British police officers are called bobbies after Sir Robert Peel, the Home Secretary who created the Metropolitan Police in 1829. “Peelers” was the earlier nickname; “bobby” outlasted it, and the officers themselves are more likely to be called coppers or the Old Bill in ordinary speech.
Unarmed policing
This is the fact that most surprises American visitors. Around 95% of British police officers do not carry firearms. Standard equipment is a baton, incapacitant spray, handcuffs and a stab vest. Specialist armed response units exist and are deployed to specific incidents, but the officer you meet in the street will not have a gun.
The arrangement is deliberate and has survived repeated debate, including after officers have been killed. Police representative bodies have consistently surveyed their own members and found majorities against routine arming — the reasoning being that an unarmed police force is approachable, and that approachability is the source of its actual authority.
Policing by consent
The founding doctrine, set out in principles attributed to Peel and still quoted in Home Office guidance. The key idea is that the police have no powers the ordinary citizen does not, beyond those granted by public consent, and that:
The police are the public and the public are the police.
In practice this means British police are constitutionally civilians in uniform rather than an arm of the state, and their legitimacy depends on public cooperation rather than force.
The helmet
The custodian helmet — the tall domed hat — is one of the most recognisable objects in Britain, and it is now worn only by male officers on foot patrol in some forces, and increasingly rarely at that. Most officers wear flat caps or bowler-style hats, and stab vests have changed the silhouette entirely. The chequered black-and-white band, called Sillitoe tartan, was introduced in Glasgow in the 1930s.
How it is organised
There is no national police force. England and Wales have 43 territorial forces, Scotland has one, and Northern Ireland has the PSNI. The Metropolitan Police covers London and is the largest by far. There is no FBI equivalent; the National Crime Agency handles serious organised crime.
Calling them
999 is the emergency number — the oldest emergency number in the world, introduced in London in 1937. 101 is the non-emergency line. Both are free.
The strain
British policing is under real pressure. Officer numbers fell sharply after 2010 before partially recovering, charge rates for many offences have dropped to very low levels, and public confidence in the Metropolitan Police in particular has been badly damaged by a series of serious scandals. The consent model depends on trust, and rebuilding it is the central problem the service now faces.