Fig 1: Officers of the Southern Railway Police with officers of the Brighton force, late 1930s. Co-operation between 'Home Office' and 'Non Home Office' police forces has always been in the public interest. The policing landscape has changed considerably in the last 90 years but the differences between 'types' of police force remain.
This is a question that everyone who has ever served in a non
territorial police force has heard. Indeed
it is quite a common question that is to be found on various internet forums
and law enforcement websites.
Put simply most policing in the UK is done by the mainstream
geographic forces. In England and Wales
these forces are governed under the Police Act 1996 and the single geographic
force in Scotland under the Police and Fire Reform (Scotland) Act 2012. But in addition to these forces there are a
number of bodies of constables that, largely, sit outside the arrangements in
these Acts. For convenience we call them
police forces but they actually fall outside the definition of ‘police force’
used in the 1996 Act, even though some are designated as police ‘forces’ in the
legislation that gives rise, or allows their existence. A warning:
this is the sort of thing that will take up a fair bit of this blog.
In England and Wales there are around 147,000 police
officers in the Police Act (ie geographic or territorial) forces. There is no single source of data for the
other bodies of constables that fall outside the Police Act. However the ‘big three’, viz British
Transport Police, Civil Nuclear Constabulary and the Ministry of Defence Police,
have between them around 7,000 officers.
This is not an insignificant number and British Transport Police (BTP)
at least, interact with the general public every day. MDP and CNC are routinely armed and BTP also has
a firearms capability. The ‘big three’
are often linked together as the principal ‘Non Home Department Police Forces’,
but actually they have very little in common with each other and all operate
under different rules of governance.
Other ‘forces’ include those maintained by various ports and
harbours, cathedrals, parks and transport operators (Mersey Tunnels
Police).
The geographic forces have police powers throughout the
countries they police. The jurisdiction
of these other forces is limited according to the legislation that governs
them. This creates a very confusing
backdrop and, I would suggest an impediment to joined up policing in the UK.
So are they real police?
Well, the law does not distinguish between the powers of constables
within their constablewick (ie area of jurisdiction) but not all of these
organisations offer a ‘full’ policing service.
BTP comes close to this but also has constrained geographical powers and
shares its jurisdiction with each local police force that the railways of the Great
Britain pass through. Training standards
vary and are not regulated by the Home Secretary. This blog, in part, aims to answer the ‘real
police?’ question and to look in greater detail at what actually goes on with
these forces and how their activities, self image and publicity do not always
match the complex legal backdrop against which they operate. What is clear is that not all police forces
are equal and that even within the lumpen grouping of ‘non police Act’ or Non
Home Office’ forces things can be very different.
I should declare an interest in that I am a former BTP
officer. I also run an occasional blog
on the history of the railway police. I
should also state up front that I do not believe that the public is well served
by having multiple organisations with differing policing jurisdictions.
There will not be many blog posts – but from time to time I
will add new material that I hope will be of interest to that very small group
of people who follow these things.
Philip Trendall
November 2025
No comments:
Post a Comment