yr12_police

__**How has Policing in Britain changed from 1970 to 2000?**__

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This was the question I asked myself and since then I have discovered some interesting information about the changes in uniform, equipment and forensics. There seem to be a few patterns that emerge throughout the decades, for instance forensics wasn’t really used at all in 1970 and now it is the fundamental part of policing. My aim here is to inform you how policing has changed but also for a fun and entertaining but also informative look at policing in the early 70’s and 80’s I recommend “Life on Mars” and “Ashes to Ashes”.

Equipment:
The equipment that an officer was given in 1970 was essentially only handcuffs. An officer may not have even been provided with these although each officer should have had them! I believe that the only thing that an officer had on themselves for certain was a note pad and pen. In particularly violent situations and officer was provided a blunt weapon although there was no specific weapon like the baton that we see today. In extreme cases a group of officers may have been provided with firearms but that was very rare, perhaps, in hostage situations or hold-ups. Equipment in the 80’s had made a few advancements. The riot shield was brought in, each officer would have been provided with cuffs and a blunt object for all occasions and a firearms squad was set up. I believe that such changes and advancements in the equipment field are due to Margret Thatcher and all the riots that occurred during her time as Prime Minister. Radios also became a large part for the groups of policemen that had to work together against the riots. Radios were around in the 70’s but were very large, much like the first mobile phones, and very unreliable. The 90’s again made some advancement from the 80’s. As the 80’s brought in the riot shield so the 90’s brought in riot gear. In the 90’s an officer would have been provided with a mobile, two radios (one for communicating with the station one for the rest of their squad), a taser gun, a belt that would hold pen and paper etc, hand cuffs and even a pistol. In the later 90’s an officer would probably have been given light body armour. I believe that this picture was taken in a police training school in 1999.

Uniform:
An officer’s uniform from the 1970’s is very much like the typical police uniform you might think of. The uniform was not quite the famous blue trench coats but it was quite similar. Firstly I should make the point that male and female uniform in the 70’s were still quite different. Only male officers would be provided with the famous hat you might think of, some policemen still wear them today. The women, however, did not have these hats but they did wear the same black coats and instead of wearing the simple black trousers they wore black skirts. It was only in the 80’s that the police uniform began to integrate. The uniform for both sexes changed but to near the same thing. The uniform became more like it is today, officers lost the coat which was replaced by a shirt and given a tie to go with it. Women still wore the same hats although it seemed more practical for them to wear trousers instead of a skirt. It was only in the mid 80’s that these changes started to occur, so it was possible to see both the more modern and old versions of police uniform during that time. The uniform that police wore in the 90’s is not too different to what we see toady; apart from the lack of that terrible bright green shirt! This is the uniform of a male and female officer in 2000 I believe. As you can see the hats are still being worn and even today you sometimes see them which is good as it shows that we have kept some of our tradition.

Forensics:
Forensics is the use of scientific methods involving DNA and other analytical things to discover culprit was. This picture on the left might show blood patterns; showing whether the victim was assaulted with a lot of force causing blood to fly a long way or with a little force causing blood to be mostly around the body. The picture on the right shows a fingerprint, fngerprints are specific for each person and so can be used to identify who was at a crime scene. Forensics in the 1970’s was virtually none existent. Forensics was rarely used at crime scenes mainly because the police ruined any evidence that could be analysed and also because the technology was so backward. Forensics was/is also used at the morgue; the place where somebody examines a dead person’s body to establish how they died. For instance you could establish that the victim died of a heart attack that consequently means there was no killer or something like that; of course the heart attack could have been brought on by the killer but that couldn’t and still can’t be established through forensics. Forensics in the 80’s made little advancement, although it is surprising the number of cases that were solved by forensics in the 80’s. I believe this is because police started to leave a crime scene untouched for forensics to deal with. I think that the only advancements in forensics made were due to the advancements in technology and I think that’s the same for the 90’s. However, in the 90’s some significant advancements in technology were made and forensics were used all the time without fail to solve a crime. The 90’s are very similar to now in forensics as advancements will only happen as we advance technologically so the only difference is the more precise methods and accurate results etc.

This picture shows effectively the amount of arrests in millions in the UK each year.