police

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 police ('public order, administration, government'), in turn from Latin politia, which is the romanization of the Ancient Greek πολιτεία (politeia) 'citizenship, administration, civil polity'. This is derived from πόλις (polis) 'city'.

Development of theory

Michel Foucault 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 and statistics in the 17th and early 18th centuries, most notably with Nicolas Delamare's Traité de la Police ("Treatise on the Police"), first published in 1705. The German Polizeiwissenschaft (Science of Police) first theorized by Philipp von Hörnigk, a 17th-century Austrian political economist and civil servant, and much more famously by Johann Heinrich Gottlob Justi, who produced an important theoretical work known as Cameral science on the formulation of police. Foucault cites Magdalene Humpert author of Bibliographie der Kameralwissenschaften (1937) in which the author makes note of a substantial bibliography was produced of over 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 concerns and needed to be incorporated within the western political philosophy system of raison d'état and therefore giving the superficial appearance of empowering the population (and unwittingly supervising the population), which, according to mercantilist theory, was to be the main strength of the state. Thus, its functions largely overreached simple law enforcement activities and included public health concerns, urban planning (which was important because of the miasma theory of disease; thus, cemeteries were moved out of town, etc.), and surveillance of prices.

The concept of preventive policing, or policing to deter crime from taking place, gained influence in the late 18th century. Police Magistrate John Fielding, head of the Bow Street Runners, argued that "...it is much better to prevent even one man from being a rogue than apprehending and bringing forty to justice."

The Utilitarian philosopher, Jeremy Bentham, promoted the views of Italian Marquis Cesare Beccaria, and disseminated a translated version of "Essay on Crime in Punishment". Bentham espoused the guiding principle of "the greatest good for the greatest number":

Personnel and organization

Police forces include both preventive (uniformed) police and detectives. Terminology varies from country to country. Police functions include protecting life and property, enforcing criminal law, criminal investigations, regulating traffic, crowd control, public safety duties, civil defense, emergency management, searching for missing persons, lost property and other duties concerned with public order. Regardless of size, police forces are generally organized as a hierarchy with multiple ranks. The exact structures and the names of rank vary considerably by country.

Uniformed

The police who wear uniforms make up the majority of a police service's personnel. Their main duty is to respond to 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.

As stated by the name, uniformed police wear uniforms. They perform functions that require an immediate recognition of an officer's legal authority and a potential need for force. Most commonly this means intervening to stop a crime in progress and securing the scene of a crime that has already happened. Besides dealing with crime, these officers may also manage and monitor traffic, carry out community policing duties, maintain order at public events or carry out searches for missing people (in 2012, the latter accounted for 14% of police time in the United Kingdom). As most of these duties must be available as a 24/7 service, uniformed police are required to do shift work.

Detectives

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, a regular detective holds a higher rank than a regular police officer. In others, such as British police and 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 or volunteer officers, some of whom have other jobs outside policing. These may be paid positions or entirely volunteer. These are known by a variety of names, such as reserves, auxiliary police or special constables.

Other volunteer organizations work with the police and perform some of their duties. Groups in the U.S. including the Retired and Senior Volunteer Program, Community Emergency Response Team, and the Boy Scouts Police Explorers provide training, traffic and crowd control, disaster response, and other policing duties. In the U.S., the Volunteers in Police Service program assists over 200,000 volunteers in almost 2,000 programs. Volunteers may also work on the support staff. Examples of these schemes are Volunteers in Police Service in the US, Police Support Volunteers in the UK and Volunteers in Policing in New South Wales.

Specialized

Specialized preventive and detective groups, or Specialist Investigation Departments, exist within many law enforcement organizations either for dealing with particular types of crime, such as traffic law enforcement, K9/use of police dogs, crash investigation, homicide, or fraud; or for situations requiring specialized skills, such as underwater search, aviation, explosive disposal ("bomb squad"), and computer crime.

Most larger jurisdictions employ police tactical units, specially selected and trained paramilitary 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-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 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 solely responsible for policing the armed forces, referred to as 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 gendarmeries, such as the French Gendarmerie, the Italian Carabinieri, the Spanish Guardia Civil, and the Portuguese National Republican Guard)

a section of the military solely responsible for policing the civilian population (e.g., Romanian Gendarmerie)

the civilian preventive police of a Brazilian state (e.g., Policia Militar)

a special military law enforcement service (e.g., 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 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.

Forms of religious law enforcement were relatively common in historical religious civilizations, but eventually declined in favor of religious tolerance and 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 suppress religion or 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 and related 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, false imprisonment, false incarceration under mental health legislation, and physical violence. Countries widely reported to use secret police organizations include China (The Ministry of State Security) and 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, have a single national police force.

In some places with multiple national police forces, one common arrangement is to have a civilian police force and a paramilitary gendarmerie, such as the Police Nationale and National Gendarmerie in France. The French policing system spread to other countries through the Napoleonic Wars and the French colonial empire. Another example is the Policía Nacional and Guardia Civil in Spain. In both France and Spain, the civilian force polices urban areas and the paramilitary force polices rural areas. Italy has a similar arrangement with the Polizia di Stato and Carabinieri, though their jurisdictions overlap more. Some countries have separate agencies for uniformed police and detectives, such as the Military Police and Civil Police in Brazil and the Carabineros and Investigations Police in Chile.

Other countries have sub-national police forces, but for the most part their jurisdictions do not overlap. In many countries, especially federations, there may be two or more tiers of police force, each serving different levels of government and enforcing different subsets of the law. In Australia and Germany, the majority of policing is carried out by state (i.e. provincial) police forces, which are supplemented by a federal police force. Though not a federation, the United Kingdom has a similar arrangement, where policing is primarily the responsibility of a regional police force and specialist units exist at the national level. In Canada, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) are the federal police, while municipalities can decide whether to run a local police service or to contract local policing duties to a larger one. Most urban areas have a local police service, while most rural areas contract it to the RCMP, or to the provincial police in Ontario and Quebec.

The United States has a highly decentralized and fragmented system of law enforcement, with over 17,000 state and local law enforcement agencies. These agencies include local police, county law enforcement (often in the form of a sheriff's office, or county police), state police and federal law enforcement agencies. Federal agencies, such as the FBI, only have jurisdiction over federal crimes or those that involve more than one state. Other federal agencies have jurisdiction over a specific type of crime. Examples include the Federal Protective Service, which patrols and protects government buildings; the Postal Inspection Service, which protect United States Postal Service facilities, vehicles and items; the Park Police, which protect national parks; and Amtrak Police, which patrol Amtrak stations and trains. There are also some government agencies and uniformed services that perform police functions in addition to other duties, such as the 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. 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.

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 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 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 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 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 batons, tear gas, riot control agents, rubber bullets, riot shields, water cannons, and electroshock weapons. Police officers typically carry handcuffs to restrain suspects.

The use of firearms or deadly force is typically a last resort only to be used when necessary to save 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 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 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 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, SUV, or 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 marked with appropriate symbols and equipped with 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 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 banning this practice in 1996 on the grounds that it endangered motorists who might be pulled over by police impersonators.

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. 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 RHIBs, motorboats, and patrol boats. SWAT vehicles are used by police tactical units, and often consist of four-wheeled 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. Mobile command posts may also be used by some police forces to establish identifiable command centers at the scene of major situations.

Strategies

The advent of the police car, two-way radio, and telephone in the early 20th century transformed policing into a reactive strategy that focused on responding to calls for service away from their 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. O.W. Wilson, a student of Vollmer, helped reduce corruption and introduce professionalism in Wichita, Kansas, and later in the Chicago Police Department. Strategies employed by O.W. Wilson included rotating officers from community to community to reduce their vulnerability to corruption, establishing of a non-partisan police board to help govern the police force, a strict merit system for promotions within the department, and an aggressive recruiting drive with higher police salaries to attract professionally qualified officers. During the professionalism era of policing, law enforcement agencies concentrated on dealing with felonies and other serious crime and conducting visible car patrols in between, rather than broader focus on crime prevention.

The Kansas City Preventive Patrol study in the early 1970s showed flaws in 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' 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.

Power restrictions and accountability

In many nations, criminal procedure law has been developed to regulate officers' discretion, so that they do not arbitrarily or unjustly exercise their powers of arrest, search and seizure, and use of force. In the United States, Miranda v. Arizona led to the widespread use of Miranda warnings or constitutional warnings.

Police forces also find themselves under criticism for their use of force, particularly deadly force.

In Miranda the court created safeguards against self-incriminating statements made after an arrest. The court held that "The prosecution may not use statements, whether exculpatory or inculpatory, stemming from questioning initiated by law enforcement officers after a person has been taken into custody or otherwise deprived of his freedom of action in any significant way, unless it demonstrates the use of procedural safeguards effective to secure the Fifth Amendment's privilege against self-incrimination"

Police in the United States are also prohibited from holding criminal suspects for more than a reasonable amount of time (usually 24–48 hours) before arraignment, using torture, abuse or physical threats to extract confessions, using excessive force to effect an arrest, and searching suspects' bodies or their homes without a warrant obtained upon a showing of probable cause. The four exceptions to the constitutional requirement of a search warrant are:

Consent

Search incident to arrest

Motor vehicle searches

Exigent circumstances

In Terry v. Ohio (1968) the court divided seizure into two parts, the investigatory stop and arrest. The court further held that during an investigatory stop a police officer's search " [is] confined to what [is] minimally necessary to determine whether [a suspect] is armed, and the intrusion, which [is] made for the sole purpose of protecting himself and others nearby, [is] confined to ascertaining the presence of weapons" (U.S. Supreme Court). Before Terry, every police encounter constituted an arrest, giving the police officer the full range of search authority. Search authority during a Terry stop (investigatory stop) is limited to weapons only.

Accountability

Police services commonly include units for investigating crimes committed by the police themselves. These units are typically called 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, 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 of Ontario, 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 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.

Selective enforcement

Tensions can increase 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 riot following their acquittal have been suggested by some people to be evidence that U.S. police are dangerously lacking in appropriate controls.

The fact that this trend has occurred contemporaneously with the rise of the civil rights movement, the "war on drugs", and a precipitous rise in violent crime from the 1960s to the 1990s has made questions surrounding the role, administration and scope of police authority increasingly complicated.

Police departments and the local governments that oversee them in some jurisdictions have attempted to mitigate some of these issues through community outreach programs and community policing to make the police more accessible to the concerns of local communities, by working to increase hiring diversity, by updating training of police in their responsibilities to the community and under the law, and by increased oversight within the department or by civilian commissions.

In cases in which such measures have been lacking or absent, civil lawsuits have been brought by the United States Department of Justice against local law enforcement agencies, authorized under the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act. This has compelled local departments to make organizational changes, enter into consent decree settlements to adopt such measures, and submit to oversight by the Justice Department.

In May 2020, a global movement to increase scrutiny of police violence grew in popularity, starting in Minneapolis, Minnesota with the murder of George Floyd. Calls for defunding of the police and full abolition of the police gained larger support in the United States as more criticized systemic racism in policing.

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 rule of law. 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 agencies in the United States whose mission includes providing protection for executives such as the president and accompanying family members, visiting foreign dignitaries, and other high-ranking individuals. Such agencies include the U.S. Secret Service and the U.S. Park Police.

History

Ancient

Law enforcement in ancient China was carried out by "prefects" for thousands of years since it developed in both the Chu and Jin kingdoms of the Spring and Autumn period. In Jin, dozens of prefects were spread across the state, each having limited authority and employment period. They were appointed by local magistrates, who reported to higher authorities such as governors, who in turn were appointed by the emperor, and they oversaw the civil administration of their "prefecture", or jurisdiction. Under each prefect were "subprefects" who helped collectively with law enforcement in the area. Some prefects were responsible for handling investigations, much like modern police detectives. Prefects could also be women. Local citizens could report minor judicial offenses against them such as robberies at a local prefectural office. The concept of the "prefecture system" spread to other cultures such as Korea and Japan.

In Babylonia, law enforcement tasks were initially entrusted to individuals with military backgrounds or imperial magnates during the Old Babylonian period, but eventually, law enforcement was delegated to officers known as paqūdus, who were present in both cities and rural settlements. A paqūdu was responsible for investigating petty crimes and carrying out arrests.

In ancient Egypt evidence of law enforcement exists as far back as the Old Kingdom period. There are records of an office known as "Judge Commandant of the Police" dating to the fourth dynasty. During the fifth dynasty at the end of the Old Kingdom period, 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, 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. 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 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 units were tasked with guarding caravans, guarding border crossings, protecting royal necropolises, guarding slaves at work or during transport, patrolling the Nile River, and guarding administrative buildings. 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. 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.

Post-classical

In medieval Spain, Santas Hermandades, or 'holy brotherhoods', peacekeeping associations of armed individuals, were a characteristic of municipal life, especially in Castile. As medieval Spanish kings often could not offer adequate protection, protective municipal leagues began to emerge in the twelfth century against banditry and other rural criminals, and against the lawless nobility or to support one or another claimant to a crown.

These organizations were intended to be temporary, but became a long-standing fixture of Spain. The first recorded case of the formation of an hermandad occurred when the towns and the peasantry of the north united to police the pilgrim road to Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, and protect the pilgrims against robber knights.

Throughout the Middle Ages such alliances were frequently formed by combinations of towns to protect the roads connecting them, and were occasionally extended to political purposes. Among the most powerful was the league of North Castilian and Basque ports, the Hermandad de las marismas: Toledo, Talavera, and Villarreal.

As one of their first acts after end of the War of the Castilian Succession in 1479, Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile established the centrally-organized and efficient Holy Brotherhood as a national police force. They adapted an existing brotherhood to the purpose of a general police acting under officials appointed by themselves, and endowed with great powers of summary jurisdiction even in capital cases. The original brotherhoods continued to serve as modest local police-units until their final suppression in 1835.

The Vehmic courts of Germany provided some policing in the absence of strong state institutions. Such courts had a chairman who presided over a session and lay judges who passed judgement and carried out law enforcement tasks. Among the responsibilities that lay judges had were giving formal warnings to known troublemakers, issuing warrants, and carrying out executions.

In the medieval Islamic Caliphates, police were known as Shurta. Bodies termed Shurta existed perhaps as early as the Rashidun Caliphate during the reign of Uthman. The Shurta is known to have existed in the Abbasid and Umayyad Caliphates. Their primary roles were to act as police and internal security 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 muhtasibs were responsible for supervising bazaars and economic activity in general in the medieval Islamic world.

Early modern

The first example of a statutory police force in the world was probably the High Constables of Edinburgh, formed in 1611 to police the streets of Edinburgh, then part of the Kingdom of Scotland. 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, then the largest city in Europe. The royal edict, registered by the Parlement of Paris on 15 March 1667, created the office of lieutenant général de police ("lieutenant general of police"), who was to be the head of the new Paris police force, and defined the task of the police as "ensuring the peace and quiet of the public and of private individuals, purging the city of what may cause disturbances, procuring abundance, and having each and everyone live according to their station and their duties".

This office was first held by Gabriel Nicolas de la Reynie, who had 44 commissaires de police ('police commissioners') under his authority. In 1709, these commissioners were assisted by inspecteurs de police ('police inspectors'). The city of Paris was divided into 16 districts policed by the commissaires, each assigned to a particular district and assisted by a growing bureaucracy. The scheme of the Paris police force was extended to the rest of France by a royal edict of October 1699, resulting in the creation of lieutenants general of police in all large French cities and towns.

After the French Revolution, Napoleon I reorganized the police in Paris and other cities with more than 5,000 inhabitants on 17 February 1800, as the Prefecture of Police. On 12 March 1829, a government decree created the first uniformed police in France, known as sergents de ville ('city sergeants'), which the Paris Prefecture of Police's website claims were the first uniformed policemen in the world.

In feudal Japan, samurai warriors were charged with enforcing the law among commoners. Some Samurai acted as magistrates called Machi-bugyō, who acted as judges, prosecutors, and as chief of police. Beneath them were other Samurai serving as yoriki, or assistant magistrates, who conducted criminal investigations, and beneath them were Samurai serving as dōshin, who were responsible for patrolling the streets, keeping the peace, and making arrests when necessary. The yoriki were responsible for managing the dōshin. Yoriki and dōshin were typically drawn from low-ranking samurai families. Assisting the dōshin were the komono, non-Samurai chōnin who went on patrol with them and provided assistance, the okappiki, non-Samurai from the lowest outcast class, often former criminals, who worked for them as informers and spies, and gōyokiki or meakashi, 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.

Modern

Policing of cities in Europe developed in Glasgow, Dublin and London as a response to unrest and crises. From the mid-1700s, poor harvests and food rioting precipitated a series of policing reforms in the Irish Parliament. In the 1800s, further unrest and changes in popular notions of social obligations in growing urban populations led to a series of new police reforms in Great Britain. These spread to its former and current dominions in North America, Australia and elsewhere, where urban police forces adopted similar founding principles, structures, regulations and shared personnel.

Following early police forces established in 1779 and 1788 in Glasgow, Scotland, the Glasgow authorities successfully petitioned the government to pass the Glasgow Police Act establishing the City of Glasgow Police in 1800. Other Scottish towns soon followed suit and set up their own police forces through acts of parliament. In Ireland, the Irish Constabulary Act 1822 marked the beginning of the Royal Irish Constabulary. The act established a force in each barony with chief constables and inspectors general under the control of the civil administration at Dublin Castle. By 1841 this force numbered over 8,600 men.

In 1797, Patrick Colquhoun was able to persuade the West Indies merchants who operated at the Pool of London on the River Thames to establish a police force at the docks to prevent rampant theft that was causing annual estimated losses of £500,000 worth of cargo in imports alone. The idea of a police, as it then existed in France, was considered as a potentially undesirable foreign import. In building the case for the police in the face of England's firm anti-police sentiment, Colquhoun framed the political rationale on economic indicators to show that a police dedicated to crime prevention was "perfectly congenial to the principle of the British constitution". Moreover, he went so far as to praise the French system, which had reached "the greatest degree of perfection" in his estimation.

With the initial investment of £4,200, the new force, the Marine Police, was formed in 1798, composed of 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, together with new laws including police powers. Colquhoun published a book on the experiment, The Commerce and Policing of the River Thames. It found receptive audiences far outside London, and inspired similar forces in other cities, notably, New York City, Dublin, and Sydney.