Why doesn't Equestria have police forces?

Has anyone noticed that whenever somepony in the show commits a crime, they’re not arrested for it? Come to think of it, police officers seem to be nonexistant in Equestria, and I’m not sure why that is.
 
Here’s a list of all the times that pone cops should’ve been dispatched, but weren’t:
 
Secret of My Excess-Spike turns into a humongous dragon and proceeds to destroy Ponyville, as well as put three of the Wonderbolts out of commission.  
Magic Duel-Trixie pulls a Hitler and successfully takes over Ponyville (Even when Celestia shows up near the end, she doesn’t do anything about it).  
Inspiration Manifestation-Rarity turns most of Ponyville into a gemstone gallery.  
Tanks For the Memories-Rainbow Dash ultimately destroys the Cloudsdale Weather Factory (Which BTW is Equestria’s only source of weather for 1,000+ years.) and screws up winter and climate as well.  
The Cutie Re-Mark-Starlight Glimmer tries to screw up the space-time contiuem with a forbidden spell, but the Mane Six act OOC (Like they have for all of S5) and forgive her.
 
Hell, this also extends to the Equestria Girls series as well, which uses a real world settings but there is not a single cop or police station in sight (And no, the dancing traffic cop from the 2nd film doesn’t count.). Even fanworks are guilty of this problem (Double Rainboom, anyone?).
 
This, to me, seems rather unrealistic for a fictional setting; no civilization has ever managed without some kind of law enforcement, but this one apparently does. On top of that, what kind of lesson is the things I listed above supposed to teach kids? If you commit a crime, you can get off scott-free?
 
Long story short, why are there no police forces in Equestria?  
_{Damn this is a long post.}

Additionally, are there jails or only banishment and Tartarus?  
Maybe there’s only capital punishment, and wrongdoers are always executed.  
Let 99% off with a warning, publicly execute a dozen per year and everyone’ll get the message, how’s that?

…This is actually a pretty good point. I’ve seen a couple people suggest that the Royal Guard may serve as both a military AND a police force, but nothing’s ever really been established.

Because unity.
 

 
 
idfk.

Short answer: because a competent police force would remove the conflicts that drive the point of almost the entire series.
 
It’s the same reason why guys like Superman or The Flash never drop by Gotham city to capture all criminals on a single swoop: because without conflict you can’t have Batman stories anymore.

There’s a jail in Appleoosa (or however the hell that’s spelled), but yeah for the most part there really doesn’t seem to be much in the way of law enforcement.

@Jarkes  

I’d say that like in medieval/pre-modern times, the palatial guard was also the police force (by our understanding of the term police)

I always assumed the Royal Guard served as a gendarmerie of sorts.

The history of police as we have them today only goes back to 1832 London, and police have been a thing outside London only since the 1850s. So Equestria’s general level of development just hasn’t reached the point where police would’ve existed yet.
 
Yes, there was a Sheriff of Nottingham back in King Richard the Lionheart’s day, but that kind of sheriff wasn’t a police officer. A sheriff for most of the history of the term was a sort of combination tax collector and County agricultural agent. His job was more about apportioning the county’s land among its peasant farmers, telling them what to grow on the land, and collecting fair taxes from them all. The American sheriff just borrowed the name because it was an elected county office. (The original sheriff was traditionally an elected office even under feudalism, and was specifically a county office. The name comes from shire reeve, a shire being a peaceful county, and a reeve being a land manager.)
 
In terms of law enforcement before police existed, the military enforced a sort of general order (that is, the threat of armed troops busting many heads was a disincentive to general order breaking down), wealthy people or whole neighborhoods employed paid guards as a defense against thieves and small-scale disruptions, and individuals enforced personal or civil grievances themselves or in mobs.

It’s quite obvious that the existing armed forces – Royal Guard and Wonderbolts – serve as the equivalent to a police force.
 
Your mistake is thinking of “police” and not “guards”, i.e. Elder Scrolls-style guards. They’re not distinct concepts from one another, merely similar organizations run by different owners, police being largely municipal- / county- / state-based while the Royal Guard & Wonderbolts would be federal.
 
Appleloosa and other western-themed towns actually do have a semblance of a police force, because they have sheriffs and what must be deputies. However, it seems that Ponyville is not able to support one, and larger cities such as Manehattan are most likely directly serviced by the Royal Guard.
 
As for why characters are generally not arrested for committing crimes, that’s because the entire point of the show is being nice and forgiving ppl so they magically become nice. However, that guy from Rarity Investigates was clearly not given this courtesy, and most likely faced a court martial off-screen.
 
Also there’s that whole “Tirek and co. got locked in Tartarus” thing.

@Ferrotter  
So trains are older than cops? Fun fact: Trains are older than minutes. Minutes (and time zones) were invented to make train timetables possible.
 
On the subject of shires, what’s the difference between a shire and a county?

@Wiimeiser  
that feels so wrong but i don’t have any evidence to the contrary  
wikipedia says nobody actually knows what the origin of the minute as a unit of time is but meh

@Wiimeiser
 
Pretty much none. both mean the same thing, but scir, from where “shire” comes from, is the term that was used to refer to those land divisions before the Norman Invasion.

@Wiimeiser
 
@Mildgyth  
Nearly all counties are shires, so they’re basically the same thing. The few counties that border on a hostile foreign country are called marches instead of shires, the distinction being that pretty much any nobleman of adequate reputation could be expected to rule a shire; the essential duties were to maintain enough of a garrison to keep basic order, farm the land adequately to supply themselves and taxes to support the King’s own army, and to be able to raise an appropriately-sized army whenever the King demanded. Whereas only a select few nobleman could be trusted with a march. Those nobles deeded a march needed to be militarily strong enough to hold off an invasion on their own until the rest of the kingdom could rally reinforcements to their aid; yet be trustworthy enough that the King wasn’t very worried that they’d start a coup in collaboration with the enemy across the border. To signify their higher importance, they were dubbed Marquess (or Marquis in French) instead of merely Count.

S06E03 confirmed Manehattan has policemares

There were a couple of police ponies in the comics (the comic matters still?) And the last episode finally showed us a policemare. So yay. They do have laws and law enforcement….for some reason this greatly pleases me.

@SuperSupermario24  
@Ranch  
Well it’s about time! Where the hell were they for the past six years? So many crimes have been committed, and they were never called into action? Looks like it’s time to fill up the Equestrian prison cells…

@DragonBoi471
 
Weeell I mean. The police are totally useless in most fictional mediums. But at least I know I can make police pony OCs and not feel like they are out of place.

What kind of crime does Equestria even have? Littering? I mean come on, its Equestria.

@Background Pony #F36E  
have you even watched this freaking show

@SuperSupermario24
 
I don’t count the activities of the evil bad guys as crimes a pony commits. Except for Starlight but she’s insane.

@Ranch  
see the first post then, there are some good examples there

@SuperSupermario24
 
 
Alright. Good point.

I suppose you could add the Bugbear attack from that wedding episode.  
So…basically ponies who specialize in corralling lower scale catastrophes in populated areas, things that only effect one city and not the whole world. I(ie. a threat that would require the elements of harmony are well above their pay grade.)
 
I’d say this is stuff the royal guard is meant to do but then the show gave us actual ponies in police uniform. Maybe just for a visual gag? I don’t see much reason for it to not be royal guard patrolling Manehattan.
 
But if I over analyze like a jackass the “police” ponies would wear armor instead of regular clothing since the potential of running into a hostile magic user 1 in 3. So its like they’re royal guard “lite”.

I posted this a while back in the crazy headcanons thread, but I imagine that ponies that would pursue a life of crime have a cutie mark related to it so they’re typically caught very early on.