Police Housing
| Published date | 01 April 1958 |
| Date | 01 April 1958 |
| Author | H. G. St. John |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X5803100210 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
POLICE HOUSING 119
Amsterdam and several other towns in Holland and they are also
satisfactorily employed in Denmark and Germany.
In view of the results achieved in these countries, one cannot help
wondering why a similar system of school crossing patrols has not
been introduced at the less important points in towns in this country.
Police Housing
By INSPECTOR
H.
G. ST.
JOHN
Essex
County
Constabulary
THE
REGULATION
Police Regulations state that a police authority shall provide each
member of a police force with a house or quarters free of rent and
rates or shall pay him rent allowance. "House" is not defined. The
regulation does not stipulate that the house shall be owned by the
. police authority (county-owned) or hired by the police authority
(county-hired), or that it shall be of any particular type or design. As
far as I know there are no national standards laid down (although
police authorities have their own standards for their own properties),
hence police housing covers a wide range of
.habitation-from
old,
poor-class dwellings without bathrooms, without drainage to a main
sewer, without modem comforts, to modem, Ideal Home Exhibition
pieces complete with garage, office and large garden. Whether you
spend most of your service in the former or the latter depends, to a
very large extent, on your choice of Force and the luck of the draw.
THE
ADVENT
OF THE
COUNTY-OWNED
HOUSE
"A
house or quarters free of rent" has not always applied. Prior to
the first world war (in the Essex Constabulary at least) the men them-
selves paid most of the rent. Those residing at police stations were
subjected to deductions from their pay: superintendents, inspectors,
married sergeants and constables, unmarried sergeants and constables
at the rate of
4/
-,
3/-,
2/ - and
1/-
per week respectively. All ranks
residing in county buildings other than police stations paid
3/
ld. per
week, and those residing in rented properties paid the rent, with the
opportunity of drawing from the police authority anything they paid
in excess of 3/ Id. They were the days when houses could be rented
for a few shillings per week, and records show that a considerable
number of policemen obtained a weekly "rent aid," as it was then
called, of three or four shillings.
From the early records it can be deduced that prior to the first world
war police authorities did not own very many police houses; most of
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