A police authority in the United Kingdom, were localised panels charged with securing efficient and effective policing of a police area served by a territorial police force or the area and/or activity policed by a special police force. Separate arrangements existed for England and Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland and for any force not created under one of those countries' national Police Acts (or equivalent for Northern Ireland) which had a matching police authority created.
Police Authorities were dissolved on 22 November 2012, and were replaced with directly elected Police and Crime Commissioners.
Read more about Police Authority: Northern Ireland, Special Police Forces
Famous quotes containing the words police and/or authority:
“Consider the islands bearing the names of all the saints, bristling with forts like chestnut-burs, or Echinidæ, yet the police will not let a couple of Irishmen have a private sparring- match on one of them, as it is a government monopoly; all the great seaports are in a boxing attitude, and you must sail prudently between two tiers of stony knuckles before you come to feel the warmth of their breasts.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The authority of any governing institution must stop at its citizens’ skin.”
—Gloria Steinem (b. 1934)