Law enforcement in the United Kingdom
Law enforcement in the United Kingdom is organised separately in each of the legal systems of the United Kingdom: England and Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland.[nb 1] Most law enforcement duties are carried out by those who hold the office of police constable of a territorial police force.
As of 2021, there were 39 territorial police forces in England, 4 in Wales, a single police force in Scotland, and a single police force in Northern Ireland.[1] These territorial police forces are responsible for most law enforcement and crime reduction in their respective police areas.[nb 2] In terms of national government the territorial police forces of England and Wales are overseen by the Home Office, although are operationally independent from government. The British Transport Police (BTP), the Ministry of Defence Police (MDP), and the Civil Nuclear Constabulary (CNC) provide specialist policing services in England, Scotland and Wales. The National Crime Agency (NCA) is primarily tasked with tackling organised crime and has been compared to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the United States.[2][3]
Police constables are granted certain powers to enable them to execute their duties. Their primary duties are the protection of life and property, preservation of the peace, and prevention and detection of criminal offences.[4] In the British model of policing, police officers exercise their police powers with the implicit consent of the public. "Policing by consent" is the phrase used to describe this. It expresses that the legitimacy of policing in the eyes of the public is based upon a general consensus of support that follows from transparency about their powers, their integrity in exercising those powers and their accountability for doing so.[5][6]
Most police constables in England, Scotland and Wales do not carry firearms. As of 2022, there were 142,526 police officers in England and Wales, 6,192 of which were firearms authorised.[7]
In the 18th century, law enforcement and policing were organised by local communities based on watchmen and constables; the government was not directly involved in policing. The City of Glasgow Police, the first professional police, was established following an Act of Parliament in 1800.[8] The first centrally organised police force in the world was created in Ireland, then a part of the United Kingdom, following the Peace Preservation Act in 1814 for which Sir Robert Peel was largely responsible.[9]
London had a population of nearly one and a half million people in the early 19th century but was policed by only 450 constables and 4,500 night watchmen.[10] The concept of professional policing was taken up by Sir Robert Peel when he became Home Secretary in 1822. Peel's Metropolitan Police Act 1829 established a full-time, professional and centrally-organised police force for the greater London area known as the Metropolitan Police.[11] In March 1839, Sir Edwin Chadwick presented The Royal Commission on Constabulary Forces to Parliament. This report was to evaluate how the burgeoning police force would work with "poor law" as well as to make the case to establish a national force based on the Metropolitan Police. Much of his argument was based around the necessity for protection of the developing capitalism that was growing in England at the time. Chadwick also addressed the concern that building out a powerful police state could lead to a reduction in civil and personal liberties, but argued that the fear of crime made English citizens slaves, and so were less free without aggressive policing.[12] Legislation in the 1830s introduced policing in boroughs and many counties and, in the 1850s, policing was established nationally.
The Peelian principles describe the philosophy that Sir Robert Peel developed to define an ethical police force. The principles traditionally ascribed to Peel state that:[13][14]
Nine principles of policing were set out in the 'General Instructions' issued to every new police officer in the Metropolitan Police from 1829. The Home Office has suggested this list was more likely to have been authored by Charles Rowan and Richard Mayne, the first and joint Commissioners of the Metropolitan Police.[15][16]
The police historian Charles Reith explained in his New Study of Police History (1956) that these principles constituted a philosophy of policing "unique in history and throughout the world because it derived not from fear but almost exclusively from public co-operation with the police, induced by them designedly by behaviour which secures and maintains for them the approval, respect and affection of the public".[15][17] This approach to policing became known as "policing by consent".[16]
Other historians, such as Robert Storch, David Philips and Roger Swift, argue that Peel's Metropolitan Police were built on his experience of the Royal Irish Constabulary.[18] Storch's view is that the English police force is not different to those of other nations and in fact follows a rather typical development as a colonial peacekeeping force. There is extensive documentation of police brutality in the 19th century, including excessive force, racial profiling, and several charges of murder. The controversies that plagued the early years of the police force were much the same as the current complaints against modern policing.[19]
The first women police officers were employed during the First World War. Hull and Southampton were two of the first to towns to employ women police, although Grantham was the first to have a warranted policewoman.[20]
Since the 1940s, police forces in the United Kingdom have been merged and modernised.
Corruption at the Metropolitan Police's Flying Squad led to a conviction and resignations in 1977 after the Operation Countryman investigations. A Police Complaints Board was set up to handle allegations of malpractice in response.
Changes took place to tighten police procedures in the 1980s, in response to the Scarman Report, to ensure that evidence and interviews were robust, in the introduction of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. In 1989, the West Midlands Serious Crime Squad was disbanded as a series of around 100 criminal cases failed or were subsequently overturned in the West Midlands, after new forensic techniques showed police officers had been tampering with statement evidence to secure convictions, including those of the Birmingham Six.
The Police Complaints Board was replaced by the Police Complaints Authority in 1985, which itself was superseded by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) in 2004. On 8 January 2018, the IPCC was replaced by the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC).[21]
