Merseyside Police
Template:Infobox UK Police Merseyside Police is the Home Office police force responsible for policing Merseyside in North West England.
The force area is 647 square kilometres with a population of around 1.5 million. At present the force has 4,442 police officers, 2,190 staff, 364 police community support officers and 392 special constables.
Merseyside Police is divided into six Basic Command Units (BCUs), one in each of the metropolitan boroughs that make up Merseyside, and two BCUs for the City of Liverpool. The BCUs are:
The force came into being in 1974 when Merseyside was created, and is a successor to the Liverpool and Bootle Constabulary (itself formed in 1968), along with parts of Cheshire Constabulary and Lancashire Constabulary.
The force operates under the supervision of the Merseyside Police Authority, which is made up of nine local councillors, three magistrates and five independent members.
Under proposals made by the Home Secretary on February 6, 2006, it would merge with Cheshire Constabulary to form a strategic police force. [1] This was later rejected.
Chief Constable
The current Chief Constable of Merseyside Police is Bernard Hogan-Howe. Before joining Merseyside, he worked as District Commander of the Doncaster west area, serving with South Yorkshire Police. He has experience in crime investigation and leadership of major public events, public disorder and organised crime. In 1997, he joined Merseyside Police as Assistant Chief Constable Of community affairs, moving onto area operations in 1999. Mr Hogan-Howe then joined the Metropolitan Police as Assistant Commissioner Of Human resources, in July 2001. He was finally appointed Chief Constable of Merseyside Police on 25 September, 2004. Bernard was born in sheffield. He has an MA in Law from Oxford University, a diploma in applied criminology and an MBA in Business Administration from Sheffield University. The chief hosts weekly webcasts in order to keep the public up to date with recent events in Merseyside. Mr Hogan-Howe wants Merseyside Police to be the best police force in the country - and his approach to policing is "total policing" - including a total war on crime, and a total care for victims. He is a Board Member of The Mersey Partnership.
Vehicles
Merseyside Police has a wide fleet of Vehciles. Scientific Support vehicles are usually Peugeot Partner vans equipped with a high intensity roof mounted light which allows forensic examinations to be completed in all lighting conditions. Roads policing vehicles are generally Vauxhall Vectra's, and Volvo T5's but there are also Jaguar roads policing vehicles that are utilised by the department. The patrol cars for Merseyside Police are a Ford Focus and a Vauxhall Astra. Unique vehicles within the force are the yellow vans. These are mobile CCTV and patrolling vehciles and the Peugeot Partner van is generally the vehicle used. In addition, Yellow Mercedes Sprinter vans are the main protected vehicles. These are used by a wide number of departments, including Matrix and Axis. The Mercedes Sprinter has onboard an ANPR system, A grill that drops down onto the front windscreen to help protect the officers from thrown missiles at public order incidents, and finally a mounted light on top of the lightbar to light up scenes at night. Off road vehicles used by the force include scrambler and quad bikes to target anti-social behaviour in parks.