Transit police

From Free net encyclopedia

Transit police, or transport police, are a specialized type of police employed by a common carrier, usually a railroad (but may also include a bus line or other transport carrier) that are tasked to prevent and investigate crimes committed against the carrier or by or against passengers or other customers of the carrier.

A transit police force may consist of officers employed directly by a transit provider, such as the Amtrak Police, or it may exist as a department of another police entity contracted to the transit provider, such as the Transit Police Services Bureau of the Orange County, California Sheriff's Department, which serves the Orange County Transportation Authority.

Where the term "transit police" is used for the police working for a railroad, it usually refers to a railroad providing urban mass transit (such as a city elevated system or subway) as opposed to long-distance rail carriage. Police who work either for a non-passenger railroad or long-haul rail carrier are usually referred to as "railroad police" or "railway police".

Some of the crimes transit police and railroad police investigate include trespassing on the right-of-way of a railroad, assaults against passengers, tagging of graffiti on railroad rolling stock and buses or bus stops, pickpocketing, ticket fraud, robbery and theft of personal belongings, baggage or freight. Depending on the jurisdiction, they may not have any more authority than a private security firm. Others, such as the British Transport Police, New Jersey Transit Police, Maryland Transit Administration Police and DART Police, have rather extensive jurisdictions, including traffic enforcement, with arrest powers on and off property. In the United States, major Class I railroad police such as Union Pacific, BNSF or CSX police have state and federal arrest powers in any state in which the railroad owns property.

Transit and railroad police tend to have better results in finding perpetrators of crimes they investigate than public police forces, possibly due to specialization and smaller case loads.

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