
The police are
a constituted body of
people
The term "the people" refers to the public or Common people, common mass of people of a polity. As such it is a concept of human rights law, international law as well as constitutional law, particularly used for claims of popular sovereignty. I ...
empowered by a
state
State most commonly refers to:
* State (polity), a centralized political organization that regulates law and society within a territory
**Sovereign state, a sovereign polity in international law, commonly referred to as a country
**Nation state, a ...
with the aim of
enforcing the law and protecting the
public order as well as the
public
In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociology, sociological concept of the ''Öf ...
itself. This commonly includes ensuring the
safety
Safety is the state of being protected from harm or other danger. Safety can also refer to the control of recognized hazards in order to achieve an acceptable level of risk.
Meanings
The word 'safety' entered the English language in the 1 ...
,
health
Health has a variety of definitions, which have been used for different purposes over time. In general, it refers to physical and emotional well-being, especially that associated with normal functioning of the human body, absent of disease, p ...
, and possessions of citizens, and to prevent
crime
In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a State (polity), state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definiti ...
and
civil disorder
Civil disorder, also known as civil disturbance, civil unrest, civil strife, or turmoil, are situations when law enforcement and security forces struggle to Public order policing, maintain public order or tranquility.
Causes
Any number of thin ...
. Their lawful powers encompass
arrest
An arrest is the act of apprehending and taking a person into custody (legal protection or control), usually because the person has been suspected of or observed committing a crime. After being taken into custody, the person can be question ...
and the use of force legitimized by the state via the
monopoly on violence
In political philosophy, a monopoly on violence or monopoly on the legal use of force is the property of a polity that is the only entity in its jurisdiction to legitimately use force, and thus the supreme authority of that area.
While the mon ...
. The term is most commonly associated with the police forces of a
sovereign state
A sovereign state is a State (polity), state that has the highest authority over a territory. It is commonly understood that Sovereignty#Sovereignty and independence, a sovereign state is independent. When referring to a specific polity, the ter ...
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
A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. Militaries are typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with their members identifiable by a d ...
and other organizations involved in the defense of the state against foreign aggressors; however,
gendarmerie
A gendarmerie () is a paramilitary or military force with law enforcement duties among the civilian population. The term ''gendarme'' () is derived from the medieval French expression ', which translates to " men-at-arms" (). In France and so ...
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
A social class or social stratum is a grouping of people into a set of Dominance hierarchy, hierarchical social categories, the most common being the working class and the Bourgeoisie, capitalist class. Membership of a social class can for exam ...
and the protection of
private property
Private property is a legal designation for the ownership of property by non-governmental Capacity (law), legal entities. Private property is distinguishable from public property, which is owned by a state entity, and from Collective ownership ...
. Police forces have become ubiquitous and a necessity in complex modern societies. However, their role can sometimes be controversial, as they may be involved to varying degrees in
corruption
Corruption is a form of dishonesty or a criminal offense that is undertaken by a person or an organization that is entrusted in a position of authority to acquire illicit benefits or abuse power for one's gain. Corruption may involve activities ...
,
brutality, and the
enforcement of authoritarian rule.
A police force may also be referred to as a police department, police service,
constabulary
Constabulary may have several definitions:
*A civil, non-paramilitary (police) force consisting of police officers called constables. This is the usual definition in the United Kingdom, in which all county police forces once bore the title (and s ...
,
gendarmerie
A gendarmerie () is a paramilitary or military force with law enforcement duties among the civilian population. The term ''gendarme'' () is derived from the medieval French expression ', which translates to " men-at-arms" (). In France and so ...
,
crime prevention
Crime prevention refers to strategies and measures that seek to reduce the risk of crime occurring by intervening before a crime has been committed. It encompasses many approaches, including developmental, situational, community-based and crimin ...
, protective services,
law enforcement agency
A law enforcement agency (LEA) is any government agency responsible for law enforcement within a specific jurisdiction through the employment and deployment of law enforcement officers and their resources. The most common type of law enforcement ...
, civil guard, or civic guard. Members may be referred to as
police officer
A police officer (also called policeman or policewoman, cop, officer or constable) is a Warrant (law), warranted law employee of a police, police force. In most countries, ''police officer'' is a generic term not specifying a particular rank. ...
s,
troopers,
sheriff
A sheriff is a government official, with varying duties, existing in some countries with historical ties to England where the office originated. There is an analogous, although independently developed, office in Iceland, the , which is common ...
s,
constable
A constable is a person holding a particular office, most commonly in law enforcement. The office of constable can vary significantly in different jurisdictions. ''Constable'' is commonly the rank of an officer within a police service. Other peo ...
s,
rangers,
peace officer
A law enforcement officer (LEO), or police officer or peace officer in North American English, is a public-sector or private-sector employee whose duties primarily involve the enforcement of laws, protecting life & property, keeping the peace, ...
s 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
A slang is a vocabulary (words, phrases, and linguistic usages) of an informal register, common in everyday conversation but avoided in formal writing and speech. It also often refers to the language exclusively used by the members of pa ...
terms exist for the police. Many
slang terms for police officers are decades or centuries old with lost etymologies. 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, originally in a range of senses encompassing '(public) policy; state; public order', the word ''police'' comes from
Middle French
Middle French () is a historical division of the French language that covers the period from the mid-14th to the early 17th centuries. It is a period of transition during which:
* the French language became clearly distinguished from the other co ...
('public order, administration, government'), in turn from
Latin
Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
, which is the
romanization
In linguistics, romanization is the conversion of text from a different writing system to the Latin script, Roman (Latin) script, or a system for doing so. Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written text, and tra ...
of the
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...
() 'citizenship, administration, civil polity'. This is derived from () 'city'.
History
Ancient
China
Law enforcement in
ancient China
The history of China spans several millennia across a wide geographical area. Each region now considered part of the Chinese world has experienced periods of unity, fracture, prosperity, and strife. Chinese civilization first emerged in the Y ...
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
The Spring and Autumn period () was a period in History of China, Chinese history corresponding roughly to the first half of the Eastern Zhou (256 BCE), characterized by the gradual erosion of royal power as local lords nominally subject t ...
. 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.
Babylonia
In
Babylonia
Babylonia (; , ) was an Ancient history, ancient Akkadian language, Akkadian-speaking state and cultural area based in the city of Babylon in central-southern Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq and parts of Kuwait, Syria and Iran). It emerged as a ...
, 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 , who were present in both cities and rural settlements. A was responsible for investigating petty crimes and carrying out arrests.
Egypt
In
ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt () was a cradle of civilization concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in Northeast Africa. It emerged from prehistoric Egypt around 3150BC (according to conventional Egyptian chronology), when Upper and Lower E ...
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, warriors 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
The First Intermediate Period, described as a 'dark period' in ancient Egyptian history, spanned approximately 125 years, c. 2181–2055 BC, after the end of the Old Kingdom of Egypt, Old Kingdom. It comprises the seventh Dynasty, Seventh (altho ...
, 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
The Nile (also known as the Nile River or River Nile) is a major north-flowing river in northeastern Africa. It flows into the Mediterranean Sea. The Nile is the longest river in Africa. It has historically been considered the longest river i ...
, and guarding administrative buildings. By the Eighteenth Dynasty of the New Kingdom period, an elite desert-ranger police force called the
Medjay was used to protect valuable areas, especially areas of pharaonic interest like capital cities, royal cemeteries, and the borders of Egypt. Though they are best known for their protection of the royal palaces and tombs in
Thebes and the surrounding areas, the Medjay were used throughout
Upper and
Lower Egypt
Lower Egypt ( ') is the northernmost region of Egypt, which consists of the fertile Nile Delta between Upper Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea, from El Aiyat, south of modern-day Cairo, and Dahshur. Historically, the Nile River split into sev ...
. Each regional unit had its own captain. The police forces of ancient Egypt 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.
Greece
In
ancient Greece
Ancient Greece () was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity (), that comprised a loose collection of culturally and linguistically r ...
, publicly owned slaves were used by magistrates as police. In
Athens
Athens ( ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Greece, largest city of Greece. A significant coastal urban area in the Mediterranean, Athens is also the capital of the Attica (region), Attica region and is the southe ...
, the
Scythian Archers (the 'rod-bearers'), a group of about 300 Scythian slaves, 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. Athenian police forces were supervised by the
Areopagus
The Areopagus () is a prominent rock outcropping located northwest of the Acropolis in Athens, Greece. Its English name is the Late Latin composite form of the Greek name Areios Pagos, translated "Hill of Ares" (). The name ''Areopagus'' also r ...
. In
Sparta
Sparta was a prominent city-state in Laconia in ancient Greece. In antiquity, the city-state was known as Lacedaemon (), while the name Sparta referred to its main settlement in the Evrotas Valley, valley of Evrotas (river), Evrotas rive ...
, the
Ephor
The ephors were a board of five magistrates in ancient Sparta. They had an extensive range of judicial, religious, legislative, and military powers, and could shape Sparta's home and foreign affairs.
The word "''ephors''" (Ancient Greek ''éph ...
s were in charge of maintaining public order as judges, and they used Sparta's
Hippeis, a 300-member Royal guard of honor, as their enforcers. There were separate authorities supervising women, children, and agricultural issues. Sparta also had a secret police force called the
crypteia to watch the large population of
helots
The helots (; , ''heílotes'') were a subjugated population that constituted a majority of the population of Laconia and Messenia – the territories ruled by Sparta. There has been controversy since antiquity as to their exact characteristic ...
, or slaves.
Rome
In the
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire ruled the Mediterranean and much of Europe, Western Asia and North Africa. The Roman people, Romans conquered most of this during the Roman Republic, Republic, and it was ruled by emperors following Octavian's assumption of ...
, the army played a major role in providing security. Roman soldiers detached from their legions and posted among civilians carried out law enforcement tasks. The
Praetorian Guard
The Praetorian Guard (Latin language, Latin: ''cohortes praetoriae'') was the imperial guard of the Imperial Roman army that served various roles for the Roman emperor including being a bodyguard unit, counterintelligence, crowd control and ga ...
, an elite army unit which was primarily an Imperial bodyguard and intelligence-gathering unit, could also act as a riot police force if required. Local watchmen were hired by cities to provide some extra security.
Lictors, civil servants whose primary duty was to act as bodyguards to magistrates who held ''
imperium
In ancient Rome, ''imperium'' was a form of authority held by a citizen to control a military or governmental entity. It is distinct from '' auctoritas'' and '' potestas'', different and generally inferior types of power in the Roman Republic a ...
'', could carry out arrests and inflict punishments at their magistrate's command. Magistrates such as ''
tresviri capitales'', and 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
Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus (born Gaius Octavius; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian (), was the founder of the Roman Empire, who reigned as the first Roman emperor from 27 BC until his death in A ...
, 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 , who acted as night watchmen and firemen. In addition to firefighting, their duties included apprehending petty criminals, capturing runaway slaves, guarding the baths at night, and stopping disturbances of the peace. As well as the city of Rome, ''vigiles'' were also stationed in the harbor cities of
Ostia and
Portus. Augustus also formed the
Urban Cohorts to deal with gangs and civil disturbances in the city of Rome, and as a counterbalance to the Praetorian Guard's enormous power in the city. They were led by the
urban prefect. Urban Cohort units were later formed in
Roman Carthage and
Lugdunum
Lugdunum (also spelled Lugudunum, ; modern Lyon, France) was an important Colonia (Roman), Roman city in Gaul, established on the current site of Lyon, France, Lyon.
The Roman city was founded in 43 BC by Lucius Munatius Plancus, but cont ...
.
India
Law enforcement systems existed in the various kingdoms and empires of
ancient India
Anatomically modern humans first arrived on the Indian subcontinent between 73,000 and 55,000 years ago. The earliest known human remains in South Asia date to 30,000 years ago. Sedentism, Sedentariness began in South Asia around 7000 BCE; ...
. The
Apastamba Dharmasutra
''Āpastamba Dharmasūtra'' (Sanskrit: आपस्तम्ब धर्मसूत्र) is a Sanskrit text and one of the oldest Dharma-post vedic smriti related texts of Hinduism that have survived into the modern age from the 1st millenniu ...
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. In ancient India up to medieval and early modern times,
kotwals were in charge of local law enforcement.
Achaemenid (First Persian) Empire
The
Achaemenid Empire
The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire, also known as the Persian Empire or First Persian Empire (; , , ), was an Iranian peoples, Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great of the Achaemenid dynasty in 550 BC. Based in modern-day Iran, i ...
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 . 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.
Israel
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
The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;["Tanach"](_blank)
. '' Josephus
Flavius Josephus (; , ; ), born Yosef ben Mattityahu (), was a Roman–Jewish historian and military leader. Best known for writing '' The Jewish War'', he was born in Jerusalem—then part of the Roman province of Judea—to a father of pr ...
related that every judge had two such officers under his command.
Levite
Levites ( ; ) or Levi are Jewish males who claim patrilineal descent from the Tribe of Levi. The Tribe of Levi descended from Levi, the third son of Jacob and Leah. The surname ''Halevi'', which consists of the Hebrew definite article "" ''Ha-' ...
s 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 was protected by a special temple guard. The
Talmud
The Talmud (; ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of Haskalah#Effects, modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the cen ...
mentions various local officials in the Jewish communities of 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.
Africa
In many regions of pre-colonial
Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...
, particularly West and Central Africa, guild-like
secret societies
A secret society is an organization about which the activities, events, inner functioning, or membership are concealed. The society may or may not attempt to conceal its existence. The term usually excludes covert groups, such as intelligence a ...
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
Ethiopia, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country located in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the north, Djibouti to the northeast, Somalia to the east, Ken ...
, armed retainers of the nobility enforced law in the countryside according to the will of their leaders. The
Songhai Empire
The Songhai Empire was a state located in the western part of the Sahel during the 15th and 16th centuries. At its peak, it was one of the largest African empires in history. The state is known by its historiographical name, derived from its lar ...
had officials known as ''assara-munidios'', or "enforcers", acting as police.
The Americas
Pre-Columbian civilizations in the Americas also had organized law enforcement. The city-states of the
Maya civilization
The Maya civilization () was a Mesoamerican civilization that existed from antiquity to the early modern period. It is known by its ancient temples and glyphs (script). The Maya script is the most sophisticated and highly developed writin ...
had constables known as . In the
Aztec Empire
The Aztec Empire, also known as the Triple Alliance (, Help:IPA/Nahuatl, �jéːʃkaːn̥ t͡ɬaʔtoːˈlóːjaːn̥ or the Tenochca Empire, was an alliance of three Nahuas, Nahua altepetl, city-states: , , and . These three city-states rul ...
, judges had officers serving under them who were empowered to perform arrests, even of dignitaries. In the
Inca Empire
The Inca Empire, officially known as the Realm of the Four Parts (, ), was the largest empire in pre-Columbian America. The administrative, political, and military center of the empire was in the city of Cusco. The History of the Incas, Inca ...
, officials called
kuraka enforced the law among the households they were assigned to oversee, with inspectors known as () also stationed throughout the provinces to keep order.
Post-classical

In medieval
Spain
Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...
, , 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
Nobility is a social class found in many societies that have an aristocracy. It is normally appointed by and ranked immediately below royalty. Nobility has often been an estate of the realm with many exclusive functions and characteristics. T ...
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 occurred when the towns and the peasantry of the north united to police the pilgrim road to
Santiago de Compostela
Santiago de Compostela, simply Santiago, or Compostela, in the province of Province of A Coruña, A Coruña, is the capital of the autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Galicia (Spain), Galicia, in northwestern Spain. The city ...
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 judge
A lay judge, sometimes called a lay assessor (law), assessor, is a person assisting a judge in a trial. Lay judges are used in some civil law (legal system), civil law jurisdictions. Lay judges are appointed volunteers and often require some legal ...
s 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
Caliphate
A caliphate ( ) is an institution or public office under the leadership of an Islamic steward with Khalifa, the title of caliph (; , ), a person considered a political–religious successor to the Islamic prophet Muhammad and a leader of ...
s, police were known as . Bodies termed existed perhaps as early as the
Rashidun Caliphate
The Rashidun Caliphate () is a title given for the reigns of first caliphs (lit. "successors") — Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, and Ali collectively — believed to Political aspects of Islam, represent the perfect Islam and governance who led the ...
during the reign of
Uthman
Uthman ibn Affan (17 June 656) was the third caliph of the Rashidun Caliphate, ruling from 644 until his assassination in 656. Uthman, a second cousin, son-in-law, and notable companion of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad, played a major role ...
. The ''Shurta'' is known to have existed in the
Abbasid
The Abbasid Caliphate or Abbasid Empire (; ) was the third caliphate to succeed the prophets and messengers in Islam, Islamic prophet Muhammad. It was founded by a dynasty descended from Muhammad's uncle, Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib (566–653 C ...
and
Umayyad Caliphate
The Umayyad Caliphate or Umayyad Empire (, ; ) was the second caliphate established after the death of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and was ruled by the Umayyad dynasty. Uthman ibn Affan, the third of the Rashidun caliphs, was also a member o ...
s. Their primary roles were to act as police and
internal security
Internal security is the act of keeping peace within the borders of a sovereign state or other Self-governance, self-governing territories, generally by upholding the national law and defending against internal security threats. This task and rol ...
forces but they 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 were responsible for supervising
bazaar
A bazaar or souk is a marketplace consisting of multiple small Market stall, stalls or shops, especially in the Middle East, the Balkans, Central Asia, North Africa and South Asia. They are traditionally located in vaulted or covered streets th ...
s and economic activity in general in the medieval Islamic world.
In
France
France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...
during the
Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...
, there were two
Great Officers of the Crown of France with police responsibilities: The
Marshal of France
Marshal of France (, plural ') is a French military distinction, rather than a military rank, that is awarded to General officer, generals for exceptional achievements. The title has been awarded since 1185, though briefly abolished (1793–1804) ...
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
The Hundred Years' War (; 1337–1453) was a conflict between the kingdoms of Kingdom of England, England and Kingdom of France, France and a civil war in France during the Late Middle Ages. It emerged from feudal disputes over the Duchy ...
, and some historians trace it back to the early 12th century. Another organisation, the
Constabulary
Constabulary may have several definitions:
*A civil, non-paramilitary (police) force consisting of police officers called constables. This is the usual definition in the United Kingdom, in which all county police forces once bore the title (and s ...
(), was under the command of the
Constable of France. The constabulary was regularised as a military body in 1337. Under
Francis I (reigned 1515–1547), the was merged with the constabulary. The resulting force was also known as the , or, formally, the Constabulary and Marshalcy of France.
In late medieval
Italian cities, police forces were known as ''berovierri''. Individually, their members were known as ''birri''. Subordinate to the city's
podestà
(), also potestate or podesta in English, was the name given to the holder of the highest civil office in the government of the cities of central and northern Italy during the Late Middle Ages. Sometimes, it meant the chief magistrate of a c ...
, the ''berovierri'' were responsible for guarding the cities and their suburbs, patrolling, and the pursuit and arrest of criminals. They were typically hired on short-term contracts, usually six months. Detailed records from medieval
Bologna
Bologna ( , , ; ; ) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in northern Italy. It is the List of cities in Italy, seventh most populous city in Italy, with about 400,000 inhabitants and 150 different nationalities. Its M ...
show that ''birri'' had a chain of command, with constables and sergeants managing lower-ranking ''birri'', that they wore uniforms, that they were housed together with other employees of the podestà together with a number of servants including cooks and stable-keepers, that their parentage and places of origin were meticulously recorded, and that most were not native to Bologna, with many coming from outside Italy.
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
Alfred the Great ( ; – 26 October 899) was King of the West Saxons from 871 to 886, and King of the Anglo-Saxons from 886 until his death in 899. He was the youngest son of King Æthelwulf and his first wife Osburh, who both died when Alfr ...
. 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
shire
Shire () is a traditional term for an administrative division of land in Great Britain and some other English-speaking countries. It is generally synonymous with county (such as Cheshire and Worcestershire). British counties are among the oldes ...
s, the rough equivalent of a modern
county
A county () is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesL. Brookes (ed.) '' Chambers Dictionary''. Edinburgh: Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, 2005. in some nations. The term is derived from the Old French denoti ...
, which were overseen by an official known as a shire-reeve, from which the term
sheriff
A sheriff is a government official, with varying duties, existing in some countries with historical ties to England where the office originated. There is an analogous, although independently developed, office in Iceland, the , which is common ...
evolved. The shire-reeve had the power of , 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
Frankpledge was a system of joint suretyship common in England throughout the Early Middle Ages and High Middle Ages. The essential characteristic was the compulsory sharing of responsibility among persons connected in tithings. This unit, un ...
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
A parish is a territorial entity in many Christianity, Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest#Christianity, priest, often termed a parish pries ...
every year. Eventually, constables became the first 'police' official to be tax-supported. In urban areas,
watchmen
''Watchmen'' is a comic book Limited series (comics), limited series by the British creative team of writer Alan Moore, artist Dave Gibbons, and colorist John Higgins (comics), John Higgins. It was published monthly by DC Comics in 1986 and 19 ...
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
A jury is a sworn body of people (jurors) convened to hear evidence, make findings of fact, and render an impartial verdict officially submitted to them by a court, or to set a penalty or judgment. Most trial juries are " petit juries", an ...
".
The
Assize of Arms of 1252
The Assize of Arms of 1252, also called the Ordinance of 1252, was a proclamation of King Henry III of England concerning the enforcement of the Assize of Arms of 1181, and the appointment of constables to summon men to arms, quell breaches of t ...
, 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
The Statute of Winchester of 1285 ( 13 Edw. 1. St. 2; ), also known as the Statute of Winton, was a statute enacted by King Edward I of England that reformed the system of Watch and Ward (watchmen) of the Assize of Arms of 1252, and revived th ...
of 1285 is also cited as the primary legislation regulating the policing of the country between the
Norman Conquest
The Norman Conquest (or the Conquest) was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army made up of thousands of Normans, Norman, French people, French, Flemish people, Flemish, and Bretons, Breton troops, all led by the Du ...
and the
Metropolitan Police Act 1829
The Metropolitan Police Act 1829 ( 10 Geo. 4. c. 44) is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom
The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, and ...
.
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. They were private individuals usually hired by crime victims.
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
The first example of a statutory police force in the world was probably the
High Constables of Edinburgh
The High Constables of Edinburgh are a prestigious body of constables, founded in 1611 and located in Edinburgh, Scotland. Historically, the High Constables were charged with policing the streets of Edinburgh, the capital city of Scotland, how ...
, formed in 1611 to police the streets of
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...
, then part of the
Kingdom of Scotland
The Kingdom of Scotland was a sovereign state in northwest Europe, traditionally said to have been founded in 843. Its territories expanded and shrank, but it came to occupy the northern third of the island of Great Britain, sharing a Anglo-Sc ...
. The constables, of whom half were merchants and half were craftsmen, were charged with enforcing 16 regulations relating to curfews, weapons, and theft. At that time, maintenance of public order in Scotland was mainly done by clan chiefs and feudal lords. 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
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
, then the largest city in Europe. The royal edict, registered by the of Paris on March 15, 1667, created the office of ("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".

This office was first held by
Gabriel Nicolas de la Reynie, who had 44 ('police commissioners') under his authority. In 1709, these commissioners were assisted by ('police inspectors'). The city of Paris was divided into 16 districts policed by the , 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
In France, a Prefecture of Police (), headed by the Prefect of Police (), is an agency of the Government of France under the administration of the Ministry of the Interior. Part of the National Police, it provides a police force for an area lim ...
. On March 12, 1829, a government decree created the first uniformed police in
France
France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...
, known as ('city sergeants'), which the Paris Prefecture of Police's website claims were the first uniformed policemen in the world.
In feudal Japan,
samurai
The samurai () were members of the warrior class in Japan. They were originally provincial warriors who came from wealthy landowning families who could afford to train their men to be mounted archers. In the 8th century AD, the imperial court d ...
warriors were charged with enforcing the law among commoners. Some Samurai acted as magistrates called , who acted as judges, prosecutors, and as chief of police. Beneath them were other Samurai serving as , or assistant magistrates, who conducted criminal investigations, and beneath them were Samurai serving as , who were responsible for patrolling the streets, keeping the peace, and making arrests when necessary. The were responsible for managing the . and were typically drawn from low-ranking samurai families. Assisting the were the , non-Samurai who went on patrol with them and provided assistance, the , non-Samurai from the lowest outcast class, often former criminals, who worked for them as informers and spies, and or , chōnin, often former criminals, who were hired by local residents and merchants to work as police assistants in a particular neighborhood. This system typically did not apply to the Samurai themselves. Samurai clans were expected to resolve disputes among each other through negotiation, or when that failed through duels. Only rarely did Samurai bring their disputes to a magistrate or answer to police.
In
Joseon
Joseon ( ; ; also romanized as ''Chosun''), officially Great Joseon (), was a dynastic kingdom of Korea that existed for 505 years. It was founded by Taejo of Joseon in July 1392 and replaced by the Korean Empire in October 1897. The kingdom w ...
-era Korea, the
Podocheong emerged as a police force with the power to arrest and punish criminals. Established in 1469 as a temporary organization, its role solidified into a permanent one.
In
Sweden
Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...
, local governments were responsible for law and order by way of a royal decree issued by
Magnus III in the 13th century. The cities financed and organized groups of watchmen who patrolled the streets. In the late 1500s in Stockholm, patrol duties were in large part taken over by a special corps of salaried
city guards. The city guard was organized, uniformed and armed like a military unit and was responsible for interventions against various crimes and the arrest of suspected criminals. These guards were assisted by the military, fire patrolmen, and a civilian unit that did not wear a uniform, but instead wore a small badge around the neck. The civilian unit monitored compliance with city ordinances relating to e.g. sanitation issues, traffic and taxes. In rural areas, the King's bailiffs were responsible for law and order until the establishment of counties in the 1630s.
Up to the early 18th century, the level of state involvement in law enforcement in Britain was low. Although some law enforcement officials existed in the form of constables and watchmen, there was no organized police force. A professional police force like the one already present in France would have been ill-suited to Britain, which saw examples such as the French one as a threat to the people's liberty and balanced constitution in favor of an arbitrary and tyrannical government. Law enforcement was mostly up to the private citizens, who had the right and duty to prosecute crimes in which they were involved or in which they were not. At the cry of 'murder!' or 'stop thief!' everyone was entitled and obliged to join the pursuit. Once the criminal had been apprehended, the parish constables and night watchmen, who were the only public figures provided by the state and who were typically part-time and local, would make the arrest. As a result, the state set a reward to encourage citizens to arrest and prosecute offenders. The first of such rewards was established in 1692 of the amount of £40 for the conviction of a
highwayman
A highwayman was a robber who stole from travellers. This type of thief usually travelled and robbed by horse as compared to a footpad who travelled and robbed on foot; mounted highwaymen were widely considered to be socially superior to foo ...
and in the following years it was extended to burglars, coiners and other forms of offense. The reward was to be increased in 1720 when, after the end of the
War of the Spanish Succession
The War of the Spanish Succession was a European great power conflict fought between 1701 and 1714. The immediate cause was the death of the childless Charles II of Spain in November 1700, which led to a struggle for control of the Spanish E ...
and the consequent rise of criminal offenses, the government offered £100 for the conviction of a highwayman. Although the offer of such a reward was conceived as an incentive for the victims of an offense to proceed to the prosecution and to bring criminals to justice, the efforts of the government also increased the number of private thief-takers. Thief-takers became infamously known not so much for what they were supposed to do, catching real criminals and prosecuting them, as for "setting themselves up as intermediaries between victims and their attackers, extracting payments for the return of stolen goods and using the threat of prosecution to keep offenders in thrall". Some of them, such as
Jonathan Wild
Jonathan Wild, also spelled Wilde (1682 or 1683 – 24 May 1725), was an English thief-taker and a major figure in London's criminal underworld, notable for operating on both sides of the law, posing as a public-spirited vigilante entitled th ...
, became infamous at the time for staging robberies in order to receive the reward.
In 1737,
George II began paying some London and Middlesex watchmen with tax monies, beginning the shift to government control. In 1749, Judge
Henry Fielding
Henry Fielding (22 April 1707 – 8 October 1754) was an English writer and magistrate known for the use of humour and satire in his works. His 1749 comic novel ''The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling'' was a seminal work in the genre. Along wi ...
began organizing a force of quasi-professional constables known as the
Bow Street Runners
The Bow Street Runners were the law enforcement officers of the Bow Street Magistrates' Court in the City of Westminster. They have been called London's first professional police force. The force originally numbered six men and was founded in 1 ...
. The Bow Street Runners are considered to have been Britain's first dedicated police force. They represented a formalization and regularization of existing policing methods, similar to the unofficial 'thief-takers'. What made them different was their formal attachment to the Bow Street magistrates' office, and payment by the magistrate with funds from the central government. They worked out of Fielding's office and court at No. 4 Bow Street, and did not patrol but served
writ
In common law, a writ is a formal written order issued by a body with administrative or judicial jurisdiction; in modern usage, this body is generally a court. Warrant (legal), Warrants, prerogative writs, subpoenas, and ''certiorari'' are commo ...
s and arrested offenders on the authority of the magistrates, travelling nationwide to apprehend criminals. Fielding wanted to regulate and legalize law enforcement activities due to the high rate of corruption and mistaken or malicious arrests seen with the system that depended mainly on private citizens and state rewards for law enforcement. Henry Fielding's work was carried on by his brother, Justice
John Fielding, who succeeded him as magistrate in the Bow Street office. Under John Fielding, the institution of the Bow Street Runners gained more and more recognition from the government, although the force was only funded intermittently in the years that followed. In 1763, the Bow Street Horse Patrol was established to combat highway robbery, funded by a government grant. The Bow Street Runners served as the guiding principle for the way that policing developed over the next 80 years. Bow Street was a manifestation of the move towards increasing professionalisation and state control of street life, beginning in London.
The
Macdaniel affair, a 1754 British political scandal in which a group of thief-takers was found to be falsely prosecuting innocent men in order to collect reward money from
bounties, 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". 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
Water police, also called bay constables, coastal police, harbor patrols, marine/maritime police/patrol, nautical patrols, port police, or river police are a Specialist law enforcement agency, specialty law enforcement portion of a larger polic ...
in 1798.
Modern
Scotland and Ireland
Following early police forces established in 1779 and 1788 in
Glasgow
Glasgow is the Cities of Scotland, most populous city in Scotland, located on the banks of the River Clyde in Strathclyde, west central Scotland. It is the List of cities in the United Kingdom, third-most-populous city in the United Kingdom ...
,
Scotland
Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...
, the Glasgow authorities successfully petitioned the government to pass the
Glasgow Police Act establishing the
City of Glasgow Police
The City of Glasgow Police or Glasgow City Police was the police organisation covering the city and royal burgh of Glasgow, from 1800 to 1893, and the county of city of Glasgow, from 1893 to 1975. In the 17th century, Scottish cities used to ...
in 1800. Other Scottish towns soon followed suit and set up their own police forces through acts of parliament. In
Ireland
Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...
, the
Irish Constabulary Act 1822 marked the beginning of the
Royal Irish Constabulary
The Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC, ; simply called the Irish Constabulary 1836–67) was the police force in Ireland from 1822 until 1922, when all of the island was part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, United Kingdom. A sep ...
. The act established a force in each barony with
chief constables and inspectors general under the control of the civil administration at
Dublin Castle
Dublin Castle () is a major Government of Ireland, Irish government complex, conference centre, and tourist attraction. It is located off Dame Street in central Dublin.
It is a former motte-and-bailey castle and was chosen for its position at ...
. By 1841 this force numbered over 8,600 men.
London

In 1797,
Patrick Colquhoun was able to persuade the
West Indies
The West Indies is an island subregion of the Americas, surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, which comprises 13 independent island country, island countries and 19 dependent territory, dependencies in thr ...
merchants who operated at the
Pool of London on the
River Thames
The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the The Isis, River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the Longest rivers of the United Kingdom, s ...
to establish a police force at the docks to prevent rampant theft that was causing annual estimated losses of £500,000 worth of cargo in imports alone.
[Dick Paterson]
Origins of the Thames Police
, ''Thames Police Museum''. Retrieved 4 February 2007. The idea of a police, as it then existed in
France
France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...
, 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.
[T.A. Critchley, ''A History of Police in England and Wales'', 2nd ed. Montclair, NJ: Patterson Smith, 38–39.]
With the initial investment of £4,200, the new force the
Marine Police
Water police, also called bay constables, coastal police, harbor patrols, marine/maritime police/patrol, nautical patrols, port police, or river police are a Specialist law enforcement agency, specialty law enforcement portion of a larger polic ...
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 part funded by the
London Society of West India Planters and Merchants. 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
Depredations on the Thames Act 1800 on 28 July 1800, establishing a fully funded police force the
Thames River Police
The Thames River Police was formed in 1800 to tackle theft and looting from ships anchored in the Pool of London and in the lower reaches and docks of the Thames. It replaced the Marine Police, a police force established in 1798 by magistrate ...
together with new laws including police powers; 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
New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
,
Dublin
Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...
, and
Sydney
Sydney is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales and the List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city in Australia. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Syd ...
.
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.
Metropolitan
London was fast reaching a size unprecedented in world history, due to the onset of the
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution, sometimes divided into the First Industrial Revolution and Second Industrial Revolution, was a transitional period of the global economy toward more widespread, efficient and stable manufacturing processes, succee ...
. 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
London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
. Upon
Sir Robert Peel being appointed as
Home Secretary
The secretary of state for the Home Department, more commonly known as the home secretary, is a senior minister of the Crown in the Government of the United Kingdom and the head of the Home Office. The position is a Great Office of State, maki ...
in 1822, he established a second and more effective committee, and acted upon its findings.
Royal assent
Royal assent is the method by which a monarch formally approves an act of the legislature, either directly or through an official acting on the monarch's behalf. In some jurisdictions, royal assent is equivalent to promulgation, while in othe ...
to the
Metropolitan Police Act 1829
The Metropolitan Police Act 1829 ( 10 Geo. 4. c. 44) is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom
The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, and ...
was given
and the
Metropolitan Police Service was established on September 29, 1829, in
London
London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
. Peel, widely regarded as the father of modern policing, was heavily influenced by the social and legal philosophy of
, 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
In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a State (polity), state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definiti ...
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.

Due to public fears concerning the deployment of the military in domestic matters, Peel organised the force along civilian lines, rather than
paramilitary
A paramilitary is a military that is not a part of a country's official or legitimate armed forces. The Oxford English Dictionary traces the use of the term "paramilitary" as far back as 1934.
Overview
Though a paramilitary is, by definiti ...
. 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
Sergeant (Sgt) is a Military rank, rank in use by the armed forces of many countries. It is also a police rank in some police services. The alternative spelling, ''serjeant'', is used in The Rifles and in other units that draw their heritage f ...
.
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:
* 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 Metropolitan Police Act 1829 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, including the
United States
The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
and most of the
British Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, Crown colony, colonies, protectorates, League of Nations mandate, mandates, and other Dependent territory, territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It bega ...
. Bobbies can still be found in many parts of the
Commonwealth of Nations
The Commonwealth of Nations, often referred to as the British Commonwealth or simply the Commonwealth, is an International organization, international association of member states of the Commonwealth of Nations, 56 member states, the vast majo ...
.
Australia

In
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...
, organized law enforcement emerged soon after British colonization began in 1788. The first law enforcement organizations were the Night Watch and Row Boat Guard, which were formed in 1789 to police
Sydney
Sydney is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales and the List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city in Australia. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Syd ...
. Their ranks were drawn from well-behaved convicts deported to Australia. The Night Watch was replaced by the Sydney Foot Police in 1790. In
New South Wales
New South Wales (commonly abbreviated as NSW) is a States and territories of Australia, state on the Eastern states of Australia, east coast of :Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria (state), Victoria to the south, and South ...
, rural law enforcement officials were appointed by local
justices of the peace during the early to mid-19th century and were referred to as "bench police" or "benchers". A mounted police force was formed in 1825.
The first police force having centralised command as well as jurisdiction over an entire colony was the
South Australia Police
South Australia Police (SAPOL) is the police force of the Australian States and territories of Australia, state of South Australia. SAPOL is an independent statutory agency of the Government of South Australia directed by the Commissioner of Po ...
, formed in 1838 under
Henry Inman. However, whilst the
New South Wales Police Force
The New South Wales Police Force is a law enforcement agency of the state of New South Wales, Australia, established in 1862. With more than 17,000 police officers, it is the largest police organisation in Australia, policing an area of 801,60 ...
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.
Each Australian state and territory maintain its own police force, while the
Australian Federal Police
The Australian Federal Police (AFP) is the principal Federal police, federal law enforcement agency of the Australian Government responsible for investigating Crime in Australia, crime and protecting the national security of the Commonwealth ...
enforces laws at the federal level. The
New South Wales Police Force
The New South Wales Police Force is a law enforcement agency of the state of New South Wales, Australia, established in 1862. With more than 17,000 police officers, it is the largest police organisation in Australia, policing an area of 801,60 ...
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

In 1566, the first police investigator of
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro, or simply Rio, is the capital of the Rio de Janeiro (state), state of Rio de Janeiro. It is the List of cities in Brazil by population, second-most-populous city in Brazil (after São Paulo) and the Largest cities in the America ...
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
Minas Gerais () is one of the 27 federative units of Brazil, being the fourth largest state by area and the second largest in number of inhabitants with a population of 20,539,989 according to the 2022 Brazilian census, 2022 census. Located in ...
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 ('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
Military police (MP) are law enforcement agencies connected with, or part of, the military of a state. Not to be confused with civilian police, who are legally part of the civilian populace. In wartime operations, the military police may supp ...
", with order maintenance tasks. The
Federal Railroad Police was created in 1852,
Federal Highway Police, was established in 1928, and
Federal Police
A law enforcement agency (LEA) is any government agency responsible for law enforcement within a specific jurisdiction through the employment and deployment of law enforcement officers and their resources. The most common type of law enforcement ...
in 1967.
Canada
During the early days of English and French colonization, municipalities hired watchmen and constables to provide security.
Established in 1729, the
Royal Newfoundland Constabulary
The Royal Newfoundland Constabulary (RNC) is the state police#Canada, provincial police service for the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Newfoundland and Labrador.
The Royal Newfoundland Constabulary is one of three provincial po ...
(RNC) was the first policing service founded in Canada. The establishment of modern policing services in
the Canadas
The Canadas is the collective name for the provinces of Lower Canada and Upper Canada, two British colonization of the Americas, historical British colonies in present-day Canada. The two colonies were formed in 1791, when the British Parliament ...
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 as the first municipal police service in Canada. Prior to that, local able-bodied male citizens had been required to report for night watch duty as special constables for a fixed number of nights a year on penalty of a fine or imprisonment in a system known as "watch and ward." The
Quebec City Police Service 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
Rupert's Land (), or Prince Rupert's Land (), was a territory in British North America which comprised the Hudson Bay drainage basin. The right to "sole trade and commerce" over Rupert's Land was granted to Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), based a ...
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
The North-West Mounted Police (NWMP) was a Canadian paramilitary police force, established in 1873, to maintain order in the new Canadian North-West Territories (NWT) following the 1870 transfer of Rupert's Land and North-Western Territory to ...
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
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP; , GRC) is the Law enforcement in Canada, national police service of Canada. The RCMP is an agency of the Government of Canada; it also provides police services under contract to 11 Provinces and terri ...
(RCMP).
The RCMP provides federal law enforcement; and law enforcement in eight provinces, and all three territories. The provinces of
Ontario
Ontario is the southernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Located in Central Canada, Ontario is the Population of Canada by province and territory, country's most populous province. As of the 2021 Canadian census, it ...
, and
Quebec
Quebec is Canada's List of Canadian provinces and territories by area, largest province by area. Located in Central Canada, the province shares borders with the provinces of Ontario to the west, Newfoundland and Labrador to the northeast, ...
maintain their own provincial police forces, the
Ontario Provincial Police
The Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) is the State police, provincial police service of Ontario, Canada. The OPP patrols Provincial highways in Ontario, provincial highways and waterways; protects Government of Ontario, provincial government buil ...
(OPP), and the
Sûreté du Québec (SQ). Policing in
Newfoundland and Labrador
Newfoundland and Labrador is the easternmost province of Canada, in the country's Atlantic region. The province comprises the island of Newfoundland and the continental region of Labrador, having a total size of . As of 2025 the populatio ...
is provided by the RCMP, and the RNC. The aforementioned services also provide municipal policing, although larger Canadian municipalities may establish their own police service.
Lebanon
In
Lebanon
Lebanon, officially the Republic of Lebanon, is a country in the Levant region of West Asia. Situated at the crossroads of the Mediterranean Basin and the Arabian Peninsula, it is bordered by Syria to the north and east, Israel to the south ...
, the current police force was established in 1861, with creation of the
Gendarmerie
A gendarmerie () is a paramilitary or military force with law enforcement duties among the civilian population. The term ''gendarme'' () is derived from the medieval French expression ', which translates to " men-at-arms" (). In France and so ...
.
India

Under the
Mughal Empire
The Mughal Empire was an Early modern period, early modern empire in South Asia. At its peak, the empire stretched from the outer fringes of the Indus River Basin in the west, northern Afghanistan in the northwest, and Kashmir in the north, to ...
, provincial governors called
subahdar
Subahdar, also known as Nazim, was one of the designations of a governor of a Subah (province) during the Khalji dynasty of Bengal, Mamluk dynasty, Khalji dynasty, Tughlaq dynasty, and the Mughal era who was alternately designated as Sahib- ...
s (or nazims), as well as officials known as
faujdars and thanadars were tasked with keeping law and order.
Kotwals were responsible for public order in urban areas. In addition, officials called amils, whose primary duties were tax collection, occasionally dealt with rebels. The system evolved under growing British influence that eventually culminated in the establishment of the
British Raj
The British Raj ( ; from Hindustani language, Hindustani , 'reign', 'rule' or 'government') was the colonial rule of the British The Crown, Crown on the Indian subcontinent,
*
* lasting from 1858 to 1947.
*
* It is also called Crown rule ...
. In 1770, the offices of faujdar and amil were abolished. They were brought back in 1774 by
Warren Hastings
Warren Hastings (6 December 1732 – 22 August 1818) was a British colonial administrator, who served as the first governor of the Presidency of Fort William (Bengal), the head of the Supreme Council of Bengal, and so the first governor-gener ...
, the first
Governor of the Presidency of Fort William (Bengal). In 1791, the first permanent police force was established by
Charles Cornwallis, the
Commander-in-Chief of British India and Governor of the Presidency of Fort William.
A single police force was established after the formation of the British Raj with the
Government of India Act 1858. A uniform police bureaucracy was formed under the Police Act 1861, which established the Superior Police Services. This later evolved into the
Indian Imperial Police, which kept order until the
Partition of India
The partition of India in 1947 was the division of British India into two independent dominion states, the Dominion of India, Union of India and Dominion of Pakistan. The Union of India is today the Republic of India, and the Dominion of Paki ...
and independence in 1947. In 1948, the Indian Imperial Police was replaced by the
Indian Police Service
The Indian Police Service (IPS) is a civil service under the All India Services. It replaced the Indian Imperial Police in 1948, a year after India became Partition of India, independent from the British Empire.
Along with the Indian Admini ...
.
In modern
India
India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...
, the police are under the control of respective
States and union territories and are 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 Indian Police Service (IPS) is a civil service under the All India Services. It replaced the Indian Imperial Police in 1948, a year after India became Partition of India, independent from the British Empire.
Along with the Indian Admini ...
. The service color is usually dark blue and red, while the uniform color is ''Khaki''.
United States

In
Colonial America
The colonial history of the United States covers the period of European colonization of North America from the late 15th century until the unifying of the Thirteen British Colonies and creation of the United States in 1776, during the Re ...
, the county sheriff was the most important law enforcement official. For instance, the
New York Sheriff's Office was founded in 1626, and the
Albany County Sheriff's Department in the 1660s. The county sheriff, who was an elected official, was responsible for enforcing laws, collecting taxes, supervising elections, and handling the legal business of the county government. Sheriffs would investigate crimes and make arrests after citizens filed complaints or provided information about a crime but did not carry out patrols or otherwise take preventive action. Villages and cities typically hired constables and marshals, who were empowered to make arrests and serve warrants. Many municipalities also formed a night watch, a group of citizen volunteers who would patrol the streets at night looking for crime and fires. Typically, constables and marshals were the main law enforcement officials available during the day while the night watch would serve during the night. Eventually, municipalities formed day watch groups. Rioting was handled by local militias.
In the 1700s, the
Province of Carolina (later
North
North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating Direction (geometry), direction or geography.
Etymology
T ...
- and
South Carolina
South Carolina ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders North Carolina to the north and northeast, the Atlantic Ocean to the southeast, and Georgia (U.S. state), Georg ...
) established
slave patrol
Slave patrols—also known as patrollers, patterrollers, pattyrollers, or paddy rollers—were organized groups of armed men who monitored and enforced discipline upon Slavery, slaves in the Antebellum South, antebellum U.S. southern states. T ...
s in order to prevent slave rebellions and enslaved people from escaping. By 1785 the
Charleston Guard and Watch had "a distinct
chain of command,
uniform
A uniform is a variety of costume worn by members of an organization while usually participating in that organization's activity. Modern uniforms are most often worn by armed forces and paramilitary organizations such as police, emergency serv ...
s, sole responsibility for policing,
salary
A salary is a form of periodic payment from an employer to an employee, which may be specified in an employment contract. It is contrasted with piece wages, where each job, hour or other unit is paid separately, rather than on a periodic basis.
...
,
authorized use of force, and a focus on
preventing crime."
In 1751 moves towards a municipal police service in
Philadelphia
Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...
were made when the city's night watchmen and constables began receiving wages and a Board of Wardens was created to oversee the night watch.
In 1789 the
United States Marshals Service
The United States Marshals Service (USMS) is a Federal law enforcement in the United States, federal law enforcement agency in the United States. The Marshals Service serves as the enforcement and security arm of the United States federal judi ...
was established, followed by other federal services such as the
U.S. Parks Police (1791) and
U.S. Mint Police (1792). Municipal police services were created in
Richmond, Virginia
Richmond ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the Commonwealth (U.S. state), U.S. commonwealth of Virginia. Incorporated in 1742, Richmond has been an independent city (United States), independent city since 1871. ...
in 1807,
Boston
Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...
in 1838,
and
New York City
New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
in 1845. The
United States Secret Service
The United States Secret Service (USSS or Secret Service) is a federal law enforcement agency under the Department of Homeland Security tasked with conducting criminal investigations and providing protection to American political leaders, thei ...
was founded in 1865 and was for some time the main investigative body for the federal government.

Modern policing influenced by the British model of policing established in 1829 based on the
Peelian principles began emerging in the United States in the mid-19th century, replacing previous law enforcement systems based primarily on night watch organizations. Cities began establishing organized, publicly funded, full-time professional police services. In
Boston
Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...
, a day police consisting of six officers under the command of the city marshal was established in 1838 to supplement the city's night watch. This paved the way for the establishment of the
Boston Police Department
The Boston Police Department (BPD) is the primary law enforcement agency of Boston, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1854, the BPD is the oldest municipal police department in the United States. It is also the 20th largest law enforce ...
in 1854.
In
New York City
New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
, law enforcement up to the 1840s was handled by a night watch as well as city marshals, municipal police officers, and constables. In 1845, the
New York City Police Department
The City of New York Police Department, also referred to as New York City Police Department (NYPD), is the primary law enforcement agency within New York City. Established on May 23, 1845, the NYPD is the largest, and one of the oldest, munic ...
was established. In
Philadelphia
Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...
, the first police officers to patrol the city in daytime were employed in 1833 as a supplement to the night watch system, leading to the establishment of the
Philadelphia Police Department
The Philadelphia Police Department (PPD, Philly PD, or Philly Police) is the police agency responsible for law enforcement and investigations within the County and City of Philadelphia. The PPD is one of the oldest municipal police agencies, f ...
in 1854.
In the
American Old West
The American frontier, also known as the Old West, and popularly known as the Wild West, encompasses the geography, history, folklore, and culture associated with the forward wave of American expansion in mainland North America that bega ...
, 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 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.
In 2022, San Francisco supervisors approved a policy allowing municipal police (
San Francisco Police Department) to use robots for various law enforcement and emergency operations, permitting their employment as a deadly force option in cases where the "risk of life to members of the public or officers is imminent and outweighs any other force option available to SFPD." This policy has been criticized by groups such as the
Electronic Frontier Foundation
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is an American international non-profit digital rights group based in San Francisco, California. It was founded in 1990 to promote Internet civil liberties.
It provides funds for legal defense in court, ...
and the
ACLU
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is an American nonprofit civil rights organization founded in 1920. ACLU affiliates are active in all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico. The budget of the ACLU in 2024 was $383 million.
...
, who have argued that "killer robots will not make San Francisco better" and "police might even bring armed robots to a protest."
Development of theory
Michel Foucault
Paul-Michel Foucault ( , ; ; 15 October 192625 June 1984) was a French History of ideas, historian of ideas and Philosophy, philosopher who was also an author, Literary criticism, literary critic, Activism, political activist, and teacher. Fo ...
wrote 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
Public administration, or public policy and administration refers to "the management of public programs", or the "translation of politics into the reality that citizens see every day",Kettl, Donald and James Fessler. 2009. ''The Politics of the ...
and
statistics
Statistics (from German language, German: ', "description of a State (polity), state, a country") is the discipline that concerns the collection, organization, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of data. In applying statistics to a s ...
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
Johann Heinrich Gottlob von Justi (28 December 1717Jürgen Georg Backhaus, ''The Beginnings of Political Economy: Johann Heinrich Gottlob Von Justi'' (Springer, 2008: ), p. 20 The Political Economy of J.H.G. Justi by Ulrich Adam, p. 24/ref>21 July ...
, 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 4,000 pieces of the practice of ''Polizeiwissenschaft''. However, this may be a mistranslation of Foucault's own work since the actual source of Magdalene Humpert states over 14,000 items were produced from the 16th century dates ranging from 1520 to 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
Demography () is the statistics, statistical study of human populations: their size, composition (e.g., ethnic group, age), and how they change through the interplay of fertility (births), mortality (deaths), and migration.
Demographic analy ...
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
Population is a set of humans or other organisms in a given region or area. Governments conduct a census to quantify the resident population size within a given jurisdiction. The term is also applied to non-human animals, microorganisms, and pl ...
(and unwittingly supervising the population), which, according to
mercantilist
Mercantilism is a nationalist economic policy that is designed to maximize the exports and minimize the imports of an economy. It seeks to maximize the accumulation of resources within the country and use those resources for one-sided trade. ...
theory, was to be the main strength of the
state
State most commonly refers to:
* State (polity), a centralized political organization that regulates law and society within a territory
**Sovereign state, a sovereign polity in international law, commonly referred to as a country
**Nation state, a ...
. Thus, its functions largely overreached simple law enforcement activities and included
public health
Public health is "the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health through the organized efforts and informed choices of society, organizations, public and private, communities and individuals". Analyzing the de ...
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.

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
The Bow Street Runners were the law enforcement officers of the Bow Street Magistrates' Court in the City of Westminster. They have been called London's first professional police force. The force originally numbered six men and was founded in 1 ...
, argued that "...it is much better to prevent even one man from being a rogue than apprehending and bringing forty to justice."
[R.J. Marin, "The Living Law." In eds., W.T. McGrath and M.P. Mitchell, ''The Police Function in Canada''. Toronto: Methuen, 1981, 18–19. ]
The Utilitarianism, Utilitarian philosopher,
, promoted the views of
Italian Cesare, Marquis of Beccaria, 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 Marine Police Force, Thames River Police was founded on these principles, and in contrast to the
Bow Street Runners
The Bow Street Runners were the law enforcement officers of the Bow Street Magistrates' Court in the City of Westminster. They have been called London's first professional police force. The force originally numbered six men and was founded in 1 ...
, 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 violence, monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force" and which was primarily exercised by the police and the
military
A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. Militaries are typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with their members identifiable by a d ...
. 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 Police rank, ranks. The exact structures and the names of rank vary considerably by country.
Uniformed
The police who wear
uniform
A uniform is a variety of costume worn by members of an organization while usually participating in that organization's activity. Modern uniforms are most often worn by armed forces and paramilitary organizations such as police, emergency serv ...
s make up the majority of a police service's personnel. Their main duty is to respond to Call for service, calls for service. When not responding to these calls, they 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 (Brazil), Military Police.
As stated by the name, uniformed police wear
uniform
A uniform is a variety of costume worn by members of an organization while usually participating in that organization's activity. Modern uniforms are most often worn by armed forces and paramilitary organizations such as police, emergency serv ...
s. 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 person, 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

Police detectives are responsible for investigations and detective work. Detectives may be called Investigations Police, Judiciary/Judicial Police, or Criminal Police. In the United Kingdom, they are often referred to by the name of their department, the Criminal Investigation Department. Detectives typically make up roughly 15–25% of a police service's personnel.
Detectives, in contrast to uniformed police, typically wear business-styled 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 American 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
The Philadelphia Police Department (PPD, Philly PD, or Philly Police) is the police agency responsible for law enforcement and investigations within the County and City of Philadelphia. The PPD is one of the oldest municipal police agencies, f ...
, a regular detective holds a higher rank than a regular police officer. In others, such as Law enforcement in the United Kingdom, British police and Law enforcement in Canada, Canadian police, 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 services often include Part-time job, part-time or Volunteering, 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 the Retired and Senior Volunteer Program, Community Emergency Response Team, and the Boy Scouts of America, Boy Scouts Law Enforcement Exploring, 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 Police Service (Volunteer Police) Amendment Act 1992, Volunteers in Policing in New South Wales.
Specialized

Specialized preventive and detective groups, or Specialist investigation department, Specialist Investigation Departments, exist within many law enforcement organizations either for dealing with particular types of crime, such as traffic law enforcement, Police dog, K9/use of police dogs, crash investigation, homicide, or fraud; or for situations requiring specialized skills, such as Police diving, underwater search, Police aviation, aviation, Bomb disposal, explosive disposal ("bomb squad"), and Cybercrime, computer crime.
Most larger jurisdictions employ police tactical units, specially selected and trained
paramilitary
A paramilitary is a military that is not a part of a country's official or legitimate armed forces. The Oxford English Dictionary traces the use of the term "paramilitary" as far back as 1934.
Overview
Though a paramilitary is, by definiti ...
units with specialized equipment, weapons, and training, for the purposes of dealing with particularly violent situations beyond the capability of a patrol officer response, including standoffs, counterterrorism, and rescue operations.
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
A paramilitary is a military that is not a part of a country's official or legitimate armed forces. The Oxford English Dictionary traces the use of the term "paramilitary" as far back as 1934.
Overview
Though a paramilitary is, by definiti ...
-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, stun grenades, and rubber bullets. The Specialist Firearms Command (MO19) 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 Law enforcement in France, France, Germany, and other continental European countries handling such tasks to a greater extent than British counterparts.
Military

Military police may refer to:
* a section of the
military
A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. Militaries are typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with their members identifiable by a d ...
solely responsible for policing the armed forces, referred to as Provost (military police), provosts (e.g., United States Air Force Security Forces)
* a section of the military responsible for policing in both the armed forces and in the civilian population (e.g., most
gendarmerie
A gendarmerie () is a paramilitary or military force with law enforcement duties among the civilian population. The term ''gendarme'' () is derived from the medieval French expression ', which translates to " men-at-arms" (). In France and so ...
s, such as the National Gendarmerie, French Gendarmerie, the
Italian Carabinieri, the Spanish Civil Guard (Spain), Guardia Civil, and the Portuguese National Republican Guard (Portugal), National Republican Guard)
* a section of the military solely responsible for policing the civilian population (e.g., Gendarmerie (Romania), Romanian Gendarmerie)
* the civilian preventive police of a Brazilian state (e.g., Military Police (Brazil), Policia Militar)
* a special military law enforcement service (e.g., Military Police (Russia), Russian Military Police)
Religious
Some jurisdictions with religious laws may have dedicated religious police to enforce said laws. These religious police forces, which may operate either as a unit of a wider police force or as an independent agency, may only have jurisdiction over members of said religion, or they may have the ability to enforce religious customs nationwide regardless of individual religious beliefs.
Religious police may enforce social norms, gender roles, dress codes, and Food and drink prohibitions, dietary laws per religious doctrine and laws, and may also prohibit practices that run contrary to said doctrine, such as atheism, proselytism, homosexuality, socialization between different genders, business operations during religious periods or events such as salah or the Sabbath, or the sale and possession of "offending material" ranging from pornography to foreign Media (communication), media.
Forms of religious law enforcement were relatively common in historical religious civilizations, but eventually declined in favor of religious tolerance and Religious pluralism, pluralism. One of the most common forms of religious police in the modern world are Islamic religious police, which enforce the application of Sharia (Islamic religious law). As of 2018, there are eight Islamic countries that maintain Islamic religious police: Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Mauritania, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Yemen.
Some forms of religious police may not enforce religious law, but rather Religious persecution, suppress religion or Fundamentalism, religious extremism. This is often done for ideological reasons; for example, communist states such as China and Vietnam have historically suppressed and tightly controlled religions such as Christianity.
Secret
Secret police organizations are typically used to suppress dissidents for engaging in non-politically correct communications and activities, which are deemed counter-productive to what the
state
State most commonly refers to:
* State (polity), a centralized political organization that regulates law and society within a territory
**Sovereign state, a sovereign polity in international law, commonly referred to as a country
**Nation state, a ...
and related The establishment, establishment promote. Secret police interventions to stop such activities are often illegal, and are designed to debilitate, in various ways, the people targeted in order to limit or stop outright their ability to act in a non-politically correct manner. The methods employed may involve spying, various acts of deception, intimidation, framing (law), framing, false imprisonment, false Political abuse of psychiatry, incarceration under mental health legislation, and physical violence. Countries widely reported to use secret police organizations include China (Ministry of State Security (China), The Ministry of State Security) and North Korea (Ministry of State Security (North Korea), The Ministry of State Security).
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
Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...
, 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
A gendarmerie () is a paramilitary or military force with law enforcement duties among the civilian population. The term ''gendarme'' () is derived from the medieval French expression ', which translates to " men-at-arms" (). In France and so ...
, such as the Police Nationale and National Gendarmerie in
France
France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...
.
The French policing system spread to other countries through the Napoleonic Wars
and the French colonial empire.
Another example is the Policía Nacional (Spain), Policía Nacional and Guardia Civil in
Spain
Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...
. 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 (Brazil), Military Police and Civil Police (Brazil), Civil Police in Brazil and the Carabineros de Chile, Carabineros and Investigations Police of Chile, Investigations Police in Chile.
Other countries have sub-national police forces, but for the most part their jurisdictions do not overlap. In many countries, especially Federalism, 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
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...
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
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP; , GRC) is the Law enforcement in Canada, national police service of Canada. The RCMP is an agency of the Government of Canada; it also provides police services under contract to 11 Provinces and terri ...
(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
Ontario is the southernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Located in Central Canada, Ontario is the Population of Canada by province and territory, country's most populous province. As of the 2021 Canadian census, it ...
and
Quebec
Quebec is Canada's List of Canadian provinces and territories by area, largest province by area. Located in Central Canada, the province shares borders with the provinces of Ontario to the west, Newfoundland and Labrador to the northeast, ...
.
The
United States
The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
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 Sheriffs in the United States, sheriff's office, or County police#United States, county police), State police (United States), state police and Federal law enforcement in the United States, 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 United States Federal Protective Service, Federal Protective Service, which patrols and protects government buildings; the United States Postal Inspection Service, Postal Inspection Service, which protect United States Postal Service facilities, vehicles and items; the United States Park Police, Park Police, which protect national parks; and Amtrak Police, which patrol Amtrak stations and trains. There are also some government agencies and uniformed services that perform police functions in addition to other duties, such as the United States Coast Guard, Coast Guard.
International
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, E.A. (1993) Cops Across Borders; the Internationalization of US Law Enforcement, Pennsylvania State University Press] 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. 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 World War II. 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.
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.
Few empirical works on the practices of inter/transnational information and intelligence sharing have been undertaken. A notable exception is James Sheptycki's study of police cooperation in the English Channel region, 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 casework. 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.
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 the low visibility of police information and intelligence sharing was a common feature. Intelligence-led policing is now common practice in most advanced countries
[Ratcliffe, J. (2007) ''Strategic Thinking in Criminal Intelligence'', Annadale, NSW: The Federation Press] and it is likely that police intelligence sharing and information exchange has a common morphology around the world.
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. 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.
One topic concerns making transnational policing institutions democratically accountable. According to the Global Accountability Report for 2007, Interpol had the lowest scores in its category (IGOs), coming in tenth with a score of 22% on overall accountability capabilities.
Overseas policing
A police force may establish its presence in a foreign country with or without the permission of the host state. In the case of China and the ruling Chinese communist party, Communist Party, this has involved setting up unofficial police service stations around the world, and using coercive means to influence the behaviour of members of the Chinese diaspora and especially those who hold Chinese citizenship. Political dissidents have been harassed and intimidated in a form of transnational repression and convinced to return to China. Many of these actions were illegal in the states where they occurred. Such police stations have been established in dozens of countries around the world, with some, such as the UK and the US, forcing them to close.
Equipment
Weapons

In many jurisdictions, Police firearm use by country, police officers carry firearms, primarily handguns, in the normal course of their duties. In the United Kingdom (except Northern Ireland), Iceland, Ireland, New Zealand, Norway, and Malta, with the exception of specialist units, officers do not carry firearms as a matter of course. New Zealand and Norwegian Police Service, Norwegian police carry firearms in their vehicles, but not on their duty belts, and must obtain authorization before the weapons can be removed from the vehicle unless their life or the life of others are in danger.
Police often have specialized units for handling armed offenders or dangerous situations where combat is likely, such as police tactical units or authorised firearms officers. In some jurisdictions, depending on the circumstances, police can call on the
military
A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. Militaries are typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with their members identifiable by a d ...
for assistance, as military aid to the civil power is an aspect of many armed forces. Perhaps the most high-profile example of this was in 1980, when the British Army's Special Air Service was deployed to resolve the Iranian Embassy siege on behalf of the Metropolitan Police.
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, or to inflict pain against a resistant suspect to force them to surrender without lethally wounding them. Non-lethal weapons include Baton (law enforcement), batons, tear gas, Riot control, 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 the lives of others or themselves, though some jurisdictions (such as Brazil) allow its use against fleeing felons and escaped convicts. Police officers in the United States are generally allowed to police use of deadly force in the United States, use deadly force if they believe their life is in danger, a policy that has been criticized for being vague. South African police have a "shoot-to-kill" policy, which allows officers to use deadly force against any person who poses a significant threat to them. With the country having one of the highest rates of violent crime, President Jacob Zuma stated that South Africa needs to handle crime differently from other countries.
Communications
Modern police forces make extensive use of two-way Police radio, radio communications equipment, carried both on the person and installed in vehicles, to coordinate their work, share information, and get help quickly. Vehicle-installed mobile data terminals enhance 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, whistles, police notebooks, and "ticket books" or summons, 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

Police vehicles are used for detaining, patrolling, and transporting over wide areas that an officer could not effectively cover otherwise. The average police car used for standard patrol is a four-door Sedan (automobile), sedan, Sport utility vehicle, SUV, or Crossover (automobile), CUV, often modified by the manufacturer or police force's fleet services to provide better performance. Pickup trucks, off-road vehicles, and vans are often used in utility roles, though in some jurisdictions or situations (such as those where dirt roads are common, off-roading is required, or the nature of the officer's assignment necessitates it), they may be used as standard patrol cars. Sports cars are typically not used by police due to cost and maintenance issues, though those that are used are typically only assigned to traffic enforcement or community policing, and are rarely, if ever, assigned to standard patrol or authorized to respond to dangerous calls (such as armed calls or pursuits) where the likelihood of the vehicle being damaged or destroyed is high. Police vehicles are usually Livery, marked with appropriate symbols and equipped with Emergency vehicle equipment, sirens and flashing emergency lights to make others aware of police presence or response; in most jurisdictions, police vehicles with their sirens and emergency lights on have Traffic#Passage Priority (right of way), right of way in traffic, while in other jurisdictions, emergency lights may be kept on while patrolling to ensure ease of visibility. Unmarked or undercover police vehicles are used primarily for traffic enforcement or apprehending criminals without alerting them to their presence. The use of unmarked police vehicles for traffic enforcement is controversial, with the state of New York (state), New York banning this practice in 1996 on the grounds that it endangered motorists who might be pulled over by Police impersonation, police impersonators.
Police motorcycle, Motorcycles, having historically been a mainstay in police fleets, are 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 police escorts where motorcycle police officers can quickly clear a path for escorted vehicles. Police bicycle, Bicycle patrols are used in some areas, often downtown areas or parks, because they allow for wider and faster area coverage than officers on foot. Bicycles are also commonly used by riot police to create makeshift barricades against protesters.
Police aviation consists of helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft, while police watercraft tend to consist of Rigid inflatable boat, RHIBs, motorboats, and patrol boats. SWAT vehicles are used by police tactical units, and often consist of four-wheeled Armoured personnel carrier, armored personnel carriers used to transport tactical teams while providing armored cover, equipment storage space, or makeshift battering ram capabilities; these vehicles are typically not armed and do not patrol and are only used to transport. Emergency operations center, Mobile command posts may also be used by some police forces to establish identifiable command centers at the scene of major situations.
Police cars may contain issued long guns, ammunition for issued weapons, less-lethal weaponry, riot control equipment, traffic cones, Flare, road flares, physical barricades or barricade tape, fire extinguishers, first aid kits, or Automated external defibrillator, 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 Call for service, calls for service away from their beat (police), beat. 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. Orlando Winfield Wilson, O.W. Wilson, a student of Vollmer, helped reduce
corruption
Corruption is a form of dishonesty or a criminal offense that is undertaken by a person or an organization that is entrusted in a position of authority to acquire illicit benefits or abuse power for one's gain. Corruption may involve activities ...
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 felony, felonies and other serious crime and conducting visible car patrols in between, rather than broader focus on
crime prevention
Crime prevention refers to strategies and measures that seek to reduce the risk of crime occurring by intervening before a crime has been committed. It encompasses many approaches, including developmental, situational, community-based and crimin ...
.
The Kansas City preventive patrol experiment, Kansas City Preventive Patrol study in the early 1970s showed flaws in using visible car patrols for crime prevention. 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 theory, 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. It was emulated in 2010s in Kazakhstan through zero tolerance policing. Yet it failed to produce meaningful results in this country because citizens distrusted police while state leaders preferred police loyalty over police good behavior.
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 U.S. 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
An arrest is the act of apprehending and taking a person into custody (legal protection or control), usually because the person has been suspected of or observed committing a crime. After being taken into custody, the person can be question ...
, 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"
[Supreme Court of the United States, ''Terry v. Ohio'' (No. 67), Certiorari to the Supreme Court of Ohio. Retrieved 2010-05-12 fro]
law.cornell.edu
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 Confession (law), 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 Terry stop, 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 Internal affairs (law enforcement), internal affairs or inspectorate-general units. In some countries separate organizations outside the police exist for such purposes, such as the British Independent Office for Police Conduct. In the
United States
The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
, due to American laws around qualified immunity, it has become increasingly difficult to investigate and charge police misconduct and 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 Fiosrú – the Office of the Police Ombudsman, a body founded as Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission to replace the Garda Complaints Board in May 2007, and reorganised under its new title in 2025.
The Special Investigations Unit (Ontario), Special Investigations Unit of
Ontario
Ontario is the southernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Located in Central Canada, Ontario is the Population of Canada by province and territory, country's most populous province. As of the 2021 Canadian census, it ...
, Canada, is one of only a few civilian agencies around the world responsible for investigating circumstances involving police and others 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 are investigated by the Independent Commission Against Corruption (Hong Kong), Independent Commission Against Corruption and the Independent Police Complaints Council, two agencies which are independent of the police force.
Police body cameras are often worn by police officers to record their interactions with the public and each other, providing audiovisual recorded evidence for review in the event an officer or agency's actions are investigated.
Use of force
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. Similar incidents have also happened in other countries.
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 LAPD officers of Rodney King, and the 1992 Los Angeles riots, 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, George Floyd protests, a global movement to increase scrutiny of police violence grew in popularity, starting in Minneapolis, Minnesota with the murder of George Floyd. Calls for Defund the police, defunding of the police and full Police abolition movement, abolition of the police gained larger support in the United States as more criticized systemic racism in policing.
Critics also argue that sometimes this abuse of force or power can extend to police officer civilian life as well. For example, critics note that women in around 40% of police officer families have experienced domestic violence and that police officers are convicted of misdemeanors and felonies at a rate of more than six times higher than concealed carry weapon permit holders.
Protection of individuals
The Supreme Court of the United States has consistently ruled that law enforcement officers in the U.S. have no duty to protect any individual, only to enforce the law in general. This is despite the motto of many police departments in the U.S. being a variation of "protect and serve"; regardless, many departments generally expect their officers to protect individuals. The first case to make such a ruling was ''South v. State of Maryland'' in 1855, and the most recent was ''Town of Castle Rock v. Gonzales'' in 2005.
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 in the United States, 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.
[The United States Park Police Webpage]
NPS.gov
Such agencies include the U.S. Secret Service and the U.S. Park Police.
See also
* Chief of police
* Criminal citation
* Criminal justice
* Fraternal Order of Police
* Highway patrol
* Militsiya
*Monopoly on violence
* Officer Down Memorial Page
* Police academy
* Police car
* Police certificate
* Police foundation
* Police science
* Police state
* Police training officer
* Private police
* Public administration
* Public security
* Riot police
* State police
* Vigilante
* Women in law enforcement
; Lists:
* List of basic law enforcement topics
* List of countries and dependencies by number of police officers
* List of countries with annual rates and counts for killings by law enforcement officers
* List of law enforcement agencies
* List of protective service agencies
* Police rank
References
Further reading
* Mitrani, Samuel (2014). ''The Rise of the Chicago Police Department: Class and Conflict, 1850–1894''. University of Illinois Press, 272 pages.
** Interview with Sam Mitrani
"The Function of Police in Modern Society: Peace or Control?"(January 2015), ''The Real News''
External links
United Nations Police Division
{{Authority control
Crime prevention
Law enforcement,
Legal professions
National security
Public safety
Security
Surveillance