Merseyside Police
| Merseyside Police | |
|---|---|
| Abbreviation | Merpol |
Logo of the Merseyside Police
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| Agency overview | |
| Formed | 1974 |
| Preceding agency | Liverpool and Bootle Constabulary |
| Employees | 7,087 |
| Volunteers | 456 |
| Annual budget | £307.3 million |
| Legal personality | Governmental: Government agency |
| Jurisdictional structure | |
| Operations jurisdiction* | Police area of Merseyside in the country of England, UK |
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| Map of Merseyside Police's jurisdiction. | |
| Size | 250 square miles (650 km2) |
| Population | 1,360,000 |
| Legal jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Constituting instrument | Police Act 1996 |
| General nature | |
| Operational structure | |
| Constables | 3,909 (of which 566 are special constables) |
| Police Community Support Officerss | 407 |
| Police and Crime Commissioner responsible | Jane Kennedy |
| Agency executive | Andy Cooke QPM, Chief Constable |
| Basic Command Units | 5 |
| Facilities | |
| Lockups | 5 |
| Boats | 1 |
| Website | |
| www.merseyside.police.uk | |
| Footnotes | |
| * Police area agency: Prescribed geographic area in the country, over which the agency has usual operational jurisdiction. | |
Merseyside Police is the territorial police force responsible for policing Merseyside in North West England. The service area is 647 square kilometres with a population of around 1.5 million. As of March 2009 the service has 4,494 police officers, 2,221 staff, 442 police community support officers and 420 special constables. The service operates under the oversight of the Police and Crime Commissioner, Jane Kennedy. A proposal to merge the force with the Cheshire Constabulary to form a strategic police force was made by the Home Secretary on 6 February 2006 but later abandoned.
The service came into being in 1974 when Merseyside was created, and is a successor to the Liverpool and Bootle Constabulary (itself formed in 1967), along with parts of Cheshire Constabulary and Lancashire Constabulary.
Since 15 November 2012 the Merseyside Police and Crime Commissioner is Jane Kennedy. The police and crime commissioner is scrutinised by the Merseyside Police and Crime Panel, made up of elected councillors from the local authorities in Merseyside. Before November 2012 the Merseyside Police Authority was the police governance.
Merseyside Police is divided into five Basic Command Units (BCUs), one in each of the metropolitan boroughs that make up Merseyside. The BCUs are:
There are many different departments that make up Merseyside Police. These include the Matrix Disruption Team and, formerly, the Anti-Social Behaviour Taskforce.
The Matrix Disruption Team led by a Chief Inspector, consists of syndicates made up of Inspectors, Sergeants and Constables. Each syndicate works with other Matrix units to provide the force with a level two response to gun crime, faction based criminality and cash-in-transit robberies. They are the first response to any major large-scale disorder within the Merseyside force area. These officers are specifically trained to deal with a variety of disorder situations, ranging from small protests to large-scale crowd disorder.
Public order is one of the main functions of the department and therefore all officers receive the required training and are subjected to rigorous training scenarios. Matrix has a number of baton gun trained specialist officers: two Sergeants and ten Constables.
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