ABSTRACT
The organisation of policing There are currently 43 police forces in England and Wales. These comprise the 41 provincial forces and the Metropolitan and City of London Police. There are single police forces in Scotland and Northern Ireland. These are the main ‘public’ constabularies, or ‘Home Offi ce forces’ in the UK. However, there are a number of other ‘public’ forces with more limited remits (either functional or geographical), including the British Transport Police, the Civil Nuclear Constabulary (CNC) and the Ministry of Defence Police. The 43 main police forces vary signifi cantly in size. The largest, by far, is the Metropolitan Police with almost 31,000 offi cers, 2,500 Police Community Support Offi cers (PCSOs) and a further 13,000 civilian staff. The smaller forces, by contrast, such as Bedfordshire, Cumbria and Suffolk, have few more than 1,000 offi cers each. Until the cuts imposed in recent years, overall police offi - cer numbers had increased markedly. They are now signifi cantly in decline (see Figure 26.2).
