outside of Europe are even rarer, so it is
difficult to make generalizations, but one small-scale study that
compared transnational police information and intelligence sharing
practices at specific cross-border locations in North America and Europe
confirmed that low visibility of police information and intelligence
sharing was a common feature (Alain, 2001). Intelligence-led policing is now common practice in most advanced countries (Ratcliffe, 2007)
and it is likely that police intelligence sharing and information
exchange has a common morphology around the world (Ratcliffe, 2007).
James Sheptycki has analyzed the effects of the new information
technologies on the organization of policing-intelligence and suggests
that a number of 'organizational pathologies' have arisen that make the
functioning of security-intelligence processes in transnational policing
deeply problematic. He argues that transnational police information
circuits help to "compose the panic scenes of the security-control
society". The paradoxical effect is that, the harder policing agencies work to produce security, the greater are feelings of insecurity.
Police development-aid to weak, failed or failing states is
another form of transnational policing that has garnered attention. This
form of transnational policing plays an increasingly important role in United Nations peacekeeping
and this looks set to grow in the years ahead, especially as the
international community seeks to develop the rule of law and reform
security institutions in States recovering from conflict (Goldsmith and
Sheptycki, 2007)
With transnational police development-aid the imbalances of power
between donors and recipients are stark and there are questions about
the applicability and transportability of policing models between
jurisdictions (Hills, 2009).
Perhaps the greatest question regarding the future development of transnational policing is: in whose interest is it?
At a more practical level, the question translates into one about how
to make transnational policing institutions democratically accountable
(Sheptycki, 2004).
For example, according to the Global Accountability Report for 2007
(Lloyd, et al. 2007) Interpol had the lowest scores in its category
(IGOs), coming in tenth with a score of 22% on overall accountability
capabilities (p. 19).
As this report points out, and the existing academic literature on
transnational policing seems to confirm, this is a secretive area and
one not open to civil society involvement.
Equipment
Weapons
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In many jurisdictions, police officers carry firearms, primarily handguns, in the normal course of their duties. In the United Kingdom (except Northern Ireland), Iceland, Ireland, Norway, New Zealand,
and Malta, with the exception of specialist units, officers do not
carry firearms as a matter of course. Norwegian police carry firearms in
their vehicles, but not on their duty belts, and must obtain
authorisation before the weapons can be removed from the vehicle.
Police often have specialist units for handling armed offenders,
and similar dangerous situations, and can (depending on local laws), in
some extreme circumstances, call on the military (since Military Aid to the Civil Power is a role of many armed forces). Perhaps the most high-profile example of this was, in 1980 the Metropolitan Police handing control of the Iranian Embassy Siege to the Special Air Service.
They can also be armed with non-lethal (more accurately known as "less than lethal" or "less-lethal" given that they can still be deadly) weaponry, particularly for riot control. Non-lethal weapons include batons, tear gas, riot control agents, rubber bullets, riot shields, water cannons and electroshock weapons. Police officers typically carry handcuffs to restrain suspects. The use of firearms or deadly force
is typically a last resort only to be used when necessary to save human
life, although some jurisdictions (such as Brazil) allow its use
against fleeing felons and escaped convicts. American police are allowed
to use deadly force simply if they "think their life is in danger." A "shoot-to-kill" policy was recently introduced in South Africa, which allows police to use deadly force against any person who poses a significant threat to them or civilians. With the country having one of the highest rates of violent crime, president Jacob Zuma states that South Africa needs to handle crime differently from other countries.
Communications
Modern police forces make extensive use of two-way radio
communications equipment, carried both on the person and installed in
vehicles, to co-ordinate their work, share information, and get help
quickly. In recent years, vehicle-installed mobile data terminals
have enhanced the ability of police communications, enabling easier
dispatching of calls, criminal background checks on persons of interest
to be completed in a matter of seconds, and updating officers' daily
activity log and other, required reports on a real-time basis. Other
common pieces of police equipment include flashlights/torches, whistles, police notebooks and "ticket books" or citations.
Some police departments have developed advanced computerized data
display and communication systems to bring real time data to officers,
one example being the NYPD's Domain Awareness System.
Vehicles
A Ford Crown Victoria, one of the most recognizable models of American police car. This unit belongs to US Capitol Police.
Police vehicles are used for detaining, patrolling and transporting.
The average police patrol vehicle is a specially modified, four door sedan
(saloon in British English). Police vehicles are usually marked with
appropriate logos and are equipped with sirens and flashing light bars
to aid in making others aware of police presence.
Unmarked vehicles are used primarily for sting operations or
apprehending criminals without alerting them to their presence. Some
police forces use unmarked or minimally marked cars for traffic law
enforcement, since drivers slow down at the sight of marked police
vehicles and unmarked vehicles make it easier for officers to catch
speeders and traffic violators. This practice is controversial, with for
example, New York State banning this practice in 1996 on the grounds
that it endangered motorists who might be pulled over by people impersonating police officers.
Motorcycles
are also commonly used, particularly in locations that a car may not be
able to reach, to control potential public order situations involving
meetings of motorcyclists and often in escort duties where motorcycle
police officers can quickly clear a path for escorted vehicles. Bicycle
patrols are used in some areas because they allow for more open
interaction with the public. Bicycles are also commonly used by riot
police to create makeshift barricades against protesters.
In addition, their quieter operation can facilitate approaching
suspects unawares and can help in pursuing them attempting to escape on
foot.
Police forces use an array of specialty vehicles such as
helicopters, airplanes, watercraft, mobile command posts, vans, trucks,
all-terrain vehicles, motorcycles, and armored vehicles.
Other safety equipment
Police cars may also contain fire extinguishers or defibrillators.
Strategies
The advent of the police car, two-way radio, and telephone in the early 20th century transformed policing into a reactive strategy that focused on responding to calls for service. With this transformation, police command and control became more centralized.
In the United States, August Vollmer introduced other reforms, including education requirements for police officers. O.W. Wilson, a student of Vollmer, helped reduce corruption and introduce professionalism in Wichita, Kansas, and later in the Chicago Police Department.
Strategies employed by O.W. Wilson included rotating officers from
community to community to reduce their vulnerability to corruption,
establishing of a non-partisan police board to help govern the police
force, a strict merit system
for promotions within the department, and an aggressive recruiting
drive with higher police salaries to attract professionally qualified
officers. During the professionalism era of policing, law enforcement agencies concentrated on dealing with felonies and other serious crime and conducting visible car patrols in between, rather than broader focus on crime prevention.
The Kansas City Preventive Patrol study
in the early 1970s showed flaws in this strategy. It found that aimless
car patrols did little to deter crime and often went unnoticed by the
public. Patrol officers in cars had insufficient contact and interaction
with the community, leading to a social rift between the two. In the 1980s and 1990s, many law enforcement agencies began to adopt community policing strategies, and others adopted problem-oriented policing.
Broken windows' policing was another, related approach introduced in the 1980s by James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling,
who suggested that police should pay greater attention to minor
"quality of life" offenses and disorderly conduct. The concept behind
this method is simple: broken windows, graffiti, and other physical
destruction or degradation of property create an environment in which
crime and disorder is more likely. The presence of broken windows and
graffiti sends a message that authorities do not care and are not trying
to correct problems in these areas. Therefore, correcting these small
problems prevents more serious criminal activity. The theory was popularised in the early 1990s by police chief William J. Bratton and New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani.
Building upon these earlier models, intelligence-led policing
has also become an important strategy. Intelligence-led policing and
problem-oriented policing are complementary strategies, both of which
involve systematic use of information.
Although it still lacks a universally accepted definition, the crux of
intelligence-led policing is an emphasis on the collection and analysis
of information to guide police operations, rather than the reverse.
A related development is evidence-based policing. In a similar vein to evidence-based policy,
evidence-based policing is the use of controlled experiments to find
which methods of policing are more effective. Leading advocates of
evidence-based policing include the criminologist Lawrence W. Sherman and philanthropist Jerry Lee. Findings from controlled experiments include the Minneapolis Domestic Violence Experiment, evidence that patrols deter crime if they are concentrated in crime hotspots and that restricting police powers to shoot suspects does not cause an increase in crime or violence against police officers.
Use of experiments to assess the usefulness of strategies has been
endorsed by many police services and institutions, including the US Police Foundation and the UK College of Policing.
Power restrictions
In many nations, criminal procedure law has been developed to regulate officers' discretion, so that they do not arbitrarily or unjustly exercise their powers of arrest, search and seizure, and use of force. In the United States, Miranda v. Arizona led to the widespread use of Miranda warnings or constitutional warnings.
In Miranda the court created safeguards against
self-incriminating statements made after an arrest. The court held that
"The prosecution may not use statements, whether exculpatory or
inculpatory, stemming from questioning initiated by law enforcement
officers after a person has been taken into custody or otherwise
deprived of his freedom of action in any significant way, unless it
demonstrates the use of procedural safeguards effective to secure the
Fifth Amendment's privilege against self-incrimination"
Police in the United States are also prohibited from holding
criminal suspects for more than a reasonable amount of time (usually
24–48 hours) before arraignment, using torture, abuse or physical threats to extract confessions,
using excessive force to effect an arrest, and searching suspects'
bodies or their homes without a warrant obtained upon a showing of probable cause. The four exceptions to the constitutional requirement of a search warrant are:
- Consent
- Search incident to arrest
- Motor vehicle searches
- Exigent circumstances
In Terry v. Ohio (1968) the court divided seizure into two parts, the investigatory stop
and arrest. The court further held that during an investigatory stop a
police officer's search " [is] confined to what [is] minimally necessary
to determine whether [a suspect] is armed, and the intrusion, which
[is] made for the sole purpose of protecting himself and others nearby,
[is] confined to ascertaining the presence of weapons" (U.S. Supreme
Court). Before Terry, every police encounter constituted an arrest,
giving the police officer the full range of search authority. Search
authority during a Terry stop (investigatory stop) is limited to weapons
only.
Using deception for confessions is permitted, but not coercion.
There are exceptions or exigent circumstances such as an articulated
need to disarm a suspect or searching a suspect who has already been
arrested (Search Incident to an Arrest). The Posse Comitatus Act severely restricts the use of the military for police activity, giving added importance to police SWAT units.
British police officers are governed by similar rules, such as those introduced to England and Wales under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984
(PACE), but generally have greater powers. They may, for example,
legally search any suspect who has been arrested, or their vehicles,
home or business premises, without a warrant, and may seize anything
they find in a search as evidence.
All police officers in the United Kingdom, whatever their actual
rank, are 'constables' in terms of their legal position. This means that
a newly appointed constable has the same arrest powers as a Chief
Constable or Commissioner. However, certain higher ranks have additional
powers to authorize certain aspects of police operations, such as a
power to authorize a search of a suspect's house (section 18 PACE in
England and Wales) by an officer of the rank of Inspector, or the power
to authorize a suspect's detention beyond 24 hours by a Superintendent.
Conduct, accountability and public confidence
Police services commonly include units for investigating crimes
committed by the police themselves. These units are typically called
Inspectorate-General, or in the US, "internal affairs". In some countries separate organizations outside the police exist for such purposes, such as the British Independent Office for Police Conduct. However, due to American laws around Qualified Immunity, it has become increasingly difficult to investigate and charge police misconduct & crimes.
Likewise, some state and local jurisdictions, for example, Springfield, Illinois have similar outside review organizations. The Police Service of Northern Ireland is investigated by the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland, an external agency set up as a result of the Patten report into policing the province. In the Republic of Ireland the Garda Síochána is investigated by the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission, an independent commission that replaced the Garda Complaints Board in May 2007.
The Special Investigations Unit of Ontario, Canada,
is one of only a few civilian agencies around the world responsible for
investigating circumstances involving police and civilians that have
resulted in a death, serious injury, or allegations of sexual assault. The agency has made allegations of insufficient cooperation from various police services hindering their investigations.
In Hong Kong, any allegations of corruption within the police will be investigated by the Independent Commission Against Corruption and the Independent Police Complaints Council, two agencies which are independent of the police force.
Due to a long-term decline in public confidence for law
enforcement in the United States, body cameras worn by police officers
are under consideration.
Use of force
A General Directorate of Security riot control officer uses force on a protester in Gezi Park protests.
Police forces also find themselves under criticism for their use of force, particularly deadly force. Specifically, tension increases when a police officer of one ethnic group harms or kills a suspect of another one. In the United States, such events occasionally spark protests and accusations of racism against police and allegations that police departments practice racial profiling.
In the United States since the 1960s, concern over such issues
has increasingly weighed upon law enforcement agencies, courts and
legislatures at every level of government. Incidents such as the 1965 Watts Riots, the videotaped 1991 beating by Los Angeles Police officers of Rodney King, and the riot
following their acquittal have been suggested by some people to be
evidence that U.S. police are dangerously lacking in appropriate
controls.
The fact that this trend has occurred contemporaneously with the rise of the civil rights movement, the "War on Drugs",
and a precipitous rise in violent crime from the 1960s to the 1990s has
made questions surrounding the role, administration and scope of police
authority increasingly complicated.
Police departments and the local governments that oversee them in
some jurisdictions have attempted to mitigate some of these issues
through community outreach programs and community policing
to make the police more accessible to the concerns of local
communities, by working to increase hiring diversity, by updating
training of police in their responsibilities to the community and under
the law, and by increased oversight within the department or by civilian
commissions.
In cases in which such measures have been lacking or absent, civil lawsuits have been brought by the United States Department of Justice against local law enforcement agencies, authorized under the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act. This has compelled local departments to make organizational changes, enter into consent decree settlements to adopt such measures, and submit to oversight by the Justice Department.
In May 2020, a global movement
to increase scrutiny on police violence and defund militarization
efforts grew in popularity—starting in Minneapolis, Minnesota with the killing of George Floyd. Calls for full defunding of the police and abolition of the police gained larger support as more criticized systemic racism in policing.
Protection of individuals
Since 1855, the Supreme Court of the United States
has consistently ruled that law enforcement officers have no duty to
protect any individual, despite the motto "protect and serve". Their
duty is to enforce the law in general. The first such case was in 1855. The most recent in 2005: Castle Rock v. Gonzales.
In contrast, the police are entitled to protect private rights in
some jurisdictions. To ensure that the police would not interfere in
the regular competencies of the courts of law, some police acts require
that the police may only interfere in such cases where protection from
courts cannot be obtained in time, and where, without interference of
the police, the realization of the private right would be impeded.
This would, for example, allow police to establish a restaurant guest's
identity and forward it to the innkeeper in a case where the guest
cannot pay the bill at nighttime because his wallet had just been stolen
from the restaurant table.
In addition, there are federal law enforcement agencies in the United States
whose mission includes providing protection for executives such as the
president and accompanying family members, visiting foreign dignitaries,
and other high-ranking individuals. Such agencies include the U.S. Secret Service and the U.S. Park Police.
By country
Police forces are usually organized and funded by some level of
government. The level of government responsible for policing varies from
place to place, and may be at the national, regional or local level.
Some countries have police forces that serve the same territory, with
their jurisdiction depending on the type of crime or other circumstances. Other countries, such as Austria, Chile, Israel, New Zealand, the Philippines, South Africa and Sweden, have a single national police force.
In some places with multiple national police forces, one common
arrangement is to have a civilian police force and a paramilitary gendarmerie, such as the Police Nationale and National Gendarmerie in France. The French policing system spread to other countries through the Napoleonic Wars and the French colonial empire. Another example is the Policía Nacional and Guardia Civil in Spain.
In both France and Spain, the civilian force polices urban areas and
the paramilitary force polices rural areas. Italy has a similar
arrangement with the Polizia di Stato and Carabinieri,
though their jurisdictions overlap more. Some countries have separate
agencies for uniformed police and detectives, such as the Military Police and Civil Police in Brazil and the Carabineros and Investigations Police in Chile.
A wreath laying team from the Armenian Police's Honour Guard Battalion at Tsitsernakaberd.
Other countries have sub-national police forces, but for the most
part their jurisdictions do not overlap. In many countries, especially federations,
there may be two or more tiers of police force, each serving different
levels of government and enforcing different subsets of the law. In Australia and Germany,
the majority of policing is carried out by state (i.e. provincial)
police forces, which are supplemented by a federal police force. Though
not a federation, the United Kingdom
has a similar arrangement, where policing is primarily the
responsibility of a regional police force and specialist units exist at
the national level. In Canada, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police
(RCMP) are the federal police, while municipalities can decide whether
to run a local police service or to contract local policing duties to a
larger one. Most urban areas have a local police service, while most
rural areas contract it to the RCMP, or to the provincial police in Ontario and Quebec.
The United States has a highly decentralized and fragmented system of law enforcement, with over 17,000 state and local law enforcement agencies. These agencies include local police, county law enforcement (often in the form of a sheriff's office, or county police), state police and federal law enforcement agencies. Federal agencies, such as the FBI,
only have jurisdiction over federal crimes or those that involve more
than one state. Other federal agencies have jurisdiction over a specific
type of crime. Examples include the Federal Protective Service, which patrols and protects government buildings; the postal police, which protect postal buildings, vehicles and items; the Park Police, which protect national parks; and Amtrak Police, which patrol Amtrak
stations and trains. There are also some government agencies that
perform police functions in addition to other duties, such as the Coast Guard.
