The police are a constituted body of persons empowered by a state with the aim of enforcing the law and protecting the public order as well as the public itself. This commonly includes ensuring the safety, health, and possessions of citizens, and to prevent crime and civil disorder. Their lawful powers encompass arrest and the use of force legitimized by the state via the monopoly on violence. The term is most commonly associated with the police forces of a sovereign state that are authorized to exercise the police power of that state within a defined legal or territorial area of responsibility. Police forces are often defined as being separate from the military and other organizations involved in the defense of the state against foreign aggressors; however, gendarmerie are military units charged with civil policing. Police forces are usually public sector services, funded through taxes.
Law enforcement in China consists of an extensive public security system and a variety of enforcement procedures used to maintain order in the country. Along with the courts and procuratorates, the country's judicial and public security agencies include the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) and the Ministry of State Security (MSS), with their descending hierarchy of departments, bureaus, subbureaus, and stations.
A neighborhood watch or neighbourhood watch, also called a crime watch or neighbourhood crime watch, is an organized group of civilians devoted to crime and vandalism prevention within a neighborhood.
Special police usually describes a police force or unit within a police force whose duties and responsibilities are significantly different from other forces in the same country or from other police in the same force, although there is no consistent international definition. A special constable, in most cases, is not a member of a special police force (SPF); in countries in the Commonwealth of Nations and often elsewhere, a special constable is a voluntary or part-time member of a national or local police force or a person involved in law enforcement who is not a police officer but has some of the powers of a police officer.
Traffic police are police officers, units, and agencies who enforce traffic laws and manage traffic. Traffic police include police who patrol highways, direct traffic, and address traffic infractions. They may be a separate agency from a main police agency, a unit or division within a police agency, or a type of assignment issued to officers; they can also be part of a transportation authority or highway authority.
The Tampa Police Department (TPD) is the primary law enforcement agency for the city of Tampa, Florida. The Tampa Police Department has 985 authorized sworn law enforcement personnel positions and more than 350 civilian and support staff personnel positions. The current police chief is Lee Bercaw.
The San Francisco Patrol Special Police (SFPSP) is a private special police agency in San Francisco, California. Per current city code, the SFPSP patrols the streets of San Francisco and fixed locations, and also provides a range of other safety services as requested by private clients. The SFPSP is authorized in the San Francisco City Charter, but is not part of the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD).
Law enforcement in Germany is constitutionally vested solely with the states, which is one of the main features of the German political system.
As of 2020, more than 900,000 sworn law enforcement officers have been serving in the United States. About 137,000 of those officers work for federal law enforcement agencies.
Law enforcement in Canada is the responsibility of police services, special constabularies, and civil law enforcement agencies, which are operated by every level of government, some private and Crown corporations, and First Nations. In contrast to the United States or Mexico, and with the exception of the Unité permanente anticorruption in Quebec and the Organized Crime Agency of British Columbia, there are no organizations dedicated exclusively to the investigation of criminal activity in Canada. Criminal investigations are instead conducted by police services, which maintain specialized criminal investigation units in addition to their mandate for emergency response and general community safety.
The Oklahoma Highway Patrol (OHP) is a major state law enforcement agency of the government of Oklahoma. A division of the Oklahoma Department of Public Safety, the OHP has traffic enforcement jurisdiction throughout the state. OHP was legislatively created on July 1, 1937, due to the growing problem of motor vehicle collisions, the expansion of highway systems, and the increase in criminal activities.
Law enforcement in Belgium is conducted by an integrated police service structured on the federal and local levels, made up of the Federal Police and the Local Police. Both forces are autonomous and subordinate to different authorities, but linked in regard to reciprocal support, recruitment, manpower mobility and common training.
An incident response team (IRT) or emergency response team (ERT) is a group of people who prepare for and respond to an emergency, such as a natural disaster or an interruption of business operations. Incident response teams are common in public service organizations as well as in other organizations, either military or specialty. This team is generally composed of specific members designated before an incident occurs, although under certain circumstances the team may be an ad hoc group of willing volunteers.
In many countries, particularly those with a federal system of government, there may be several law enforcement agencies, police or police-like organizations, each serving different levels of government and enforcing different subsets of the applicable law.
The New York City Housing Authority Police Department was a law enforcement agency in New York City that existed from 1952 to 1995, which was then merged into the NYPD. The roots of this organization go back to 1934 and the creation of the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA). New York City Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia authorized the hiring of security guards to patrol the city's public housing buildings. These guards eventually were trained and became the first officers of the Housing Police, which was officially created in 1952. The Housing Police, along with the New York City Transit Police, was merged into the New York City Police Department in 1995 by New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and continues today as the Housing Bureau.
United States Department of Defense Police are the uniformed civilian security police officers of the United States Department of Defense (DoD), various branches of the United States Armed Forces, or DoD agencies.
The Gaston County Police Department is a law enforcement agency of Gaston County, North Carolina, United States. It is 1 of only two County Police police agencies within the State of North Carolina
The Tucson Police Department (TPD) is the law enforcement agency responsible for the city of Tucson. Sworn members of the Tucson Police Department are commissioned as peace officers by the Arizona Peace Officers Standards and Training (AZPOST) Board. This authority is valid throughout the State of Arizona at all times and locations.
Community policing or community-oriented policing (COP) is a strategy of policing that focuses on developing relationships with community members. It is a philosophy of full-service policing that is highly personal, where an officer patrols the same area for an extended time and develops a partnership with citizens to collaboratively identify and solve problems.
C3 policing, also known as the Avghani model, is a crime prevention strategy for civilian law enforcement, loosely developed from military counterinsurgency strategies and currently used in the cities of Springfield and Chicopee in Hampden County, Massachusetts, United States.
