E9: Describe the system for maintaining law and order in your country. Can you suggest any improvements?

Essay topic: Describe the system for maintaining law and order in your country. Can you suggest any improvements?

One hundred and fifty years ago a Conservative British Prime Minister, Sir Robert Peel, founded the modern police force. This replaced the old system of town and village constables in their local peace-keeping role under the beadle. Very quickly the new force obtained a national respect which it had never previously enjoyed, and despite a vocal left-wing and liberal minority, it retains that general respect today.

In case of serious trouble, behind the police force stands that section of the British Army which is home-based. It has, with reluctance, been called on in various roles during domestic emergencies. To man essential services during a general strike, or a strike of one or more of the essential services, including railways, buses, power-stations, water works, ambulance drivers and fire brigades. A less frequent role has been to quell riots and this is unpopular with the army since soldiers do not like inflicting injury or even death on fellow citizens. Examples are riots in pre-war London stirred up by the National Socialist movement, and more recently the riots in Liverpool. Birmingham and London attributed to a mixture of ethnic discrimination and unemployment. British people accept the need on occasion for this military back-up, but prefer it not to be used.

Today the police are controlled by the Home Secretary, who is also responsible for that other troubled part of Britain, Northern Ireland, through the Secretary of State for Ireland. Ireland has always caused more headaches than the rest of Britain put together, and in that country the Royal Ulster Constabulary, an armed force, needs the presence of armed and equipped British troops, who are constantly called into para-military action. Opinions vary from those who advocate a 'troops out' policy, leaving Ireland to get on with a civil war, to those who would like to bring the whole of Ireland, forcibly, back into British hands. Since the Irish Free State came into existence in 1922, and before then, during the First World War Southern Ireland has tended to side with the enemies of Britain.

The county police forces of the rest of Britain are controlled by chief constables responsible to the Home Secretary, and the Metropolitan Police Force by a commissioner, also responsible to the Home Secretary. Because of crime increase, and the modern mobility of criminals there is more co-operation between these separate forces than before, and often, when the ramifications of crime cover a large area, joint operational headquarters are set up, their work being aided by data banks in a nationwide computer system...
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Source: www.englishdaily626.com