Municipal police (Germany)
Encyclopedia
Municipal police
.Municipal police are law enforcement agencies that are under the control of local government, including the municipal government, where it is the smallest administrative subdivision. They receive pay from the city budget, and usually have fewer rights than the "state paid" police...
forces of some German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
cities.
After 1945, there were many local and city police forces, such as the Munich Police Force
Polizeipräsidium München
thumb|Munich Police Headquarters, located at Ettstraße 2-4The Polizeipräsidium München is part of the Bavarian State Police. It consists of 7,100 officers and is located in Munich...
, throughout Germany. Small towns and rural areas that could not or did not want to afford their own police force were covered by the Landpolizei which was a mobile gendarmerie
Gendarmerie
A gendarmerie or gendarmery is a military force charged with police duties among civilian populations. Members of such a force are typically called "gendarmes". The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary describes a gendarme as "a soldier who is employed on police duties" and a "gendarmery, -erie" as...
-type force organised by the state government. This decentralised system, however, was not effective in fighting the rise of organised crime and terrorism
Terrorism
Terrorism is the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion. In the international community, however, terrorism has no universally agreed, legally binding, criminal law definition...
(Baader-Meinhof/RAF
Red Army Faction
The radicalized were, like many in the New Left, influenced by:* Sociological developments, pressure within the educational system in and outside Europe and the U.S...
). So the local and city police forces were merged with the Landpolizei to form the Landespolizei
Landespolizei
thumb|[[Germany|German]] police officer in [[Hamburg]]The Landespolizei are the main police forces of Germany. They are under the sole jurisdiction, funded and operated by the states of Germany.-History:...
during the major reorganisation of the German police in the mid-seventies.
Currently, many cities in Germany also have a local public order force. Depending on each state's laws, the name of the force that performs these limited police-type functions could be:
- Ordnungsamt
- Kommunaler Ordnungsdienst
- Städtischer Ordnungsdienst
- Stadtpolizei, which means City Police, in some cities in the State of HesseHesseHesse or Hessia is both a cultural region of Germany and the name of an individual German state.* The cultural region of Hesse includes both the State of Hesse and the area known as Rhenish Hesse in the neighbouring Rhineland-Palatinate state...
.
These city employees mainly wear uniform but some could be in plain clothes and are the municipal administration's eyes and ears on the street. Depending on each state's laws, these local employees could be armed or unarmed. Mostly they are charged with monitoring municipal by-laws and laws that fall under the responsibility of municipalities, which include monitoring the conduct of shop owners, sanitation inspections, veterinary inspections and minor infractions and misdemeanor
Misdemeanor
A misdemeanor is a "lesser" criminal act in many common law legal systems. Misdemeanors are generally punished much less severely than felonies, but theoretically more so than administrative infractions and regulatory offences...
s such as illegal parking, littering, state and local dog regulations etc. They usually only hand out warnings and fines and can only perform a citizen's arrest
Citizen's arrest
A citizen's arrest is an arrest made by a person who is not acting as a sworn law-enforcement official. In common law jurisdictions, the practice dates back to medieval Britain and the English common law, in which sheriffs encouraged ordinary citizens to help apprehend law breakers.Despite the...
as any other citizen can. If they see any major crimes they are required to call the State police.
See also
- Law enforcement in GermanyLaw enforcement in GermanyLaw enforcement in Germany is constitutionally vested solely with the states, which is one of the main features of the German political system. Therefore, unlike France, Italy, the United States, Canada or many other countries, Germany has no federal police force comparable to the Italian...
- LandespolizeiLandespolizeithumb|[[Germany|German]] police officer in [[Hamburg]]The Landespolizei are the main police forces of Germany. They are under the sole jurisdiction, funded and operated by the states of Germany.-History:...
- Gemeindesicherheitswache
- Municipal policeMunicipal police.Municipal police are law enforcement agencies that are under the control of local government, including the municipal government, where it is the smallest administrative subdivision. They receive pay from the city budget, and usually have fewer rights than the "state paid" police...
Crime:
- Crime in GermanyCrime in GermanyCrime in Germany is combated by the German Police and other agencies.-General crime levels:In Germany's 2010 crime statistics, 5.93 million criminal acts were committed, down 2 percent from 2009...