Police van#Black Maria

Image:Paddywagon 1909.jpg police van, Duluth, Minnesota, 1909|left]]

Early police vans were in the form of horse-drawn carriages, with the carriage being in the form of a secure holding cell. Frank Fowler Loomis designed the first police patrol wagon.{{Cite news|url=http://www.newspapers.com/clip/18114863/akron_evening_times/|title=Clipping from Akron Evening Times|newspaper=Akron Evening Times|date=7 April 1915|page=3}} These panel trucks became known as "pie wagons", due to their fancied resemblance to delivery vans used by bakeries. That usage had faded by the 1970s.New York Daily News, November 3, 1971, p. 357 In the modern age, motorised police vans replaced the older Black Maria and paddy wagon types as they were usually crudely adapted for accommodation of prisoners.

The need for a secure police van was realised when prisoners who were resisting arrest needed to be transported. The concern was that if transported in a conventional patrol car, the prisoner might attack the officers during the journey.

To combat this, police vans were designed with a fixed steel cage in the rear of the vehicle effectively separating the prisoner from the officers.

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File:Patrolwagon1925Stude.jpg

File:Pk829.jpg Finnish police van, {{aka}} "Mustamaija"]]

The precise origin of the term is uncertain and disputed, though its use dates back to the 1800s.Oxford English Dictionary (2002); {{ISBN|978-0-19-521942-5}}

One theory holds that "paddy wagon" was simply a shortening of "patrol wagon", in the same way police cars are called patrol cars today.Partridge's Concise Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English (1989); {{ISBN|0-02-605350-0}}

In the United States, "Paddy" was a common Irish shortening of Padraig (Patrick in English) which is an ethnic slur to refer to Irish people. Irishmen served as the police and were their most frequent clients.Webster's Third New International Dictionary (1993); {{ISBN|0-87779-201-1}}, and The Cassell Dictionary of Slang (1998) {{ISBN|0-304-34435-4}}

These vehicles were usually painted black or a very dark blue. In the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States, a police wagon was also sometimes called a Black Maria ({{IPAc-en|m|ə|ˈ|r|aɪ|ə}} {{respell|mə|RY|ə}}). The origin of this term is equally uncertain. The name Black Maria is common for race horses{{snd}}cf. Black Maria (horse){{snd}}beginning with an 1832 appearance in Niles Weekly Register (October 10) and then again in Colburn's New Monthly Magazine and Humorist (1841).See also discussion here http://www.word-detective.com/2008/11/black-mariapaddy-wagon/ The OED lists the first usage in 1835."Black Maria, n.". OED Online. December 2021. Oxford University Press. https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/19746?redirectedFrom=black+maria (accessed February 25, 2022). An example from Philadelphia was published in 1852.'The Black Maria'. Gleason's Pictorial (Boston), 3.24, 11 Dec 1852, p. 384. [https://archive.org/stream/gleasonspictoria03glea#page/384/mode/2up archive.org]. Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable suggests the name came from Maria Lee, a large and fearsome black keeper of a sailors' boarding house whom the police would call on for help with difficult prisoners. The English translation of the French detective novel {{lang|fr|Monsieur Lecoq}}, published in 1868 by Émile Gaboriau, uses the term Black Maria when referring to a police van. The term is featured heavily in Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago. In his 1949 song "Saturday Night Fish Fry", Louis Jordan mentions a Black Maria. In a 1962 article in the Hackensack, New Jersey newspaper The Record, it claims that the name Black Maria is named after a "large and riotous London woman...She was often picked up by the police for excessive drinking on Saturday nights. When the van went by, people would say 'There goes Black Maria again!' and the word stuck."{{Cite news|last=Berlitz|first=Charles|date=February 3, 1962|title=Languages in the News|work=The Record|url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/491090547/}}

File:2017 Toyota HiLux (GUN126R) SR 4-door utility, Western Australia Police (2018-08-06).jpg Toyota HiLux police wagon with cage|left]]

The term is still used today{{When|date=April 2021}} in parts of Britain for the vehicle that transports prisoners from gaol to court. Frequently, blackened-windowed buses are also used for the same purpose.Quinion, Michael. [http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-bla1.htm Black Maria], World Wide Words Popular British band, The Clash, makes reference to the Black Maria in the song "The Guns of Brixton" on their seminal 1979 album London Calling:

"You know it means no mercy

They caught him with a gun

No need for the Black Maria

Goodbye to the Brixton sun"

File:Swedish police command vehicle.jpg as a command vehicle of the Swedish police]]file:Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department Nissan Caravan E25 Ranger vehicle.jpg

Individual police stations may have a van for the accommodation of prisoners and transportation of officers.{{cn|date=April 2025|reason=The citation that was here was to a 404 page, even in web archive.}} The Metropolitan Police Service in England makes extensive use of these, particularly among the Territorial Support Group, which carries out public order duties and adapts the vans to carry riot protection equipment.

Police vans may have a flip down wire shield across the windscreen,{{cn|date=April 2025}} which helps prevent projectiles from damaging the vehicle.

Many forces now differentiate between a "Carrier"—a vehicle used for Public Order situations and therefore equipped with shields etc.—and what is commonly known as a "Cub Van", a small van with a cage in the back.

Some police departments, such as the Baltimore Police Department and Philadelphia Police Department, have been accused of braking abruptly or steering sharply in order to inflict injuries on unbuckled prisoners, a technique called a "rough ride". Most notably, Freddie Gray allegedly died as a result of such a ride in 2015. Other prisoners have received large settlements after becoming paralyzed during transportation in police vans.{{cite news |url=http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-city/bs-md-gray-rough-rides-20150423-story.html |title=Freddie Gray not the first to come out of Baltimore police van with serious injuries |author1=Doug Donovan |author2=Mark Puente |work=The Baltimore Sun |date=April 23, 2015 |access-date=May 18, 2017 }}

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• Police car
• Prisoner transport vehicle
• Police bus

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Category:Irish-American history

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