United Kingdom
| Author | Alan Beckley |
| Pages | 937-951 |
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Official country name: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Capital: London
Geographic description: Located in western Europe, islands include the northern one-sixth of the island of Ireland between the North Atlantic Ocean and the North Sea, northwest of France
Population: 60,441,457 (est. 2005)
It was between 600 to 1400 in England that Anglo-Saxon laws were written down. Laws were described as "the aggressive weapon of a new state" and remedy for wrongdoing was recognized as legitimately a matter of enforcement by the victim and his or her kin. Formal justice therefore took over from the previous system of private revenge or blood feud. Laws laid down the requirement that local communities must pursue criminals and offenders and deliver them to the royal courts; this was their public duty, in fact, harboring criminals was a serious offense punishable by death. This is the first true example of community policing. After the successful invasion of England in 1066, the king began to raise revenues from administering the criminal justice system by the imposition of fines and compensation. The mission statement of the Crown was to "promote the spiritual welfare of the people through the use of force against evil-doers," which was an early form of "to serve and protect."
In the twelfth century greater emphasis was placed on the role of the community and its accountability to the king through the system of "frankpledge," the local "watch," the "hue and cry," and the judgment of outlawry. Frankpledge, an oath of loyalty to the king, was the obligation of all citizens to pursue offenders and ensure the good behavior of other members of the community. Subsequently, sheriffs were appointed in counties as the first law officers to coordinate criminal cases and arrest suspects; they could also call out the posse comitatus, which consisted of all adult males, against "vagabonds and malefactors." The powers of sheriffs were then superseded by the appointment of other law officers such as coroners and sergeants of the peace. Laws of 1233 to 1285 obliged every town, borough, and city to set up a watch each night during the summer to arrest strangers and pursue those who sought to flee. "Constables of castle" were appointed by the Crown, but "constables" in towns were elected annually by the community they served. Constables had a range of military, policing, and revenue functions; these were the first
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police patrols. Other legal entities within towns and cities were the bailiffs and beadles, who had duties to exact fines, execute warrants, and deal with orphaned or found-ling children.
Because of the social, health, and political problems of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, communal policing began to be replaced by a substantial body of appointed legal officers. In the mid-fourteenth century the justice of the peace role was created to deal with civil and criminal disputes and offenses; from this time until 1600 the roles of constable and justice of the peace evolved into the role they perform today. From 1600 many criminal law statutes were passed by the legislature, but it was not until the 1750s that the police first had real investigatory and crime prevention functions. At that time in London, Henry Fielding started the Bow Street runners that gained the reputation of expert thief takers.
In 1822 Robert Peel was appointed home secretary and the celebrated "general instructions" were written for the Metropolitan Police Service formed by the Metropolitan Police Act 1829. This period is recognized as the equivalent of the "industrial revolution" in the police service; it signaled the start of policing in the United Kingdom as we know it today.
Borough police forces commenced in 1835 and started rural policing in 1839. Policing from that time went on unchanged to the 1960s, when changes in society required a fundamental rethinking in operational policing. A Royal Commission was completed in 1960 that resulted in the Police Act of 1964. Transportation, organization, command, and control of the police service was changed forever and the fond image of the "bobby on the beat" was erased from reality.
Policing became more scientific and managed, leading to the temporarily popular "managing objectives" to the "managerialism" or increased focus on outputs and outcomes that are experienced today in policing and other public service organizations in the United Kingdom.
From the 1980s to the present day the police in the United Kingdom have become increasingly politicized. One can identify this through the approach taken to dealing with major incidents of public disorder (e.g., the miners' strikes through the 1980s) and attempts to articulate police professional standards and ethical principles, such as the Metropolitan Police Principles and the Association of Chief Police Officers' Statement of Common Purpose and Values of 1985 and 1992, respectively.
During the 1990s there were several high-profile examples of corruption and police incompetence. This led to a new focus and need for examination of policing principles and ethics. Several books were published to open up debate on the subject, which questioned why ethics are important and identified the ideal ethical police service.
In Europe several models of policing have emerged over the last two centuries. Most are described as democratic policing systems, but they move from the extreme of locally appointed, locally accountable systems such as those introduced in Belgium, to the locally appointed but centrally accountable in the United Kingdom, to the quasi military, centralized system in France and other European States.
There is a continuum between the cohesion of society and the model of policing that is appropriate for that society. To achieve greater accessibility of the police and interaction in the community, it is necessary to have readiness and understanding from the community that it will have to participate in its policing. The "best practice" model to establish a system of democratic policing in any country is thought to be the "tripartite" system, whereby accountability is separated by having the three pillars of governance: legislature, executive, and judiciary. This formula has been found to establish the necessary checks and balances in civil society to ensure that crime is punished and that the rights of individuals are respected.
Policing in the United Kingdom has been furthered by the introduction of rights-based law in the shape of the Human Rights Act of 1998 and other developments such as the new Oath of Office for police officers that incorporates a statement on human rights. The deployment and description of local and special police services in the United Kingdom are described in other sections of this entry, along with the impact of human rights law.
Administered centrally by the Home Department (or Home Office) of the UK government, the police service is organized on a local basis; thus, there are forty-four separate police forces in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland and eight in Scotland. There are also non-Home Office police forces with a national remit, focusing on specific areas of responsibility such as British Transport Police and Ministry of Defense Police. The total police strength is approximately 150,000 with additional support staff of 64,000. Each police force is divided into basic command units (BCUs), with about 200 to 300 police officers in each. There are approximately 400 BCUs in England and Wales.
There is a debate about changes brought about in the police service and the "police reform agenda," as it has been called, by the Labour government of Prime Minister...
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