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Police notebook

used by police

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMar 14, 2026
Entity authorityQ7209593 ↗
Source-derived summary

A police notebook or pocket notebook (PNB) is a notebook used by police officers in the United Kingdom to officially record details and incidents while on patrol. Its use is controlled by a number of guidelines, as information entered into an officer's PNB is admissible in court, and the officer will use it to refresh their memory while giving evidence, and to support their statements. Some forces have replaced paper PNBs with ePNBs; these are electronic versions on police smart phones.

Procedure

Not all police officers are required to use PNBs; those in administrative roles (aside from those working in offices open to public enquiries) are not required to maintain them. Nor are officers working on custody stations, or those involved in training. Intelligence officers, control room staff, and officers who hold the rank of Superintendent or Chief Superintendent are all exempt from maintaining a PNB.

Each PNB is issued to an officer by a supervisor, and they are each marked by a particular code which is logged next to that officer's name. A replacement PNB can only be given when the old has been examined and marked correctly, and as well as their current PNB, an officer is also required to keep the two most recent PNBs.

Technique

While the guidelines for maintaining a PNB will differ from force to force, there are several common policies on using the notebooks. In the United Kingdom the use of the PNBs is dictated by the 2000 Freedom of Information Act. All PNBs are subject to the same rules of disclosure as other confidential documents, and must contain everything deemed relevant to police work.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Police notebook” as used by police. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2000—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. The account is most persuasive where Police, notebook and used can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as used by police. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7209593. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2000.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Police notebook”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Police notebook primary sources, Police notebook archive and Police research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Police notebook”?
  2. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
  3. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Police notebook” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.