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Police strike

Strike action by law enforcement officers

Wikipedia contributorsAdapted for Fathomly · View authors
2 min read
Source updated August 22, 2026

A police strike is a type of strike action when law enforcement officers are embroiled in a labour dispute. Sometimes military personnel are called in to keep order or discipline the strikers. Police strikes have the potential to cause civil unrest.

01List of police strikes

Europe

North America

South America

Australia

Asia

  • Shanghai (1940)
  • New Delhi (1946)

Africa

  • Egypt (1948)
  • Nigeria (2002)

02Dynamics

Legality

United Kingdom

Police officers in the United Kingdom are currently banned from taking strike action under the Police Act 1996. Police officers have been banned from striking since the passage of the Police Act 1919. The Police Federation of England and Wales balloted members in 2013 for the right to strike but failed to gain enough signatures to petition the government to amend the legislation.

Causes

One cause for police strikes has been increases in the difficulty of policing itself. The wave of American police strikes in the late 1960s and 1970s accompanied other forms of social unrest, which themselves put pressure on police forces. Also, police wages, which had historically been exceptional, declined relative to the wages of other workers. Police strikes have also occurred in situations where national control was in question and the police's alignment differed from the current rulers (i.e. in occupied France and India).

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Sources and credits

This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Police strike”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.

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Related topics

Blue flu

A blue flu is a type of strike action undertaken by police officers in which a large number simultaneously use sick leave. A blue flu is a preferred strike action by police in some parts of the United States where police strikes are prohibited by law.

Defund the police

In the United States, "defund the police" is a slogan advocating for reallocating funds from police departments to non-policing forms of public safety and community support initiatives, such as social services, youth programs, housing, education, healthcare, and other community resources. The goals of those using the slogan vary; some support modest budget reductions, while others advocate for full divestment as part of a broader effort to abolish contemporary policing systems.

De-policing

De-policing is a term for police disengaging from active police work, generally as a reaction to external scrutiny or negative publicity. A form of work slowdown, de-policing represents a de facto police strike, in which the police withdraw an aspect of their crime prevention services.