Re: Take yer lazy americanisms and get ter feck!
"If the Police weren't civilians then they'd be military. And they're not that (or shouldn't be, not in any civilised nation)."
Not exactly.
Police are police if they are labelled police. A case in point is the North-West Mounted police (later called the Royal Canadian Mounted Police). One of the main reasons they were called police was to avoid provoking the Americans when they were deployed westward. Their equipment on that occasion included field guns and mortars. Were they not declared police they would have almost certainly have been considered a cavalry unit. According to Wikipedia the Royal Irish Constabulary was part of the model for the NWMP, and also combined police and military roles.
In France, the Gendarmerie nationale fills military and police roles.
In Canada, the identifying number of a police officer, similar to the American 'badge number' is referred by 'regimental number', at least in Ontario and at the federal level. Canadian (nonmilitary) police forces have two types of employees - police officers, and civilians. This distinction is absolute and marks a distinct difference in rights, duties, applicable regulations, powers, and induction procedure, as well as personal status in the organization. This was abundantly and pervasively clear when I served for a number of years as a civilian technical expert in the provincial ministry overseeing and supporting all non-federal police forces in the province, There was a reason our branch representatives to the various forces were all seconded police officers - they just had more inherent credibility and status in that environment than any civilian.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
