Federal Police (Germany)

The Federal Police (Bundespolizei or BPOL) is a (primarily) uniformed federal police force in Germany. It is subordinate to the Federal Ministry of the Interior (Bundesministerium des Innern (BMI)). Ordinary police forces, meanwhile, are under the administration of the individual German states (Bundesländer) and are known as the Landespolizei.

The Bundespolizei was formerly known as the Bundesgrenzschutz (BGS) ("Federal Border Guard"), which had a more restricted role. Prior to 1994 BGS members also had military combatant status due to their historical foundation and border-guard role in West Germany. In July 2005 the law renaming the BGS as the BPOL was enacted.

Missions

The BPOL has the following missions:

Police

A police force is a constituted body of persons empowered by the state to enforce the law, protect property, and limit civil disorder. Their powers include the legitimized use of force. The term is most commonly associated with police services of a sovereign state that are authorized to exercise the police power of that state within a defined legal or territorial area of responsibility. Police forces are often defined as being separate from military or other organizations involved in the defense of the state against foreign aggressors; however, gendarmerie are military units charged with civil policing.

Law enforcement, however, constitutes only part of policing activity. Policing has included an array of activities in different situations, but the predominant ones are concerned with the preservation of order. In some societies, in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, these developed within the context of maintaining the class system and the protection of private property. Many police forces suffer from police corruption to a greater or lesser degree. The police force is usually a public sector service, meaning they are paid through taxes.

State police

State police or provincial police are a type of sub-national territorial police force, found particularly in North America, South Asia, and Oceania. Some other countries have analogous police forces, such as the provincial police in some Canadian provinces. Particularly in the United States, the primary goals of most state police agencies are the safety of motorists on interstate highways, and the enforcement of traffic laws on those interstate highways, but can also involve statewide law enforcement and criminal investigation.

Australia

Each state of Australia has its own state police force. Municipalities do not have police forces and it is left to the state forces to police all geographic areas within their respective states. Australia does have a national police force, the Australian Federal Police, whose role is to enforce the laws of the Commonwealth, both criminal law and civil law, as well as to protect the interests of the Commonwealth, both domestically and internationally. The AFP does, however, provide 'state' policing for the Australian Capital Territory, Jervis Bay Territory, and Australia's other external territories such as Norfolk Island. Prior to the Federation of Australia, each Colony within Australia had numerous police forces, but these were largely amalgamated well before Federation.

Riot police

Riot police are police who are organized, deployed, trained or equipped to confront crowds, protests or riots.

Riot police may be regular police who act in the role of riot police in particular situations or they may be separate units organized within or in parallel to regular police forces. Riot police are used in a variety of different situations and for a variety of different purposes. They may be employed to control riots as their name suggests, to disperse or control crowds, to maintain public order or discourage criminality, or to protect people or property. In some cases, riot police may function as a tool of political repression by violently breaking up protests and suppressing dissent or civil disobedience. In recent decades, observers have noted the increasing militarization of riot and protest policing, with police deploying snipers, flashbang grenades and guns with plastic bullets.

Riot gear

Riot police often use special equipment termed riot gear to help protect themselves and attack others. Riot gear typically includes personal armor, batons, riot shields and riot helmets. Many riot police teams also deploy specialized less-than-lethal weapons, such as pepper spray, tear gas, rifles that fire rubber bullets, stun grenades, and Long Range Acoustic Devices.

Law enforcement agency

A law enforcement agency (LEA), in North American English, is a government agency responsible for the enforcement of the laws.

Outside North America, such organizations are usually called police services. In North America, some of these services are called police, others are known as sheriff's offices/departments, while investigative police services in the United States are often called bureaus, for example the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Jurisdiction

LEAs which have their ability to apply their powers restricted in some way are said to operate within a jurisdiction.

LEAs will have some form of geographic restriction on their ability to apply their powers. The LEA might be able to apply its powers within a country, for example the United States of America's Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, within a division of a country, for example the Australian state Queensland Police, or across a collection of countries, for example international organizations such as Interpol, or the European Union's Europol.