The Metropolitan Police Service is the national police force for England and Wales.
The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) is the national police force for England and Wales. The MPS was formed in 1829 when the county constabularies of London were merged into a single organisation. The Met’s headquarters are located at New Scotland Yard, in Westminster, London. It currently employs over 40,000 people and its budget for 2018/19 is £4.8 billion.
The Met has six territorial police forces under its command: City of London Police, Greater Manchester Police, Merseyside Police, Northumbria Police, South Yorkshire Police and West Midlands Police. These forces are responsible for policing their own areas while the Met investigates serious crime that crosses over multiple jurisdictions or affects London as a whole.
What does 12 stand for?
“12”, or “one-two”, has been used to describe police officers since at least the late 19th century.
“12”
In 1876, Sir Richard Mayne – who was then Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police – wrote a report on the force’s nicknames: “There are many names by which our Force is known; some complimentary and some otherwise; but I think we may assume that there are none so popular as ‘the Peelers’ (derived from Sir Robert Peel) and ‘the Cops’ (a shortening of ‘Peelers’). Both these nicknames have been applied to us in derision by our adversaries; but they have stuck to us like leeches, through all our changes of uniform… I think it will be found that there are few men who joined our Force at an early age who do not retain these names as their pet ones… We cannot escape them except by adopting other nicknames ourselves; but such change would be unwise as well as unnecessary.”
