The police___(is/are) looking into the matter.

Question

The police___(is/are) looking into the matter. Fill in the blank with appropriate word

Answer 1

(My apologies: I had meant to make this a comment to both Michael F. and Mark M.'s own responses under the Comments section, but I messed up the placement.)

 

Subject/verb and pronoun agreement with collective nouns can be complicated. The choice of a singular or plural verb often depends more than anything else on how the speaker views the individuality of members of the group referred to by the collective noun. This in why, in fact, in some contexts one could indeed say something like "The team are playing well," or even more likely, "The team are fighting with themselves" where the meaning is clearly that the individual members of the team are performing actions independently, and therefore both the plural verb are and the plural reflexive pronoun themselves are used.

There are also differences among varieties of English. In British English, there is a tendency to use collective nouns more often with plural verbs than in American English. For example, sentences like The government are deciding on the new policy are usual in British English compared with American English The government is deciding . . . And often the status of a collective noun, especially those that are or become proper nouns, changes over time; perhaps you've heard of how in the earliest days of the republic, even Americans were accustomed to saying things like The United States are . . ., but with the development of the nation and particularly the unity of the former separate colonies and later states fostered by the strong federal system instituted by the Constitution, The United States is . . . became the standard.

And finally, there are fairly exceptional collective nouns like police which even though their form is singular almost always take a plural verb. Note that when we need to individualize separate members of a police force, we have to resort to using a different noun phrase altogether, e.g., The police are coming vs. A policeman/police officer is coming.

Answer 2

The police are looking into the matter.

Answer 3

In this sentence, "police" is a collective plural. When we refer to "the police" we're talking about a group of police officers or a police station, for instance. Consequently, the sentence should read "The police are..."  Team is another collective plural, yet we would say "The team is" vs. "The team are" as noted. This is an example of what seems like a random exception that can make learning English confusing for non-native students.