Police Division - United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The term has existed since the creation of police forces in the early 19th century. Most police forces were divided into divisions, usually commanded by a Superintendent. These could cover a wide rural area, a substantial town, or a portion of a city, depending on the population (London, for instance, was divided at one point into 67 Metropolitan Police divisions and a further four City of London Police divisions). In 1949, the Metropolitan Police regraded its divisional commanders as Chief Superintendents and most other forces followed suit.

Divisions were usually divided into Sub-Divisions, commanded by Inspectors (or, in the Metropolitan Police, Sub-Divisional Inspectors, a higher rank). Some rural forces did not acquire this further organisational level until well into the 20th century, however. Sub-divisional commanders were later regraded as Chief Inspectors in most forces.

In the United Kingdom, divisions functioned as semi-independent bodies, with the divisional commander being allowed a great deal of freedom in the way he policed his "patch". A division had its own Criminal Investigation Department (CID) officers, who handled all investigations except very specialist operations and serious crimes such as murder, for which experienced specialist officers from headquarters were called in (although the groundwork was still largely done by local CID). There was frequently great rivalry and even dislike between officers based "on the divisions" and officers based at headquarters, with the former seeing the latter as elitist fast-trackers who did not know what real police work was all about, and the latter seeing the former as unimaginative "plods" without any real ambition or ability. There was also great rivalry between adjacent divisions, which sometimes degenerated into operations deliberately designed to embarrass or discredit the other.

With the reforms of the 1990s sub-divisions, as well as divisions, acquired a variety of new names.