POLICE

body of civil officers charged with maintaining public order and safety and enforcing the law, including preventing and detecting crime. In addition, it is usually entrusted with various inspectional, licensing, and regulatory activities. Police administration in most countries has six major aspects: uniformed patrol, criminal investigation (detection of criminals), traffic regulation, special measures for controlling commercial vice (narcotics, prostitution, and gambling), regulation of the sale and consumption of intoxicating liquor, and procedures and facilities for dealing with juvenile delinquents. The internal organization of police departments varies from country to country, but a general pattern can be detected. A uniformed patrol is distributed over cities on beats or territories as a first line of defense and protection against crime and disorder. The detective bureau is organized as a separate unit having to do with detection of the more serious crimes and apprehension of offenders. Special units of plain-clothes operatives devote their attention chiefly to suppression of gambling, prostitution, illegal sale of narcotics, and liquor law violations. Traffic regulation is a pressing problem in cities, and requirements in this direction have called for the employment of a large number of officers. Most large cities have schools for training of new recruits, and in some cases advanced instruction is given to older members of the force. Considerable progress has been made in the keeping of records, installation of systems of telecommunication, and the use of land, sea, and air equipment in patrol and emergency service. Laboratories for scientific criminal investigation and identification have become common. Many governments permit much local autonomy in police administration, whereas others tend to centralize police control. England, Wales, and Scotland have scores of local police forces, whereas the Republic of Ireland and the government of Northern Ireland each maintains a single police establishment. Belgium has dual police systems for the national and local levels, with municipal forces that are almost completely autonomous, whereas in Denmark all police activities are administered by functionaries of the crown. For the most part, western European countries follow the French pattern of a national police charged with the maintenance of public order, the investigation of all major crimes, and the full policing of the larger cities, together with locally recruited forces, which are concerned with routine law enforcement duties such as local traffic control in the smaller places. In some countries, such as France and Italy, a branch of the national police force also performs routine police duties in rural districts. Japan, under a law of 1954, centralized all police forces under the National Defense Force; even so, a certain degree of autonomy in matters of authority, administration, and finance is left to the prefectural and larger municipal departments. In the United States and Canada, national and state (or provincial) police parallel the local police systems. A special use of the word police is involved when authoritarian states set up secret political police organizations that operate independently of the regular civil police establishments. Political police are always highly centralized agencies. The Nazi Gestapo and Schutzstaffel, the tsarist Okhrana, and the Soviet KGB all shared characteristics sharply distinguishing them from other civil police. Their governments may be called police states. Under democratic governments, police authority is carefully limited and numerical strength is held within modest bounds. Under some systems the police officer bears a heavy responsibility for the manner in which he or she performs law-enforcement functions and is personally answerable in the criminal and civil courts for abuses of authority. body of civil officers charged with maintaining public order and safety and enforcing the law, including preventing and detecting crime. In addition, police are often entrusted with various inspectional, licensing, and regulatory activities. All societies need some way to maintain order. In the smallest societies, informal sanctions discourage deviation. In the simplest forms of state organization, informal sanctions are supplemented by agents of the ruler who enforce his decisions. Although the police function is universal in society, it is only in the larger and more complex states that full-time officials are appointed with special police responsibilities regulated by politics, tradition, and law. Most police in such societies are enrolled in state, provincial, or municipal forces concerned with criminal investigation, traffic regulation, and preventive patrol. A central government generally has personnel responsible for the collection of political information, counterespionage, and so forth, not all of which is considered policing. Additional reading Comparative works include James Cramer, The World's Police (1964), a comprehensive survey of modes of police administration; Roy D. Ingleton, Police of the World (1979); and John M. Andrade, World Police and Paramilitary Forces (1985), later works; Harold K. Becker, Police Systems of Europe, 2nd ed. (1980), a survey of police organizations in 10 European countries; Richard J. Terrill, World Criminal Justice Systems (1984), a cross-cultural study of five countries, including Japan and the Soviet Union; David H. Bailey, Forces of Order: Police Behavior in Japan and the United States (1976), a comparative work; R.V.G. Clarke and J.M. Hough (eds.), The Effectiveness of Policing (1980), a collection of research reports on Canadian, English, Dutch, and American police; and Peter K. Manning, Police Work: The Social Organization of Policing (1977, reprinted 1979), a comparison of British and American systems. The International Police Association has published a useful International Bibliography of Selected Police Literature, 2nd ed. (1968). Additional sources of information may be found in Jack E. Whitehouse, A Police Bibliography: Published and Unpublished Sources Through 1976 (1980). For further study, see the same author's Research Guide for Law Enforcement and the Criminal Justice System: A Bibliography of Bibliographies, Journals, Research, and Reference Materials (1982); and George T. Felkenes and Harold K. Becker, Law Enforcement, 2nd ed. (1977), an extensive bibliography containing resource articles.There are histories of the police forces of many countries: T.A. Critchley, A History of the Police in England and Wales, rev. ed. (1978); Marcel Le Clre, Histoire de la police, 4th ed. (1973); James F. Richardson, Urban Police in the United States (1974); Paul Riege, Kleine Polizei-Geschichte, 3rd ed. (1966); Alan Williams, The Police of Paris, 17181789 (1979); Robert Conquest (ed.), The Soviet Police System (1968); William Kelly and Nora Kelly, Policing in Canada (1976); and Kerry L. Milte, Police in Australia (1977). Samuel Walker, Popular Justice: A History of American Criminal Justice (1980), gives an analysis of the criminal justice process in the United States.For popular accounts of police work and the problems of accountability, two British books deserve mention: Ben Whitaker, Police in Society (1979); and Peter Laurie, Scotland Yard (1970). Michael Banton, The Policeman in the Community (1964), is a sociological comparison of the police role in Scotland and the United States. John Alderson, Policing Freedom (1979), discusses the responsibilities of the police in democratic societies; and Herman Goldstein, Policing a Free Society (1977), analyzes the problems of discretion, accountability, and the application of technology in American policing. James Q. Wilson, Varieties of Police Behavior (1968; reprinted 1978), compares the enforcement policies of eight American police departments. Robert M. Fogelson, Big-City Police (1977), concentrates on reform in the American police; Thomas A. Reppetto, The Blue Parade (1978), is a readable history of both federal and state forces; and Mark M. Moore and George L. Kelling, To Serve and Protect: Learning from Police History, Public Interest, 70:4965 (Winter 1983), is an analysis of police strategy. Jerome H. Skolnick, Justice Without Trial, 2nd ed. (1975), discusses the detective's role in California and is sensitive to the legal as well as the sociological issues. Louis A. Radelet, The Police and the Community, 3rd ed. (1980), examines police attempts to incorporate management principles and technological advances into their work. The problems of police operations and accountability are also featured in the reports of the United States. President's Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice, The Challenge of Crime in a Free Society (1967), and Task Force Report: The Police (1967); and the Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, 6 vol. (1968).