Police (poland)

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Polish policeman with patrol car ( Kia Ceed , from 2010)

Former stickers on Polish patrol cars ( FSO Polonez , until 2009)

The official name of the Police of the Republic of Poland is Policja . It is subordinate to the Polish Ministry of the Interior , is centrally organized and has regional command posts in all voivodeships ( two command posts are active in the Masovian Voivodeship : one for the city of Warsaw and its neighboring districts and one for the rest of the region).

history

In the Second Polish Republic (1918–1939) the police forces were called Policja Państwowa (German State Police ). Before the outbreak of World War II, they comprised around 32,500 civil servants and other reservists who were centrally organized. Only the Silesian Voivodeship had its own regionally organized police between 1920 and 1939.

During the occupation of Poland by German and Soviet troops in World War II, the police were disbanded by the occupiers. On the German side, on the orders of Governor General Hans Frank, the so-called Polish Police in the General Government (Polish Granatowa Policja , for navy blue police ) were set up. These police units were recruited from former police officers and had a strength of around 10,000 men. They were completely subordinate to the German occupation authorities and were used in the fight against crime and black market trafficking and in some cases in raids to arrest forced laborers and in the deportations of Jewish Poles to the German extermination camps . On the Soviet side, officers and police officers were shot dead in April 1940. In total, there are 22,000 to 25,000 victims. Their family members were deported to Kazakhstan and assigned as workers to light industry or metal-producing companies. Previously, according to the historian Adrzej Friszke, 2500 soldiers and police officers were captured and murdered during the conquest of the eastern Polish territories .

The Polish Underground State maintained its own police called during the German occupation from 1940 to 1944 Państwowy body Bezpieczeństwa (German State Security Corps ), which provided in their own ranks for order, tracked agents and actively in the resistance involved against the German occupiers.

After the Second World War, the Milicja Obywatelska (German citizen militia ) was founded. It was the official police force in the People's Republic of Poland and in its early years was subordinate to the newly formed Polish Ministry of Public Security . In 1956 it was merged with the Polish domestic secret service . After the system change in 1988, after extensive restructuring, the name for the police in Poland was changed back to Policja in 1990 .

organization

Around 100,000 civil servants and 25,000 civilian employees work for the Polish police. It has a central structure and reports to the Polish Ministry of the Interior. Regionally, the police are divided into voivodeship headquarters. The Central Investigation Office ( Centralne Biuro Śledcze Policji in Polish ) is the special unit of the Polish police. Its status is similar to that of a regional command post.

A forensic research institute works at Policja : Centralne Laboratorium Kryminalistyczne Policji .

Departments

Most command posts have the following departments:

Criminal Police (Policja Kryminalna) - violent crime and serious crime

Tax police units and drug units also belong to the criminal investigation department
Forensics and forensics

Protective Police (Policja Prewencyjna) - protective police tasks, including counter- terrorism and riot police

Traffic Police (Policja Ruchu Drogowego) - traffic control and motorway police

Polish-German cooperation

A German-Polish police agreement was signed in 2014. Since then, arrests have been possible in the other country and the border area has been formally expanded from a strip near the border to entire federal states. This enables German and Polish officials to temporarily arrest offenders on the territory of the respective neighboring country. In Germany, the formal border area includes the federal states of Brandenburg, Berlin, Saxony and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.

City Police

Patrol car of a municipal police in Poznan ( Renault Thalia , 2007)

In addition to the national police, some police tasks are also carried out by the city police ( Straż Miejska , German city watch ), which is organized at the local level and primarily serves to maintain public order.

Border Guard

Polish Border Guard badge

After the dissolution of Wojska Ochrony Pogranicza , the tasks of border protection were taken over by Straż Graniczna . This police agency reports to the Ministry of the Interior, but its ranks and uniforms are similar to those of the military. It is organized in nine squads (with command offices in Gdansk , Kętrzyn , Białystok , Warsaw , Chełm , Przemyśl , Nowy Sącz , Racibórz , Krosno Odrzańskie ). Border guard educational institutions are located in Koszalin , Kętrzyn and Lubań ; the central archive in Szczecin .

The border guard unit of Poland and the German Federal Police have been operating three German-Polish offices since 2016. The units consist of a mixture of Polish and German officials who work together to investigate and prosecute criminals in the other country.

Furnishing

Alfa Romeo 159 as a patrol car of the Polish police (2012)

The police in Poland are armed and wear various designs of navy blue uniform. The patrol cars have been adapted to the standard of the European Union since 2007 and are therefore painted in silver and glued in blue and white. They are labeled Policja .

Individual evidence

^ Natalia Sergeevna Lebedeva: The Deportation of the Polish Population to the USSR, 1939-41. In: Alfred J. Rieber (Ed.): Forced Migration in Central and Eastern Europe, 1939–1950. London / New York 2000, ISBN 0-7146-5132-X , p. 40.
^ Andrzej Friszke: Polska. Losy państwa i narodu 1939–1989. ISBN 83-207-1711-6 , p. 25.
↑ Barbara Anna Woyno: Police in Poland. Retrieved January 24, 2017 .
↑ German-Polish unity takes up service: Why Polish police cars are now also checking us | Nordkurier.de . January 5, 2016 ( nordkurier.de [accessed June 25, 2018]).

[1] Natalia Sergeevna Lebedeva: The Deportation of the Polish Population to the USSR, 1939-41. In: Alfred J. Rieber (Ed.): Forced Migration in Central and Eastern Europe, 1939–1950. London / New York 2000, ISBN 0-7146-5132-X , p. 40.

[2] Andrzej Friszke: Polska. Losy państwa i narodu 1939–1989. ISBN 83-207-1711-6 , p. 25.

[3] Barbara Anna Woyno: Police in Poland. Retrieved January 24, 2017 .

[4] German-Polish unity takes up service: Why Polish police cars are now also checking us | Nordkurier.de . January 5, 2016 ( nordkurier.de [accessed June 25, 2018]).