Staffordshire Police

Staffordshire Police
Staffordshire Police
	220x140px Logo of the Staffordshire Police
Agency overview
Formed	1968
Legal personality	Governmental: Government agency
Jurisdictional structure
Operations jurisdiction*	Police area of Staffordshire, UK
	Map of Staffordshire Police's jurisdiction.
Size	2,713
Population	approx. 1,062,500
General nature	Law enforcement; Civilian agency;
Operational structure
Headquarters	Weston Road, Stafford
Sworn members	1,829 (of which 429 are Special Constables)
Police and Crime Commissioner responsible	Matthew Ellis
Agency executive	Jane Sawyers, Chief Constable
Divisions	Four Trent Valley; Chase; North Staffs; Stoke-On-Trent;
Facilities
Stations	19
Website
	www.staffordshire.police.uk
Footnotes
	* Police area agency: Prescribed geographic area in the country, over which the agency has usual operational jurisdiction.

Staffordshire Police is the territorial police force responsible for policing Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent in the West Midlands of England. It is made up of nine Local Policing Teams, whose boundaries are matched to the nine local authorities within Staffordshire.

History

pre-1968 Staffordshire police helmet, in the collection of Staffordshire County Museum

A combined force covering Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent, called Staffordshire County and Stoke-on-Trent Constabulary, was established on 1 January 1968, as a merger of the Staffordshire County Police and Stoke-on-Trent City Police. This force lost areas to the new West Midlands Police in 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972 and adopted a shorter name.^[2]

Under proposals made by the Home Secretary on 6 February 2006, it would have merged with Warwickshire Constabulary, West Mercia Constabulary and West Midlands Police to form a single strategic force for the West Midlands region.^[3] However these plans have not been taken forward largely due to public opposition.

For 2005/06 Staffordshire police topped the Home Office chart as being the best performing police force in England and Wales.^[4]

Organisation

Staffordshire Police is one of three forces involved in the Central Motorway Police Group along with West Midlands Police and West Mercia Police. This unit provides roads policing for the motorway network in the West Midlands (mainly M5, M6 and M42). Staffordshire Police has no other roads policing capacity; this was disbanded in 1999 during the major force reorganisation that also saw the mounted branch disbanded. The Force shares air support with the adjoining West Mercia Constabulary which forms the Central Counties Air Operations Unit.^[5] based at Wolverhampton Airport in South Staffordshire.

In September 2008, the force announced that it intended to vacate the Cannock Road site and sell it for housing development, moving HQ staff to Lanchester Court, next to the existing Weston Road premises.^[6]^[7]

Staffordshire Police Authority, a separate organisation charged with oversight of the force, has 9 councillors (drawn from both Staffordshire County Council and Stoke-on-Trent City Council), 3 justices of the peace, and 5 independent members.

Officers killed in the line of duty

The Police Roll of Honour Trust lists and commemorates all British police officers killed in the line of duty, and since its establishment in 1984 has erected over 38 memorials to some of those officers.

The following officers of Staffordshire Police are listed by the Trust as having died attempting to prevent, stop or solve a crime, since the turn of the 20th century:^[8]

PC William Ezra Price, 1903 (fatally injured attempting to arrest three men)
PC Brinley James Booth, 1946 (bludgeoned to death while attempting to arrest a suspect)
PC John David Taylor, 1986 (pushed out of a building by a suspect)