Police (redirected from City Police)

police, public and private agents concerned with the enforcement of law, order, and public protection. In modern cities their duties cover a wide range of activities, from criminal investigation and apprehension to crime prevention, traffic regulation, and maintenance of records. In many countries they also have a political function (see secret police). The foundations of the present English metropolitan police system were formulated in 1829 by Sir Robert Peel (see Scotland Yard). On the North American frontier, before the government was well organized, vigilance committees (see vigilantes) functioned as volunteer police. The Texas Rangers and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police are examples of organizations that function especially in large, sparsely populated areas. The colonies maintained constables, and this office survives in the rural sheriff. Regular police forces appeared in many states after the establishment (1844) of the New York City organization. Administration of the police system varies in different countries. In Europe, especially on the Continent, it tends to be centralized. In the United States there is decentralization: Metropolitan police have the widest functions, and state police are chiefly concerned with traffic control and rural protection. Police agents of the federal government include members of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, agents of the Dept. of Homeland Security (including the members of the Secret Service, who guard the president and certain other public figures), and agents of the Dept. of Justice. The fight against crime on the international level is coordinated by the International Criminal Police Commission, popularly known as Interpol.

Bibliography

See J. Cramer, The World's Police (1964); H. Hahn, ed., Police in Urban Society (1971); H. K. Becker, Police Systems of Europe (1973); D. H. Bayley, Patterns of Policing: A Comparative International Perspective (1985); J. Roach and J. Thomaneck, ed., The Police and Public Order in Europe (1985); J. D. Brewer et al., The Police, Public Order and the State (1988); D. J. Kenney, ed., Police and Policing (1988).

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police

Body of agents organized to maintain civil order and public safety, enforce the law, and investigate crime. Characteristics common to most police forces include a quasi-military organization, a uniformed patrol and traffic-control force, plainclothes divisions for criminal investigations, and a set of enforcement priorities that reflects the community's way of life. Administration may be centralized at the national level downward, or decentralized, with local police forces largely autonomous. Recruits usually receive specialized training and take an exam. The modern metropolitan police force began with Sir Robert Peel in Britain c. 1829. Secret police are often separate, clandestine organizations established by national governments to maintain political and social orthodoxy, which typically operate with little or no restraint.

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police

1. 

a. the organized civil force of a state, concerned with maintenance of law and order, the detection and prevention of crime, etc.

b. (as modifier): a police inquiry

2. the members of such a force collectively

3. Archaic

a. the regulation and control of a community, esp in regard to the enforcement of law, the prevention of crime, etc.

b. the department of government concerned with this
www.police.uk
www.ipa-iac.org/index2.htm

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Police 

in exploiter states, a system of special bodies of supervision and coercion, as well as domestic punitive troops that protect the existing social system by means of direct and overt suppression.

K. Marx noted that the police was one of the first hallmarks of a state. For example, in ancient Athens “public authority initially existed only in the form of the police, which is just as old as the state” (K. Marx and F. Engels, Soch., 2nd ed., vol. 21, p. 118). The Middle Ages was the main period of development for the police, which flourished especially under the police state of the age of absolutism. After gaining power, the bourgeoisie preserved and perfected the police, which, like the army, became a bulwark of the bourgeois state. As one of the chief instruments of the state, the police in an exploiter society is always separated from and inimical to the people.

In Russia the police was established as an autonomous organization by Peter I in 1718. Its principal divisions were the general police, which kept order and included an investigative office that conducted inquiries on criminal cases, and the political police (information and security offices). There were also special service police stationed at palaces, ports, and fairs. The police were subordinate to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which had a Department of Police. The police system included city police administrations headed by chiefs of city police; police units and sections headed by unit and sectional police officers (supervisors); police stations; and, at the lowest level, the gorodovye (rank-and-file civilian members of the tsarist police serving in the cities). In district centers and districts the police agencies belonged to police administrations headed by a chief district officer and subordinate to the governor. The entire police hierarchy had broad powers. As V. I. Lenin observed, “tsarist autocracy is the autocracy of the police” (Poln. sobr. soch., 5th ed., vol. 7, p. 137).

In modern capitalist states the police are used primarily in the struggle against the revolutionary and working-class movement —against democratic progressive forces. There are two forms of national police systems: the centralized system (Austria, France, and Finland, for example) and the decentralized system (Great Britain and the Federal Republic of Germany [FRG], for example). The police may be classified, according to the main emphasis in their work, as government police, security police, crime-control police, administrative (office) police, political (secret) police, and military police. In the USA the federal police includes the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and many other police agencies associated with various government departments. State police are, as a rule, directly subordinate to the governor of a state. The local police, the most numerous branch, consists of police agencies for the counties and municipalities.

In Great Britain, the police is subordinate to the Home Office, and its operational headquarters is Scotland Yard, the criminal investigation department of the Metropolitan Police of London. The local police operate in the cities and counties. The police systems of Scotland and Northern Ireland are nominally autonomous. In France police institutions are subordinate to the General Directorate of the National Police, which is part of the Ministry of the Interior. The Paris Prefecture of Police has a special status.

In bourgeois states, private police guard major industrial, transportation, bank, and other facilities and conduct private criminal investigations.

The military police is a police agency in the ground forces of some foreign states, including the USA, Great Britain, and the FRG. Its duties include highway traffic control; the detention of deserters and of servicemen who have lagged behind or deliberately left their units; and guarding imprisoned servicemen. Also among the duties of the military police are the prevention and investigation of crimes and the evacuation of prisoners of war. Units of the military police are used for domestic control. There were military police units in the Russian Army from the 17th to the early 19th century, but in 1815 they were replaced by the military gendarmerie.

The term “police” is also used in some socialist states, such as the Polish People’s Republic and the German Democratic Republic. In these states, however, the police is an instrument for protecting the fundamental interests of the working people, and it performs the same functions as the militia in the USSR.

IA. M. BEL’SON