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State police, provincial police or regional police are a type of sub-national territorial police force found in nations organized as federations, typically in North America, South Asia, and Oceania. These forces typically have jurisdiction over the relevant sub-national jurisdiction, and may cooperate in law enforcement activities with municipal or national police where either exist.
In Argentina, as a federal country, each province has its own independent police force and its responsible of its funding, training and equipment. State police agencies are responsible of all the territory of a determinate state. There is almost no municipal/local law enforcement in Argentina, and if there is, they are generally limited to traffic duties.
Prior to the Federation of Australia, each colony within Australia had numerous police forces, but these were largely amalgamated well before federation.[ citation needed ]
Today each state of Australia, as well as the Northern Territory, has its own state police force. [1] [2] Municipalities do not have police forces and it is left to the state forces to police all geographic areas within their respective states.[ citation needed ] 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 policing for the Australian Capital Territory, Jervis Bay Territory, and Australia's other external territories such as Norfolk Island, Christmas Island and the Cocos (Keeling) Islands. [3]
The state and territory police forces are:
Each federative unit in Brazil, beside its military firefighters corps and its penal and scientific polices, has two main police corporations working together with different skills:
Law enforcement in Canada operates at the federal, provincial, and local levels. Three provinces of Canada have a dedicated police force, with jurisdiction over some or all of the province:
The federal Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) provides provincial-level policing in the remaining land area of Newfoundland and Labrador, as well as the remaining seven provinces and three territories. The RCMP began being contracted to provide provincial policing in the late 1920s as provincial police forces were disbanded and their duties contracted out to provincial divisions of the RCMP. The most recent provincial police force to be disbanded, the British Columbia Provincial Police, existed from the mid-19th century until its jurisdiction was transferred to RCMP "E" Division on August 15, 1950.
Provinces which have disbanded their provincial police may retain other provincial law enforcement agencies, such as sheriff services or conservation officers. For example, the Alberta Sheriffs Branch is responsible for traffic enforcement in Alberta together with the RCMP, despite being a law enforcement agency and not a police force.
The Landespolizei (or LaPo) is a term used in the Federal Republic of Germany to denote the law enforcement services that perform law enforcement duties in the States of Germany. The German federal constitution leaves the majority of law enforcement responsibilities to the 16 states of the country.
There also are several auxiliary state police forces.
The Constitution of India delineates the roles and responsibilities of both the central and state governments, with matters related to police, public order, and law and order falling under the purview of the state governments. India has 28 state police agencies.
Each state has a state police force and its own distinct state police services, headed by the director general of police (DGP) or commissioner of police (in metropolitan areas), who is an Indian Police Service officer. The state police forces operate under the authority of the respective state governments and are empowered to enforce laws, prevent crime, investigate offenses, and maintain public order.
Most municipal or city police forces operate under their respective state police departments, with the exception of the Kolkata Police. State police agencies typically have jurisdiction across the entire state. However, in West Bengal, the jurisdiction of the state police excludes Kolkata, which is served by the Kolkata Police. [5]
The police forces of union territories in India are either directly or indirectly under the purview of the union government. Unlike state police forces, the Delhi Police operate under the direct control of the Union Ministry of Home Affairs, government of India due to Delhi's status as both the national capital territory and a union territory. While they function under the respective union territory administrations for day-to-day operations and governance, their ultimate authority and oversight lie with the central government.
The Indian Police Service (IPS) is not a law enforcement agency in its own right; rather it is the body to which all senior police officers of all states belong regardless of the agency for whom they work. The IPS officers provide senior level leadership to law enforcement agencies, both at the state and federal levels.
Each of the 32 states of Mexico maintains a separate law enforcement agency or Policía Estatal. Each of these state forces is tasked with the protection of their citizens, keeping local order and combating insecurity and drug trafficking. Certain states including Veracruz and Nuevo León have a new model of police force designated as civilian forces(Fuerza Civil).
In Spain there are autonomous police forces in four of its nineteen autonomous communities.
Apart from this, some autonomous communities (Andalusia, Aragon, Asturias, Galicia and Valencian Community) have a special division part of the National Police Corps and autonomous government of each community.
In the United States, state police (also termed highway patrol, state patrol, or state highway patrol), or state troopers, are a police body unique to 49 of the U.S. states, having statewide authority to conduct law enforcement activities and criminal investigations. Hawaii, despite a widely dispersed archipelago and having four separate county-based police agencies, still has its own statewide policing agency.
In general, these police agencies perform functions outside the jurisdiction of the county sheriff, such as enforcing traffic laws on state highways and interstate expressways, overseeing the security of the state capitol complex, protecting the governor, training new officers for local police forces too small to operate an academy, providing technological and scientific services, supporting local police and helping to coordinate multi-jurisdictional task force activity in serious or complicated cases in those states that grant full police powers statewide. A general trend has been to bring all of these agencies under a state department of public safety. Additionally, they may serve under different state departments such as the highway patrol under the state department of transportation and the marine patrol under the state department of natural resources.
Twenty-three U.S. states use the term state police, fifteen use the term highway patrol, seven use the term state patrol, and three use the term state highway patrol, while Alaska's agency is the "Division of Alaska State Troopers". The term highway patrol tends to be more common in the southeast and mountain west states. Hawaii is the only state with a Sheriff Division of the Hawaii Department of Law Enforcement with statewide jurisdiction.
In addition, all the territories of the United States have a police force with similar territory-wide authority:
Law enforcement is the activity of some members of government who act in an organized manner to enforce the law by discovering, investigating, deterring, rehabilitating, or punishing people who violate the rules and norms governing that society. The term encompasses police, Courts and corrections. These three components of the criminal Justice system may operate independently of each other or collectively through the use of record sharing and cooperation. Throughout the world, law enforcement are also associated with protecting the public, life, property, and keeping the peace in society.
The police are a constituted body of persons empowered by a state with the aim of enforcing the law and protecting the public order as well as the public itself. This commonly includes ensuring the safety, health, and possessions of citizens, and to prevent crime and civil disorder. Their lawful powers encompass arrest and the use of force legitimized by the state via the monopoly on violence. The term is most commonly associated with the police forces 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 the military and other organizations involved in the defense of the state against foreign aggressors; however, gendarmerie are military units charged with civil policing. Police forces are usually public sector services, funded through taxes.
Military police (MP) are law enforcement agencies connected with, or part of, the military of a state. In wartime operations, the military police may support the main fighting force with force protection, convoy security, screening, rear reconnaissance, logistic traffic management, counterinsurgency, and detainee handling.
A highway patrol is a police unit, detail, or law enforcement agency created primarily for the purpose of overseeing and enforcing traffic safety compliance on roads and highways within a jurisdiction. They are also referred to in many countries as traffic police, although in other countries this term is more commonly used to refer to foot officers on point duty who control traffic at junctions.
Law enforcement in Australia is one of the three major components of the country's justice system, along with courts and corrections. Law enforcement officers are employed by all three levels of government – federal, state/territory, and local.
The Department of Federal Police is a federal law enforcement agency of Brazil and one of the three national police forces. The other two are the Federal Highway Police, and the National Force. From 1944 to 1967 it was called the Federal Public Safety Department.
Military Police are the uniformed preventive state police of the states and of the Federal District of Brazil. The Military Police units are the main ostensive police force at the state level and are responsible for policing and maintaining the public order. Their formations, rules and uniforms vary depending on the state. Investigative work and forensics are undertaken by the Civil Police of each state.
A border guard of a country is a national security agency that ensures border security. Some of the national border guard agencies also perform coast guard and rescue service duties.
Law enforcement in Canada is the responsibility of police services, special constabularies, and civil law enforcement agencies, which are operated by every level of government, some private and Crown corporations, and First Nations. In contrast to the United States or Mexico, and with the exception of the Unité permanente anticorruption in Quebec and the Organized Crime Agency of British Columbia, there are no organizations dedicated exclusively to the investigation of criminal activity in Canada. Criminal investigations are instead conducted by police services, which maintain specialized criminal investigation units in addition to their mandate for emergency response and general community safety.
In Brazil, the Federal Constitution establishes eight law enforcement institutions - seven titulars and one auxiliar. The titular institutions are: the Federal Police, the Federal Highway Police, the Federal Railroad Police, the Federal Penal Police, the State Military Police and Fire Brigade, the State Civil Police and the State Penal Police. Of these, the first four are affiliated to federal authorities and the latter three are subordinated to state governments. These public safety institutions are part of the Executive branch of either federal or state government. Apart from these eight institutions, there are others which affiliate to municipal authorities: the Municipal Guards. According to Minister Alexandre de Moraes of the Supreme Federal Court, "...the Municipal Guards are inserted in public safety as the auxiliary and related body of public security force..." Federal law 13,022 gave them de facto and de jure police attributions.
Law enforcement in Pakistan is one of the three main components of the criminal justice system of Pakistan, alongside the judiciary and the prisons. The country has a mix of federal, provincial and territorial police forces with both general and specialised functions, but the senior ranks of all the provincial forces and most of the federal ones are manned by members of the Police Service of Pakistan (PSP). The PSP is one of the most prestigious part of the Central Superior Services, Pakistan's main civil service organisation. Federal law enforcement agencies are generally overseen by the Ministry of Interior of the Government of Pakistan, while provincial police forces are overseen by a department of the government of that province.
In Brazil, the Civilian Police is the name of the investigative state police forces.
Airport police units are a security police agency assigned to perform law enforcement functions at airports. They provide a wide range of law enforcement duties and responsibilities including patrol, investigation, traffic flow management, and control and response to airport emergencies. Airport police provide enhanced safety to airport employees, and to passengers. Officers can be found at security gates, throughout the terminal area, and around the airport’s perimeter.
In many countries, particularly those with a federal system of government, there may be several law enforcement agencies, police or police-like organizations, each serving different levels of government and enforcing different subsets of the applicable law.
The National Public Security Force was created in 2004 and is headquartered in Brasília, in the Federal District, as a joint cooperation of various Brazilian Public Safety forces, co-ordinated by the National Secretariat of Public Security, of the Ministry of Justice. It was created during the administration of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, as a concept developed by then Minister of Justice, Márcio Thomaz Bastos.
In the United States, the state police is a police body unique to each U.S. state, having statewide authority to conduct law enforcement activities and criminal investigations. In general, state police officers or highway patrol officers, known as state troopers, perform functions that do not fall within the jurisdiction of a county’s sheriff, such as enforcing traffic laws on state highways and interstates, overseeing security of state capitol complexes, protecting governors, training new officers for local police forces too small to operate an academy and providing technological and scientific services. They also support local police and help to coordinate multi-jurisdictional task force activity in serious or complicated cases in states that grant full police powers statewide.
In Brazil, the Military Firefighters Corps are military public security forces, responsible for civil defense, firefighting and search and rescue inside the federative units. Since 1915, it has been a military reserve force and an auxiliary force of the Brazilian Army, also composing the Single System of Public Security. Members of the Military Firefighters Corps, such as the members of the Military Police, are designated as being part of the military of the Federative Units by the Federal Constitution.
A law enforcement agency (LEA) is any government agency responsible for law enforcement within a specific jurisdiction through the employment and deployment of law enforcement officers and their resources. The most common type of law enforcement agency is the police, but various other forms exist as well, including agencies that focus on specific legal violation, or are organized and overseen by certain authorities. They typically have various powers and legal rights to allow them to perform their duties, such as the power of arrest and the use of force.
