ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a typology of different national police systems, useful for the interpretation of a metropolitan reading of policing realities within different national contexts. It develops a comprehensive framework, based on working definitions of essential characteristics of different national police systems. The analysis is developed at the level of police systems, not at the level of police forces. The chapter deals with the public police apparatus. It discusses the police systems in Europe that are to a large extent influenced by French tradition. More precisely, the chapter deals with the countries that still have a military gendarmerie within their police system. The chapter views police services of England and Wales. In Northern Ireland and Scotland, it observes the dominance of real national police services, which differ strongly from the situation in England and Wales.
