County police

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

County police are the police of a county in the United States, Sweden and England (formerly in Scotland and Wales).

Contents

[edit] Sweden

All of the 21 Counties of Sweden contains a County Police Department of the Swedish Police Service.

[edit] United Kingdom

In England, the police are divided into regional forces based on counties (sometimes amalgamations of two or three counties), which all provide full services throughout their districts.

Police forces in Scotland and Wales also used to be organised on a county basis, but are now amalgamated into a number of larger regional forces: eight in Scotland and four in Wales.

Northern Ireland is historically policed on a national basis, first by the Royal Irish Constabulary, then the Royal Ulster Constabulary, which was reformed in 2001 as the Police Service of Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland has never been policed on a county basis.

[edit] United States

Depending on the jurisdiction, in the United States, county police tend to exist only in metropolitan counties and have countywide jurisdiction. In some areas, there is a sheriff's department which only handles minor issues such as service of papers such as a constable in other areas, along with security for the local courthouse. In other areas, there are no county police and the local sheriff is the exclusive law enforcement agency and acts as both sheriff and county police, which is much more common than there being a separate county police force. County police tend to fall into three broad categories:

  • Full-service police departments, which provide the full spectrum of police services to the entire county, irrespective of local communities, and may provide contractual security police services to special districts within the county.
    • Hawaii - Hawaii has only county police, there are no local police.
  • Limited service police departments, which provide services to unincorporated areas of the county (and may provide services to some incorporated areas by contract), and usually provide contractual security police services to special districts within the county.
  • Restricted service police departments, which provide security police duties to county owned and operated facilities and parks. Some may also perform some road patrol duties on county built and maintained roads, and provide support to municipal police departments in the county.

Note:County detectives, which are maintained in the northeastern states by county attorneys' offices, also fall within this category.

[edit] US Departments

There are eighty county police departments in the United States[citation needed], including:

[edit] A

[edit] B

[edit] C

[edit] D

[edit] E

[edit] F

[edit] G

[edit] H

[edit] I

[edit] J

[edit] K

[edit] L

[edit] M

[edit] N

[edit] O

[edit] P

[edit] Q

[edit] R

[edit] S

[edit] T

[edit] U

[edit] V

[edit] W

[edit] Y

[edit] Z