The Royal Saint Helena Police Service, formerly the Saint Helena Police Service, is the local police force for the

British overseas territory The British Overseas Territories (BOTs) or alternatively referred to as the United Kingdom Overseas Territories (UKOTs) are the fourteen dependent territory, territories with a constitutional and historical link with the United Kingdom that, ...

Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha is a British Overseas Territories, British Overseas Territory located in the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and consisting of the island of Saint Helena, Ascension Island, and the archipelago of Tri ...

, consisting of the

South Atlantic The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the Age of Discovery, it was known for ...

islands of

Saint Helena Saint Helena (, ) is one of the three constituent parts of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha, a remote British overseas territory. Saint Helena is a volcanic and tropical island, located in the South Atlantic Ocean, some 1,874 km ...

, Ascension and the island group of

Tristan da Cunha Tristan da Cunha (), colloquially Tristan, is a remote group of volcano, volcanic islands in the South Atlantic Ocean. It is one of three constituent parts of the British Overseas Territories, British Overseas Territory of Saint Helena, Ascensi ...

. The Royal Saint Helena Police Service is part of the Safety, Security and Home Affairs Portfolio which also includes the Fire and Rescue Service, His Majesty's Prison Jamestown, the Immigration Office and the Sea Rescue Service.

Staffing and resources

The service has 29 attested police officers: a chief of police, a detective chief inspector, three

inspector Inspector, also police inspector or inspector of police, is a police rank. The rank or position varies in seniority depending on the organization that uses it. Australia The rank of Inspector is present in all Australian police forces excep ...

s, a detective sergeant, four sergeants, three detective constables and sixteen

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. Including civilians, it has a total staff of 63 on the most populous island of St Helena, with a detachment of five on Ascension Island led by an inspector. Policing on

is undertaken by one full-time police inspector and three special constables. The current Tristan da Cunha inspector is Inspector Conrad Glass. Saint Helena has one police station, Coleman House, named after PC Leonard John Coleman who died in the line of duty on 2 December 1982. The Island's only prison - HMP Jamestown - was built in 1827 and refurbished in 2018. The RSHP has a joint partnership with

Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary The Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary is the territorial police force responsible for policing the counties of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight in South East England.Hampshire Constabulary, 2012 Retrieved 27 April 2012 The force area inc ...

in the United Kingdom.

Constables

Officers of the RSHPS are known as constables, as is typical with British police organisations. The constables are a mixture of UK, South African and local nationals. They do receive a certain amount of uniforms and equipment from the UK. In 2014, they received some uniforms from

Sussex Police Sussex Police are the territorial police force responsible for policing in the whole of Sussex. Their jurisdiction covers the ceremonial counties of East Sussex and West Sussex. Their headquarters are in Malling House, Lewes, East Sussex. Hi ...

in the United Kingdom.

Officer deaths on duty

*PC Leonard John Coleman was killed while attending a domestic incident on 2 December 1982.

HMP Jamestown

Established in 1826 HMP Jamestown provides accommodation for convicted and remanded prisoners and also provides a police custody facility for arrested persons. HMP Jamestown is a Category B prison holding adult male and female prisoners and young offenders, both convicted and those currently on remand by the courts.

Criticisms

While prison services on St. Helena adhere to the same high standards as other facilities in the UK, HMP Jamestown cannot fulfill this requirements in some aspects, mainly due to the old building offering only limited space. It was criticised that the building did not offer modern (or hardly any at all) fire protection and is not barrier-free, making access for visiting wheelchair users impossible. The cells are overcrowded, not properly ventilated and do not allow sunlight to reach the inmates. There are no sanitation facilities in the cells and prisoners have to use common facilities that are not up to modern standards. These problems are well known as HMP Jamestown had been declared unfit for further use already in 1850. Since that time, many suggestions had been made to build a more suitable prison and relocate the old facility, the last plan was for doing so in 2017. However, none of these plans have been followed up properly and today the same facilities that had been declared unsuitable in 1850 are still being used in a rather improvised way.Conditions of Detention at HMP Jamestown
/ref> Recent structural updates to improve the prisons fire safety might indicate that the relocation of the prison is still not planned in the near future. The prison was widely condemned and deemed to be "unfit for purpose" following an inquiry by the St Helena Equality and Human Rights Commission.

Immigration office

This is the Office in charge of all border control at the Sea & Air Port, passport issuing and nationality matters and is composed of: *Chief Immigration Officer *Three Senior Immigration Officers *Four Immigration Officers

References

Sources

# World Police Encyclopedia, ed. by Dilip K. Das & Michael Palmiotto published by

Taylor & Francis Taylor & Francis Group is an international company originating in the United Kingdom that publishes books and academic journals. Its parts include Taylor & Francis, CRC Press, Routledge, F1000 (publisher), F1000 Research and Dovepress. It i ...

, 2004. # World Encyclopedia of Police Forces and Correctional Systems, second edition, Gale, 2006. # Sullivan, Larry E. Encyclopedia of Law Enforcement. Thousand Oaks:

SAGE Publications Sage Publishing, formerly SAGE Publications, is an American independent academic publishing company, founded in 1965 in New York City by Sara Miller McCune and now based in the Newbury Park neighborhood of Thousand Oaks, California. Sage ...

, 2005.

External links

Royal Saint Helena Police Service

Ascension Island Detachment
{{Africa topic, Law enforcement in Police forces of dependent territories of the United Kingdom Organisations based in Saint Helena Ascension Island Tristan da Cunha