The British police forces, since there's not one national one, are the oldest such organised ones in the world. Officially they are now "police services" rather than "forces".
The first modern police force was London Town's Metropolitan Police was founded by Sir Robert Peel in 1829. Peel has the Met's training centre at Hendon (featured in Hot Fuzz) named after him and his name is the source of two of the British English terms for police officers. These are the now-defunct "peelers" (except in Northern Ireland, where it is still used) and the slightly less defunct "bobbies". Police forces in some other Commonwealth nations, including Australia and New Zealand, are heavily based on the British model.
The boys and girls in black
The British police are known for their distinctive helmets. Pictured above, they are properly called 'custodian helmets'. They are good for, among other things, covering up a naked man's offensive bits and give rise to the derogatory term "tithead". These are worn by male constables and sergeants on foot patrol. Other male officers wear a peaked cap, while women wear a bowler hat. Some services (including Scotland's) have replaced the custodian helmet altogether, but they are still seen on ceremonial occasions such as Remembrance Day parades.The classic blue serge uniforms of old, being classic fanservice if worn by a female, have also gone from everyday use. Nowadays, police uniforms are black. Until the 2000s, officers wore a white shirt with a black tie (a clip-on tie, otherwise the officer can be grabbed by it) with women wearing either the tie or a black/white chequered cravat. Senior officers continue to wear white shirts and ties/cravats, but most forces have moved the rank-and-file officers to wearing black t-shirts with a stab vest. Officers who are out on the beat will very often wear a yellow hi-vis jacket over this.
Another widespread symbol of policing is 'Sillitoe tartan' - a pattern of black and white chequers (sometimes blue and white, or — in the case of the City of London Police — red and white). The pattern appears on the hatbands and sometimes other places on an officer's uniform, as well as other police-related places such as logos and decorations. It is named after a former police chief who introduced it in Glasgow in the 1930s to make officers easily identifiable. The Sillitoe tartan also inspired the police car 'Battenberg' livery, with square panels of hi-vis blue and yellow.
British uniformed police use the following ranks, in rising order of authority/seniority:
- Police Constable (PC): a.k.a. "bobby". Rank-and-file police officer, like the American rank of Officer. Not a detective. Normally in uniform, sometimes in plainclothes; CID (the detectives) may refer to them as either "uniforms" or the less common "woodentops" (in reference to the iconic helmets worn by beat officers).
- Police Sergeant (Sgt or PS): The corporal of the police services. Sergeants fill a number of roles, usually as a kind of "group manager" for the constables. The first step up the greasy pole of promotion. A common position to find a uniformed Sergeant in would be at the charge desk in the cell area of a police station (usually referred to as the "desk sergeant", even if others of the same rank are also desk-bound). Usually, a television Police Procedural will depict (at least) one of the uniform Sergeants as the kindly old "seen it all before" copper who the younger officers see as a kind of father figure. Roughly equivalent to the American rank of the same name.
- Police Inspector (Insp): The manager of 3-5 uniform teams that work the same shift, and the highest rank that has to do shift work. Mostly a desk bound position, although a Uniform Inspector can still regularly be called out to any kind of major incident. Roughly equivalent to the American rank of Lieutenant.
- Chief Inspector (Ch Insp): An 'operations manager' of a police station. Indeed, many uniform Chief Inspectors will have the subtitle "Chief Inspector of Operations", followed by the station at which they're based. The Chief Inspector is an entirely desk bound job. Duties seldom involve actually going out on the street, and most usually involve endless meetings with community groups. Roughly equivalent to the American rank of Captain (appropriately, the epaulette insignia of three 'pips' is the same as that of a Captain in the British Army).
- Superintendent (Supt): The overall boss of a large police station, a "super" is mostly an administrator; they may also direct the tactical response to a major incident. Superintendents and higher officers have a few special powers such as allowing a suspect to be detained beyond the usual 24-hour time limit. Most American police forces are too small to have an equivalent, but it would be Major or Inspector in most that do.
- Chief Superintendent (Ch Supt): Also called "Borough Commanders." In most forces, the commander for the highest geographic subdivision of the force's territory. These used to be called 'Divisions' but these days are more often called 'Basic Command Units'. In the Met, they are instead in charge of a borough. A "Chief Super" will often be a long serving officer whose days on the beat are far behind them. Many officers who reach this position are not far from retirement.
Uniformed Police Chiefs include:
Officers of these ranks are informally called the 'chief officers', though only the commissioners and chief constables are actual chiefs of a police force.- Commander (CMDR): A rank that exists only in the Met and City of London forces and has the same insignia as an Assistant Chief Constable. In the latter it is fully equivalent to an ACC. In the Met, it is an extra level of command between the chief supers and the Commissioner's assistants. In fiction, usually an Obstructive Bureaucrat who may have Dirty Cop tendencies; George Gideon and Adam Dalgliesh are notable exceptions.
- Commissioner: The overall chief of the Met and City of London forces. Because of the Met's size and extra responsibilities, its Commissioner is the highest profile police officer in the country, and the appointment of a new Commissioner attracts much media coverage. Not to be confused with the elected position of Police and Crime Commissioner
, who is independent from the service they're attached to and manages how their funds are spent. The Met Commissioner has a deputy, assistants and deputy assistants. The City of London police has one Assistant Commissioner. The Met's Assistant Commissioners wear the same insignia as a provincial Chief Constable and have as high a media profile. The Assistant Commissioner for Special Operations is the UK's most senior counter-terrorism cop.
- Chief Constable: In all other forces they replace the titles of Commissioner. Other than that, there is no real difference. Chief Constables have a deputy and at least one assistant. Police Scotland is the only one to have multiple deputies. Often, the Chief Constable will mediate between their police force, governments, media and public, while their deputy handles the day-to-day running of the force.
Plain-clothes detectives (from the 'Criminal Investigation Department', or CID) use a similar system, but with different connotations in fiction:
- Detective Constable (DC): roughly equivalent to the American rank of Detective. Bottom of the totem pole and, despite what some cop shows may imply, the same rank as PC. That's why DC "Dangerous" Davies is so pathetic — he's experienced and quite competent, but has never been promoted above DC.
- Detective Sergeant (DS): as with their uniformed counterparts, responsible for a group of DCs.
- Detective Inspector (DI): an experienced and seasoned detective. May have DCs reporting to him/her as well as DSs. Sometimes used as a rank for fictional detectives, DIs lead investigations into serious crimes, but not a crime as serious as murder.
- Detective Chief Inspector (DCI): the highest-ranked detective in the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of a large town police station, or else in charge of a specialist unit at the force HQ. The most common rank for fictional detectives (Morse, Gene Hunt, etc), as this is the lowest rank of officer who can lead a murder investigation. However, the real life job is less 'hands-on' than it is in fiction. For example, the jobs of examining the scene and interviewing suspects are usually done by experienced DCs, with the DCI running it from behind the scenes.
- Detective Superintendent (DSupt or DSU): Mostly an administrator but may also lead a serious crime's investigation. A force will typically have one who manages the performance of the local CIDs and others who manage the specialist units that are based at force HQ. These units are called in to deal with serious crimes or those that require specialised detectives.
- Detective Chief Superintendent (DCS): The highest detective rank, answerable to the uniformed chiefs. Most regional forces have just one DCS, as the overall boss of their detective branch.
In decades past, female police officers had "W" prepended to their rank, e.g. WPC Annie Cartwright (Life On Mars). This is no longer the case, although the media doesn't always get the hint.
The British bobby (male or female) and their CID partners have had several stereotypes over the years:
- Evening All
- The Great British Copper Capture
- Modern Bobby
- Old-Fashioned Copper
- Politics Obsessed Superior
- Smith of the Yard
Police Powers
An interesting side note is that while there is a perception that officers who graduate from uniform to CID detective have undergone a 'promotion', this is not strictly true - becoming a detective is a specialisation, not a promotion. Uniform officers actually have greater powers in the United Kingdom in the sense that police have to be wearing uniform to use certain powers (e.g. making a traffic stop). The person in charge of the cells will be a uniform officer (normally a sergeant), while the detectives go about collecting evidence and interviewing suspects. This is a marked difference to the American style of policing: in the UK, a move from uniform Constable to Detective Constable is more of a sideways step than any kind of promotion, while the American model sees "earning your detective badge" as being a step up. Still, the perception persists that detectives are somehow "better" than uniform because the responsibilities of their work are usually more varied, and they are seen as exercising their brains while their uniform counterparts are seen as the dumb muscle.Until fairly recently, there was a rule in the police service known as "tenure". This rule basically stipulated that if a detective has been serving in the CID for a decade without them making any progress up the ranks then they would be put back into uniform as a means to make sure they aren't getting complacent. More than one detective actually chose to resign rather than face the (supposedly) humiliating move back into uniform division.
No Guns Please, We're British
Most British police officers do not carry guns. This dates back to the founding of the first Police force in Victorian London: citizens were strongly opposed to the idea of lawmen patrolling the streets, so they were designed to be as PR-friendly as possible. The Police themselves, the Police Federation (the Union for rank and file officers) and the general public are all strongly against the routine arming of police officers in modern times. For the police, the reasons for this are twofold: a) it enables officers to get a lot more hands-on in taking down a suspect, rather than resorting to pepper-spray or a taser, because they don't have to worry about the perp trying to grab their gun and b) if the police were armed, they would have to train officers in how to use them. This would mean laying off everyone who failed to qualify, or accepting Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy levels of skill at arms. As "ordinary" British criminalsnote generally do not carry firearms either this is not a major limitation. Most officers instead carry incapacitant spray and a baton. This is often called a truncheon, though this term specifically refers to the traditional 14-inch wooden baton. These days, a 21-inch collapsible baton is more common. Specially trained officers may also carry tasers.That said, officers can undergo specialist training to become Authorised Firearms Officers (AFOs). These do not conduct day-to-day policing while armed. Rather, they respond to dangerous or sensitive situations that require a stronger deterrent or response. AFOs can pursue further training in urban assault and breaching to become Specialist Firearms Officers (SFOs). The requirements to become an SFO are comparable to that of a SWAT team in a major US city. In 2012, the Metropolitan Police Service introudced a further level of specialist training for SFOs to become Counter Terrorist Specialist Firearms Officers (CT-SFOs), whose qualification standards approach those of the United Kingdom Special Forces.
Use of firearms by armed police is very strict in all UK police forces. Armed officers even have to announce themselves as "Armed Police" to make clear who's on the scene. The use of lethal force is limited to situations when there's a imminent threat to life as defined by the European Convention of Human Rights. Individual officers must justify every use of their weapons, even for when they point their weapons at suspects. Additionally, all firearms officers have to take regular retests and attend refresher training. If they fail, they lose their authorisation and return to unarmed policing.
The MPS most famously operates SCO19 (previously SO19 and, before that, CO19). Other police forces refer to their firearms commands as Armed Response Units. These officers are regularly issued semi-automatic weapons for special duties and are authorised to shoot armed suspects without prior warning in special circumstances. A semiautomatic-only version of the famous Heckler & Koch MP5 was the most common shoulder-arm until relatively recently, but 5.56mm carbines such as the H&K G36 or Steyr AUG have begun to displace the aging 'Hockler'.
As a consequence, deaths on both sides of the equation are very rare - for example in 2020 five people were killed by police and one officer died in the line of duty and this was considered to be a bad year.
Additionally, unlike the rest of the United Kingdom, where officers only carry guns for certain duties, police officers in Northern Ireland are always armed when out on duty. For obvious reasons. On the mainland, two other specialist groups are also routinely armed: The Civil Nuclear Constabulary, who guard Britain's nuclear reactors, and Protection Command, whose remit is providing protection to the Royal Family, senior politicians, and diplomats.
If things get extremely out of hand, the British government can and will deploy military special forces such as the SAS with authorisation to use maximum force against armed criminals to decisively resolve the situation - unlike the USA, the UK has no restrictions on deploying military personnel to assist law enforcement, though it is very rare (now that The Troubles have ended).
Police Forces Or Services
The British police force that is by far the most often portrayed in fiction is the Metropolitan Police Service ("the Met" or "Scotland Yard"). It polices almost all of Greater London, apart from the tiny central area that is policed by the City of London Police. In fiction the Met has a tendency to be portrayed as horribly corrupt and sometimes being worse criminals than the people they arrest and has poor relationships with the other forces (in the past, at least, this was very much Truth in Television, but it is still a popular fiction trope).The English and Welsh police are divided up into regional constabularies. Most of the remaining constabularies cover either a metropolitan area, a county or a couple of counties. The Scottish police used to be the same, but they were combined into a single force called Police Scotland in 2013. Northern Ireland also has a single force, the Police Service of Northern Ireland.
There are some other forces though:
- British Transport Police: deals with policing on the rail network and the London Underground.
- Ministry of Defence Police: a civilian force, who protect MOD sites, such as ports like HMNB Clyde, home of the British nuclear deterrent (a place, for obvious reasons, that people break into a lot). All officers are armed when on duty.
- The Royal Military Police, the Royal Navy's Regulating Branch, and the RAF Police have all been folded under the same banner as Service Police with the introduction of the 2009 Armed Forces Act; although keeping the same names they now have a common set of regulations. As their names suggest, they are each a military police for a different section of the armed forces
- The Civil Nuclear Constabulary: If it's nuclear and not a weapon (which are the problem of the MOD police) then this lot are responsible for protecting it. Unlike pretty much all other police in the UK, these guys are heavily armed, regular patrol issue including G36 assault rifles, Glock sidearms, tasers, ASP batons, CS spray and 30mm Autocannons.note
Notable police units
- Special Branch: Also known by its initials (SB), this was a label customarily used to identify units responsible for matters of national security in British and Commonwealth police forces, working in close concert with MI5 which does not have any powers of arrest or detention. In 2006, the Metropolitan Police's Special Branch was merged with the Anti-Terrorism Branch (SO13) to form a new department called Counter Terrorism Command (SO15).
- Sometimes referred to as the "political police", as they are given the politically sensitive cases. People tend to think that can include doing the bidding of the party in power in legally questionable ways. In reality, this translates to infiltrating far-left and far-right groups, regardless of whether or not the groups in question are lawbreakers. Officers under cover have also been criticized for suggesting illegal protest actions and sleeping with the people they're supposed to be investigating, then leaving without the consequences.
- Not to be confused with Special Constables (see below).
- Special Constabulary: Special Constables ("Specials" for short) are part-time volunteers, who are expected to work at least one shift per 1-2 weeks. There are some variations in how police services organise their special constabulary. Most often, they give their specials a separate command structure with equivalent ranks (Special Constable, Special Sergeant, etc.), but different rank insignia. The highest-ranked special in the force is the "Chief Officer", who is also a special constable.
- Flying Squad: A specialist detective unit in the Met which deals with robberies. So named because unlike most officers, they travel freely across division/borough boundaries. The only unit in which detectives regularly carry guns, their most daring work involves disrupting heists in progress. Made famous in The Sweeney.
- Murder Squad: The detective unit within a division or constabulary that, as the name suggests, investigates murders. The actual name of this unit varies across the country but unlike in the USA, it's rarely 'Homicide'. Usually, it's something like 'Major Investigation Team' or 'Major Crimes Unit'.
- Operation Trident: The Met's gang crime unit.
- Public Order Unit: Specialist riot policing units.
- Neighbourhood Policing Team: Known by several names, these are small teams of officers and PCSOs (see below) who carry out community policing in local neighbourhoods. They sometimes respond to emergencies, but are more likely to be involved in endless community meetings and preventative work.
- Roads Policing Unit: The traffic cops — responsible for patrolling motorways and other major roads within their territorial police force areas. As well as general road policing duties, they assist with various operations aimed at improving road safety and are also at the forefront in tackling vehicle crime and the criminal use of the roads network. Officers in "Traffic" are generally trained to a higher driving standard than their colleagues and are usually recognisable by their patrol caps (or bowlers for the ladies) which are white-topped.
- Joint Units: Police forces can merge certain departments. It's being increasingly used as a means of saving money, although in some cases, such as with traffic units, it does make some operational sense as it involves operating over a much wider area than within jurisdictional boundaries. For example, the Central Motorway Police Group, which has the job of policing several hundred miles of motorway in the Midlands, is manned by officers from the Staffordshire Police and the West Midlands Police (it used to include officers from Warwickshire and West Mercia as well, but those constabularies have withdrawn from the arrangement).
- Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs): A creation of the Blair government, PCSOs are uniformed civilians with blue epaulettes and limited powers (basically to detain you until an actual constable arrives). They were felt by some to be a cheap way to either boost police numbers, or, in more recent years, to maintain them. Despite being some of the most visible members of the police force, their appearances in fiction have been very little, but usually mocked mercilessly. One term, employed by Private Eye among others, is 'plastic police'.
- For example, this Mitchell and Webb sketch.
- Or in this Zero Punctuation review for ZombiU:
- For example, this Mitchell and Webb sketch
- Hendon: A shorthand term within the police (especially the Met) for a police training centre or police training in general, named after the Peel Centre (a.k.a. Hendon Police College) where most Met officers are trained. As the name implies, it's located in Hendon in north-west London note .
Officer numbers
Uniformed officers traditionally haven't worn name badges, but instead have worn ID numbers on their epaulettes. These are known as "collar numbers", as they used to be worn on the collar. There have been recent scandals where uniformed officers have removed these epaulettes before expected public disorder situations.
In the Met, it's generally two or three numbers, followed by one or two letters representing your borough or command unit - so an officer from Havering (KD) might be 719KD. (Met epaulettes display this upside down, with the command unit code above the numbers.) Provincial forces tend to have just numbers on their epaulettes. Only Constables and Sergeants have these ID numbers on their epaulettes. More senior officers will instead have a rank insignia on their epaulettes.
Times are always changing, however, and since the 2000s some forces have required public-facing officers to wear name badges. In case anyone is interested, the reason they traditionally don't wear nametags is because officers with unusual or embarrassing names (Pratt, Dick, etc) would be subject to ridicule by antisocial types.
Examples in fiction
- The best-known example is probably The Bill which ran from 1983 to 2010 and centred on the fictional Sun Hill police station. Notable for subverting the Hollywood Cop Uniform trope as the makers had special permission from the Met to use authentic police uniforms. A short-lived spin-off, Burnside, focussed on one of the CID characters.
- For older viewers, Dixon of Dock Green exemplified the British version of the Old-Fashioned Copper. Who had originally been killed off in The Blue Lamp.
- A much grittier portrayal of the police came with The Sweeney which dealt with the Met's Flying Squad. Gene Hunt is something of an Affectionate Parody.
- The title character of Inspector Morse — played by John Thaw, who had previously been known for portraying a very different sort of police detective in The Sweeney — was a CID chief inspector in the Thames Valley Police, based in Oxford. The prequel, Endeavour, maintained a notable level of historical accuracy in that it started off with the Oxford City Police and showed their merger into the Thames Valley force.
- Midsomer Murders is set in a part of rural England that has a very high murder rate.
- The main character in Hot Fuzz is a top Met cop who gets transferred to The West Country. Parts of the opening montage were actually filmed at the Peel Centre (a.k.a. Hendon Police College), the Met's principal training centre.
- Line of Duty deals with the cops who investigate the Dirty Cops.
- Carry On Constable follows a team of inept constables having to take to the beat after a flu epidemic makes almost every competent officer too sick to work.
- Coppers End is set in a police station full of lazy coppers who put more effort into avoiding work than actually doing their jobs.
