Gloucestershire Constabulary is the territorial police force responsible for policing the non-metropolitan county of Gloucestershire in South West England.
The force formerly covered the area of South Gloucestershire, however this was transformed to the newly formed Avon and Somerset Constabulary in 1974.
The force serves 637,000 people over an area of . and covers a number of royal residences, as well as Cheltenham Racecourse and the headquarters of GCHQ.
, the force consisted of 1,176 police officers, 100 police community support officers, 113 special constables and 358 police support volunteers.
History
The force was founded in 1839, six hours after Wiltshire Constabulary, making it the second rural police force formed in Britain. The force in its present form dates from 1 April 1974, when the southern part of Gloucestershire became part of the County of Avon and thus covered by the newly formed Avon and Somerset Constabulary.
In 1965, the force had an establishment of 1,010 and an actual strength of 867.
Between 2010 and 2019, the force lost 238 officers due to Government budget cuts.
From 2013 to 2019, specialist teams – roads, firearms and police dogs – operated in a "tri-force" collaboration with the Avon and Somerset, and Wiltshire forces. In April 2019, this arrangement was ended by the Gloucestershire Police and Crime Commissioner, Martin Surl, following Avon and Somerset Police withdrawing from the alliance.
In 2019, Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services rated the force as 'inadequate' for crime reporting arrangements, after finding that over 7,900 incidents of crime in the county per year, and only 69.2% of violent crimes were recorded accurately. The inspection also found 38% of victims were not informed when crime reports were cancelled.
In 2020, the force opened a new police academy, the Sabrina Centre, on the grounds of the former Berkeley Nuclear Power Station. This coincided with the force offering new Police Constable Degree Apprenticeships in partnership with the University of South Wales.
Chief constables
1839–1865: Anthony Thomas Lefroy (first Chief Constable of Glos) 1865–1910: Admiral Henry Christian 1910–1917: Lieutenant Colonel Richard Chester-Master (killed in action 1917) 1918–1937: Major F.L. Stanley Clarke 1937–1959: Colonel William Francis Henn 1959–1962: John Gaskain 1963–1975: Edwin White 1975–1979: Brian Weigh 1979–1987: Leonard Soper 1987–1993: Albert Pacey 1993–2001: Anthony J.P. Butler 2001–2010: Timothy Brain 2010–2012: Tony Melville 2012–2013: Michael Matthews 2013–2017: Suzette Davenport 2017–present: Rod Hansen
Officers killed in the line of duty
The Police Roll of Honour Trust and Police Memorial Trust list and commemorate all British police officers killed in the line of duty. Since its establishment in 1984, the Police Memorial Trust has erected 50 memorials nationally to some of those officers.
Since 1817 the following officers of Gloucestershire Constabulary were killed while attempting to prevent or stop a crime in progress: Parish constable Henry Thompson, 1817 (shot by men attempting to free a prisoner) Police sergeant Samuel Beard, 1861 (died from injuries sustained attempting to arrest poachers) Police sergeant William Morris, 1895 (fatally injured by men he warned about their conduct)
Structure
Day-to-day policing in the county is split into 55 local communities, organised by three Local Policing Areas each overseen by a superintendent: Cheltenham and Tewkesbury, Gloucester and the Forest of Dean, and Cotswolds and Stroud. Each of these areas contains a Local Policing Team, providing an initial response to incidents, as well as a Neighbourhood Policing Team, which manage local concerns.
Special Constabulary
, the force had 113 special constables, who are mainly embedded in the Local Policing Teams and Neighbourhood Policing teams. A number of officers have been upskilled in rural crime and the use of 4x4 off-road vehicles to enhance the force's capability in this area.
Mounted unit
Gloucestershire Constabulary introduced a mounted police unit based at Highnam Court for a trial period in 2016, following the conclusion of an eighteen-month study in 2014 by both the University of Oxford and the RAND Corporation. The study surveyed whether the presence of mounted police on regular neighbourhood patrols would improve community engagement with the police, with results showing that members of the public were six times as likely to engage with police on horseback compared to police on foot patrol.