Describe the roles performed by a modern Police Service in t
This assignment intends to examine the current structure of the Police Service operating in England and Wales, paying particular attention to the various roles of a modern Police Force within the wider criminal Justice System.Firstly, the assignment will look at how the Police Force has evolved and where the origins of the Service lie, and look also at how the roles and function of the Police Service have altered over the past three decades, finally summarising the positive and negative aspects of the current structure and role in comparison to the service provided at the beginning of the nineteenth century.The first Metropolitan Police Force was formed at the beginning of the nineteenth century, under the Conservative Government serving at the time. Sir Robert Peel, the then Home Secretary oversaw the imposition of the Metropolitan Force. There has been vast historical comment suggesting various different schools of thought as to why the Metropolitan Force was established at the time it was, and one such Whig Historian, Reith, argued that the idea of a Metropolitan Police Force was borne in order to control the "increase of [the] menace of crime" ( Reith, in Controlling Crime. 2002. pp 13). Reith discusses the formatio
Concerns around funding such a National provision were raised, and together with arguments that a national service would remove the autonomy of the Local Authorities postponed legislation from arising out of the Bill. This multi-agency approach has arguably placed a greater responsibility on the Police to become more transparent and open in their practice, with inter-agency information sharing being seen as a highly comprehensive way of allowing the various Criminal Justice agencies to exact the main aims of the Criminal Justice System effectively. The Crime and Disorder Act of 1998 placed a greater responsibility not only on the Police, but also on the various agencies within the Criminal Justice System, such as Probation, the Courts, Social Services and the Crown Prosecution Service to tackle crime together on both a local and national level. This is achieved through effective multi-agency partnerships, which now forms an integral part of the work carried out by the Police. pp 13) , a broad political strategy to control the ever growing population of London. Indeed, the idea of a National Police Force was first proposed around the time the Metropolitan Police Force was created, when a Bill was put before Parliament suggesting a nationally run service to prevent crime and public disorder, that would be controlled by and accountable to the Government. As a result of the Act, local Criminal Justice Boards have been created to provide a forum in which the various different agencies within the system can develop their own strategies, specifically tailored to meet the needs of the local community the boards serve, to tackle crime, and provide a better standard of living for the whole community. Reith argued that the Government initiative to create a Metropolitan Police Force in the country's capital was a means of controlling the "army of homeless children. It would be fair to say that over the past two decades public confidence in the Police has diminished drastically. As the evidence has shown, the Police Force have a wide and varied role, and play a large part in not only enforcing the law, but today in helping to protect future victims from the effects of crime. For example, the plan stipulated that Local Police should incorporate the following into their own plans in order to achieve the Government objectives: Tackling anti-social behaviour and disorder, reducing volume, street, drug-related and violent and gun crime in line with local and national targets, combating serious and organised crime operating across force boundaries, increasing the number of offences bought to justice. Change is inevitable now within the Police Service, and one can only hope that through the Police Reform Act and the National Policing Plan, public confidence within the service will begin to increase.
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Acceptance Essays
