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'Hertfordshire Constabulary' is the Home Office police force responsible for policing the county of Hertfordshire in England. Its headquarters is situated in Welwyn Garden City. The force is headed by Chief Constable Frank Whiteley. According to the ''Closing the Gap'' report, it had 2145 officers.

Contents

History

Organisation

Merger proposal

References

See also

External links

History

The Constabulary was founded in 1841, under the County Police Act, 5 years after the Hertford Borough Police and St Albans Borough Police had been formed. In 1889, the Hertford Borough Police force was merged into Hertfordshire. St Albans remained independent until 1947.
Until 2000, parts of Hertfordshire (Hertsmere and part of Broxbourne council areas) were in the Metropolitan Police District and covered by the Metropolitan Police Service. [1]

Organisation

Since 2001 the Constabulary has been divided into 3 Areas (having formerly been divided into 9 Divisions A – K) each headed by a Chief Superintendent. ''(Stations in italics)''
'Eastern Area' (Area Headquarters in Stevenage)

★ (A) East Herts, - ''Hertford and Ware, Bishop's Stortford , Buntingford and Sawbridgeworth''

★ (E) Stevenage– ''(single station)''

★ (G) North Hertfordshire. - ''Hitchin, Letchworth Garden City, Baldock and Royston''

★ (K) Broxbourne, - ''Cheshunt and Hoddesdon''
'Central Area' (Area Headquarters in Borehamwood)

★ (B) Welwyn Hatfield - ''Hatfield and Welwyn Garden City''

★ (F) City and District of St Albans - ''St Albans, Harpenden and London Colney''

★ (J) Hertsmere - ''Borehamwood, Bushey and Potters Bar''
'Western Area' (Area Headquarters in Watford)

★ (C) Watford Three Rivers - ''Watford, Rickmansworth, Oxhey and North Watford''

★ (D) Dacorum - ''Hemel Hempstead, Berkhamsted and Tring''
Each Area is comprised of various units including:

★ Intervention & Response (responding to 999 calls and on general patrol),

★ Community (covering local & quality of life issues),

★ Plain clothes and Detective Units (Priority Crime, Area Crime, Case Investigation, Beat Crimes, Tactical Team),

★ Intelligence and Tasking Units,

★ Roads Policing Unit (Traffic)
The Areas are supported by numerous centrally based units (H) operating from the Force Headquarters in Welwyn Garden City, such as Firearms, Dog Section, Air Support, Control Rooms, Forensic Services and Major Crime.
Hertfordshire police now train new recruits in house at the training centre located within Letchworth police station. New recruits are no longer called probationers but students within the Compass scheme
Hertforshire Constabulary maintains two armed response vehicles (ARVs) 24 hours a day covering half the county each. Those officers carry handguns, Tasers and have access to other equipment such as semi automatic machine guns, stun grenades, entry equipment and resusitation machines. Their vehicles are denoted with a red star front and rear
The riot unit, called a police support unit (PSU) is made up of ordinary officers drawn from their day jobs to fulfil the Constabularies commitment to maintaining PSUs. The units are consistent of 1 Inspector, 3 Sergeants and 18 Constables. They are supported by police medics, evidences gatherers (EGs) dog section, Tactics advisors and regular support at Football matches by the City of London police horse unit.They can be called upon to perform tasks such as house entries, football disorder and were deployed to the G8 Scotland in 2005. Hertfordshires national PSU marking is VH

Merger proposal

Proposals made by the Home Secretary on March 20, 2006 would see the force merge with neighbouring forces Bedfordshire Police and Essex Police to form a strategic police force. ^[1] However in July 2006 Prime Minister Tony Blair signalled that police force mergers will not be forced through by the central government, and given the amount of local opposition to such mergers it is not expected that any voluntary mergers will be carried out. ^[2]

References

1. [2] BBC News
2. Blair accused of wasting police time on mergers, ''Daily Telegraph'', 13 July 2006.

See also

★ List of police forces in the United Kingdom

★ Policing in the United Kingdom

★ Road Policing Unit

External links

★ Official website

★ Shootings