State police
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[edit] United States
In the United States, state police are a police body unique to each U.S. state, having statewide authority to conduct law enforcement activities and criminal investigations. In general, they perform functions outside the normal or 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 support services, and helping to coordinate multi-jurisdictional task force activity in serious or complicated cases in those states that grant full police powers statewide.
Twenty-three U.S. states actually call their state police by the term "State Police." In this case state police are general-power law enforcement officers with statewide jurisdiction, who conduct patrols and respond to calls for service and perform all the other aforementioned duties. These states are: Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, and West Virginia.
In other states the state police are limited function and limited jurisdiction agencies known by any of the following: State Highway Patrol (Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio); Highway Patrol (California, Florida, Kansas, Mississippi, Montana, Nevada, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Wyoming), State Patrol (Colorado, Minnesota, Nebraska, Washington, Wisconsin); State Bureaus of Investigation or Department of Public Safety (Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Texas). Exceptions are Alaska whose state police agency is referred to as Alaska State Troopers and Hawaii where the State of Hawaii Sheriff's Office acts as the state-wide law enforcement agency. All of these agencies tend to be brought together under a state Department of Public Safety or may be under several agencies, such as the Highway Patrol being under the state Department of Transportation. Generally speaking, limited jurisdiction-highway patrol agencies also have little or no criminal investigation functions except on state-owned property, state-operated corrections facilities, or state hospitals.
They have emerged at various times in the history of each particular state, alternately evolving from corps of mounted rangers (the term trooper coming from cavalry parlance) or being newly established as a fully motorized highway patrol.
Territorial police forces include:
- Territory of Guam Police Department
- American Samoa Department of Public Safety
- Northern Mariana Islands Department of Public Safety
- United States Virgin Islands Police Department
- Puerto Rico Commonwealth Police
[edit] Commonwealth countries
In Australia and Pakistan, the state police are the primary arrangement for law enforcement, and thus provide all local law enforcement services, even in large cities such as Sydney and Melbourne.
In India, the State Police have law enforcement powers across the entire state. India does not have a system of sheriffs and local city/town police units. The state police do the recruitment and the training, and also run the forensic labs, etc. For major cities there is a special city specific police force, under the command of a Commissioner of Police. They are the Metropolitan Police in the major cities like Mumbai and Calcutta. However, it should be noted that these police forces are just a separate unit in the state police. The members of the Metropolitan Police get recruited and trained as State police officers, but on training they get posted to the Metropolitan Police. They also can be transferred back to any other place in the state.
For administrative and jurisdictional purposes, some cities have two police forces: the city police under the command of the Commissioner of Police, and the rural district (the district in which the city is located) under the command of a Superintendent of Police. However, these units don't work in watertight compartments, and officers can get transferred from Rural Dt. Police to the City Police.
The Canadian provinces of Ontario, Quebec, and Newfoundland and Labrador respectively have a provincial police, a sûreté, and a constabulary which are roughly analogous to U.S. state police forces. The rest of the provinces and many municipalities are policed by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
[edit] Other countries
Landespolizei (the term literally translating to "State Police") operate in each Land (state) of the Federal Republic of Germany. The police force of Liechtenstein is also referred to as Landespolizei [1].
Several nationalities in the Kingdom of Spain possess their own police force akin to "State Police", like Ertzaintza in Euskadi and Mossos d'Esquadra in Catalonia.
The Italian State Police is a national police agency which usually restricts its activities to the larger towns and cities of Italy, while the Carabinieri is active in small towns, rural and border areas.
Each state in Brazil has a Polícia Militar, and despite the somewhat misleading name they are uniformed gendarmerie forces fulfilling roles as state police.
