Police is a body of officers representing the civil authority of government, responsible for maintaining public order and safety. Policing can encompass a wide range of activities, from preventing crime to searching for lost property or persons. The nature of criminals, their methods and means, as well as the political culture of a country all play a part in shaping a police force and its activities.

While a police force’s exact structure and rank names vary by country, most police forces operate as hierarchies with multiple ranks. This allows for a number of functions, such as investigations and criminal apprehensions, regulating traffic, crowd control, search and rescue, disaster management, civil defense and more to be performed by specialized units within the force.

The development of modern police forces occurred contemporaneously with the formation of the state, described by sociologist Max Weber as a “monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force” that is primarily exercised by the military and police. Marxist theory views the rise of the police as a component of the bourgeoisie’s repressive apparatus for subjugating the working class.

In addition to the police forces of individual nation-states, many countries are members of international police organizations such as Interpol. These organizations facilitate criminal intelligence exchange and police assistance in situations that transcend the boundaries of sovereign national states. These efforts are often referred to as global policing, transnational policing and/or international policing. Despite this, there is broad consensus among scholars that the term police should only be used to describe those forces that are within the legal jurisdiction of the sovereign nation-state.