Police van

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A Police Van (known in some forces as a Police Carrier or simply as Carrier) is operated operated by British police forces, and many others around the world. They are used for transportation of prisoners as they have special cage cells in the back to accommodate a prisoner, or for the transportation of many officers to an incident quickly as a van is designed to be larger and accommodate more people than a Police Car

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[edit] Use of Vans

Each divisional station has a van for accommodation of prisoners and transportation of officers etc. The Metropolitan Police Service makes extensive use of these as the Territorial Support Group of which has a common objective of Public Order duties adapt the vans for specialist usage carrying riot protection equipment. All vans despite force require a specialist trained officer to be able to drive them, also the vans have a flip down wire shield for the windscreen so it can prevent projectiles damaging the vehicle. Most vans have the Jam sandwich (slang) within the Metropolitan Police District, but outside that they use the Battenburg markings, although the Metropolitan Police are transitioning from "Jam Sandwich" to Battenburg slowly. Most Road Policing Units have the Battenburg marking scheme. Some vans are fitted with special cameras to catch speeding motorists others are for Automatic Number Plate Recognition.

[edit] History

Modern Police Vans replaced the Black Maria and the Morris Minors as these were usually crudely adapted for accommodation of a prisoner, but the modern versions have steel cages fixed into the bodywork.

Also the need for these were brought about even more so when prisoners who had been very hard to restrain needed to be transported, the concern was aired that if put in a normal Panda car they could cause a crash by them trying to escape and endangering the public and officers in the process. So the only was that seemed to be feasible was to make a van specially made for the transport of them.

[edit] Common makes of police van

[edit] References

^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Waldren, Michael J. (2007). Armed Police, The Police Use of Firearms since 1945. England: Sutton, 224. ISBN 0750946377.