POLICE STATION

A 'police station' is a building which serves as the headquarters of a police force or unit which serves a specific district. These buildings typically contain offices, various accommodations for their personnel and their vehicles such as locker rooms, temporary holding cells, and interview/interrogation rooms.

Contents

Regional substations

Great Britain

See also

Regional substations

Large departments may have many stations to cover the area they serve. The names used for these facilities include:

★ 'Detachment' for local facilities of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police

★ 'District offices' are used by the California Highway Patrol

★ 'Division' by the Toronto Police Service and the Los Angeles Police Department

★ 'Precinct' or 'precinct house' for regional facilities of the New York City Police Department and other urban police departments in the United States

★ 'Substations' are used by many departments, especially county sheriffs

Great Britain

The county constabularies in Great Britain used to be organised on village lines. Most villages of any size (and even many small villages and hamlets) had a police station, often called a "police house", which was staffed by a single constable, who also lived there with his family. He could be called out by the locals at any time of the day or night and during the day also patrolled the village and surrounding area on a bicycle. These local police stations were grouped together into sections under a sergeant, whose station was known as a "sergeant's station". This was usually a larger station in a large village or small town, staffed by one or more constables as well as the sergeant; although in very rural areas it may have been just another single-officer police house. Larger towns in the county constabulary areas had police stations staffed by a number of officers, often under the command of an inspector or superintendent, usually also commanding a sub-division or division respectively, and therefore giving the names of "sub-divisional station" or "divisional station" to their stations.
Today, most very small stations have been closed and only the town stations remain.
Most British Police Stations have a number of Uniformed officers and Criminal Investigation Department (CID) officers. Some police stations are not open to members of the public such as Roads Policing Unit Traffic Bases they for officers to function just like in a normal station and for maintenance of the cars.

See also

★ Koban (police box)

★ Neighbourhood Police Post

★ Neighbourhood Police Centre