County police

County police are the police of a county in the United States, Sweden and England and Wales in the UK, Scotland now has a single and only region wide police force Police Scotland, as well as Northern Ireland whose regional and only police are the Police Service of Northern Ireland.

Sweden

Until the end of 2014, all of the 21 Counties of Sweden contained a County Police Department of the Swedish Police Service. Since 2015, Sweden is divided between ten police region.

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 then were amalgamated into a number of larger regional forces: eight in Scotland and four in Wales. In 2013, Scotland ditched it's eight regional forces and created one national police force known as Police Scotland.

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.

Other Special Police Services that have a presence at a country level are in operation throughout the UK, such as the British Transport Police who mainly police the transport services such as public trains, train stations, buses, bus stations & trams in the UK. The Nuclear Constabulary which is responsible for providing law enforcement and security at or within 5 km of any relevant nuclear site and for nuclear materials in transit within the United Kingdom. The Ministry of Defence Police of which their primary responsibilities are to provide armed security and to counter terrorism, as well as uniformed policing and investigative services to Ministry of Defence property, personnel, and installations throughout the United Kingdom. Others also include the Royal Military Police, Royal Navy Police, Royal Air Force Police and more.

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 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:

Note: County detectives, who are maintained in the northeastern states by county attorneys' offices, fall within this category. In the state of Louisiana, a county is known as a parish. In the state of Alaska, a county is known as a borough. The only of which to have their own police department is North Slope Borough.

U.S. departments

There are 3,141 counties in the United States and some county police departments are:

A to M

N to Z

References