A citizen's arrest is an arrest made by a person who is not acting as a sworn law-enforcement official. In common law jurisdictions, the practice dates back to medieval Britain and the English common law, in which sheriffs encouraged ordinary citizens to help apprehend law breakers.
Despite the practice's name, in most countries, the arresting person is usually designated as a person with arrest powers, who need not be a citizen of the jurisdiction or country in which he or she is acting. For example, in England/Wales, the power comes from Section 24a Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, called "any person arrest". This legislation states "any person" has these powers, and does not state that they need to be a citizen of England or Wales.
Read more about Citizen's Arrest: Legal and Political Aspect
Famous quotes containing the words citizen and/or arrest:
“In a period of a people’s life that bears the designation “transitional,” the task of a thinking individual, of a sincere citizen of his country, is to go forward, despite the dirt and difficulty of the path, to go forward without losing from view even for a moment those fundamental ideals on which the entire existence of the society to which he belongs is built.”
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