NCJ Number
74567
Date Published
1979
Length
11 pages
Annotation
This paper describes the origins and activities of Special Patrol Groups (SPG) in London and in other British cities.
Abstract
SPG's were originally created to mount preventive patrols in specific areas and to act as a force that could provide saturation policing. They were intended as support units for the normal police officers who were to reestablish themselves as patrols with regular beats. The first SPG was formed in April 1965 and numbered 100 officers drawn from the London uniformed police. Other SPG's followed, so that 24 of all 52 police forces in the country now have such groups. Today the London SPG consists of 204 officers, divided into 6 units; each unit has 3 sergeants and 28 male and 2 female officers under the command of an inspector. A chief superintendent is in overall charge. The SPG's have chains of command independent from those of the normal police forces; they are centrally controlled and operate over the whole area covered by a normal police force. In the early 1970's, the SPG's assumed paramilitary duties in addition to their anticrime duties and were charged with dealing with terrorist assaults, strikes, and demonstrations. The decision to widen the activities of the SPG's was based on a desire to avoid the creation of a new, exlusively paramilitary force as it already existed in such countries as France and West Germany. Currently, the SPG's are coming under increased criticism because of their involvement in violence, random checks and road blocks, and saturation policing in high-crime, working-class areas. The SPG's tend to be aggressive and violent when called on to undertake normal policing roles because of their paramilitary training. They are elite groups with no connections to the localities they are sent into; therefore, they do not establish or maintain relationships with the local residents. Hostility towards the police often results. Data tables are provided.