Police Structure: A Comparative Study of Policing Models

Policing is one of the most important of the functions undertaken by the every sovereign government. For the state machinery, police is an inevitable organ which would ensure maintenance of law and order, and also the first link in the criminal justice system. On the other hand, for common man, police force is a symbol of brute force of authority and at the same time, the protector from crime. Police men get a corporate identity from the uniform they wear; the common man identifies, distinguishes and awes him on account of the same uniform. The police systems across the world have developed on a socio cultural background, and for this reason alone huge differences exist between these police systems. From the singular coordinated centralized system of police in Saudi Arabia organized under the Ministry of Interior to the 42000 odd police forces that exist in USA, policing mainly rests on either of the two broad principles: (1) Policing by consent and (2) Policing by law.
This paper tries to examine the various police systems that exist in the world, taking Saudi Arabia, China, France, Spain, United Kingdom, the United States of America and India, as examples of various types of policing models. The paper takes cue from these systems, their positives and negatives, and tries to find out how the Indian System, can be understood in the light of these policing models.