Unit 6. Police and the public

TASK 1. Study the text below, making sure you fully comprehend it. Where appropriate, consult English-Russian dictionaries and/or other reference & source books on law.

The Police in Britain t he definition of policing

The word "Police" means, generally, the arrangements made in all civilised countries to ensure that the inhabitants keep the peace and obey the law. The word also denotes the force of peace officers (or police) employed for this purpose.

In attaining these objects, much depends on the approval and co-operation of the public, and these have always been determined by the degree of esteem and respect in which the police are held. One of the key principles of modern policing in Britain is that the police seek to work with the community and as part of the community.

Origins of policing

The origin of the British police lies in early tribal history and is based on customs for securing order through the medium of appointed representatives. In effect, the people were the police. The Saxons brought this system to England and improved and developed the organisation.

This entailed the division of the people into groups of ten, called "tythings", with a tything-man as representative of each; and into larger groups, each of ten tythings, under a "hundred-man" who was responsible to the Shire-reeve, or Sheriff, of the County.

T he tything-man system, after contact with Norman feudalism, changed considerably but was not wholly destroyed. In time the tything-man became the parish constable and the Shire-reeve the Justice of the Peace, to whom the parish constable was responsible. This system, which became widely established in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, comprised, generally, one unarmed able-bodied citizen in each parish, who was appointed or elected annually to serve for a year unpaid, as parish constable. He worked in co-operation with the local Justices in securing observance of laws and maintaining order. In addition, in the towns, responsibility for the maintenance of order was conferred on the guilds and, later, on other specified groups of citizens, and these supplied bodies of paid men, known as "The Watch", for guarding the gates and patrolling the streets at night.

I

Sir Robert Peel.

n the eighteenth century came the beginnings of immense social and economic changes and the consequent movement of the population to the towns. The parish constable and "Watch" systems failed completely and the impotence of the law-enforcement machinery was a serious menace. Conditions became intolerable and led to the formation of the "New Police".

The world's first modern police force 1829

Robert Peel introduced the Metropolitan Police Act of 1829 and set up an organised police force for London, with 17 divisions, each with 4 inspectors and 144 constables. It was to be controlled from Scotland Yard, and answerable to the Home Secretary. This new force superseded the local Watch in the London area but the City of London was not covered. Sir Robert Peel had already established the Royal Irish Constabulary in 1812, and it had proved to be a great success.

T hey became known as 'Peelers' and 'Bobbies' after their founder, and wore a dark blue long coat and a tall hat which they could use to stand on to look over walls, a pair of handcuffs and a wooden rattle to raise the alarm. By the 1880s this rattle was replaced by a whistle.

Blue was chosen because it was the colour of the popular Royal Navy rather than red which was the army's colour and struck fear into the people because of the way soldiers had been used to smash protests. The only weapon was a truncheon.

Sir Robert Peel's NINE PRINCIPLES for the police

• The basic mission for which the police exist is to prevent crime and disorder.

• The ability of the police to perform their duties is dependent upon public approval of police actions.

• Police must secure the willing co-operation of the public in voluntary observance of the law to be able to secure and maintain the respect of the public.

• The degree of co-operation of the public that can be secured diminishes proportionately to the necessity of the use of physical force.

• Police seek and preserve public favour not by catering to public opinion but by constantly demonstrating absolute impartial service to the law.

• P olice use physical force to the extent necessary to secure observance of the law or to restore order only when the exercise of persuasion, advice and warning is found to be insufficient.

• Police, at all times, should maintain a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and the public are the police; the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.

• Police should always direct their action strictly towards their functions and never appear to usurp the powers of the judiciary.

• The test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with it.

Answer the following questions:

1) What are the main objectives of the police?

2) What is important to obtain these objectives?

3) What do you know about tything-man system?

4) How did the system of parish constables work?

5) What was the meaning of the Metropolitan Police Act of 1829?

6) What is the most important in the Robert Peel's Principles?

TASK 2. Study the text below, making sure you fully comprehend it. Where appropriate, consult English-Russian dictionaries and/or other reference & source books on law.