Reference

Police organisations

Named police organisations around the world — what each one is, the level of government it belongs to, what it covers, and the official source each fact was checked against.

These are named organisations. For the kinds of body they are instances of — what a gendarmerie is, how a municipal force differs from a national one — the institution types answer a different question and are kept separate for that reason.

Every entry is written from the organisation’s own official publications or from legislation, and every page states the date its facts were last checked. Where an official source could not be read, the page says so rather than filling the gap.

Browse by system

91 organisations across 45 systems, grouped by the system each belongs to.

Argentina

Policía Federal Argentina (PFA): One of Argentina’s four national security forces under the Ministry of National Security, alongside provincial police forces it does not command.
Gendarmería Nacional Argentina (GNA): One of Argentina’s four federal security forces under the national Ministry of National Security, and the country’s gendarmerie-type body.
Prefectura Naval Argentina (PNA): One of Argentina’s four federal security forces under the national Ministry of National Security.
Policía de Seguridad Aeroportuaria (PSA): One of Argentina’s four federal security forces under the national Ministry of National Security.

Australia

Australian Federal Police (AFP): The Commonwealth police force, which also delivers community policing to the Australian Capital Territory on the ACT Government’s behalf.
Victoria Police: The police force of the Australian state of Victoria — one of the state forces that carry out general policing in Australia.
Northern Territory Police Force: The Northern Territory’s own police force — the contrast with the Australian Capital Territory, whose policing the Commonwealth AFP delivers.
Tasmania Police: The police service of the Australian state of Tasmania, and one operational arm of a department that also contains the state’s fire and emergency services.

Austria

Bundespolizei: Austria’s single national police force within the Federal Ministry of the Interior. Its nine Landespolizeidirektionen are federal authorities, not police forces belonging to the Länder.
Bundeskriminalamt: Austria’s federal criminal police office, within the Federal Ministry of the Interior — a different body from the German office of the same name.

Belgium

Police Fédérale / Federale Politie: The federal level of Belgium’s integrated police service — one of two levels which, in the words of the statute, together provide the integrated police function.
Comité permanent de contrôle des services de police: Belgium’s external oversight body for the police services — a body that supervises policing without being a police force.

Bhutan

Royal Bhutan Police (RBP): Bhutan’s national police force, which publishes its mission as maintaining law and order, preventing crime and protecting life and property.

Botswana

Botswana Police Service (BPS): Botswana’s national police service, established by Act of Parliament, with a statutory mandate the government quotes in full rather than summarises.

Brazil

Polícia Federal (PF): The judicial police of the Union in Brazil, exercising that function exclusively, together with maritime, airport and border policing.
Polícia Rodoviária Federal (PRF): A Union body dedicated to ostensive patrol of the federal highways, under Article 144 paragraph 2 of the Brazilian Constitution.

Canada

Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP): Canada’s federal police force, which also delivers provincial and municipal policing under contract to eight provinces, three territories and some 150 municipalities.
Sûreté du Québec: Quebec’s own provincial police service — one of the two provinces that do not contract policing from the RCMP.
Ontario Provincial Police (OPP): The provincial police service of Ontario, a division of the province’s Ministry of the Solicitor General.
Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA): The Canadian federal agency responsible for border services, combining customs enforcement with decisions on who may enter or remain in the country.

Croatia

Ravnateljstvo policije: The Croatian police directorate within the interior ministry, one of three hierarchical levels the Police Act establishes, directing the regional police administrations below it.

Czechia

Policie České republiky: Czechia’s single national police force, under the Ministry of the Interior, with fourteen regional directorates that are internal units of the one force rather than separately governed police.

Denmark

Rigspolitiet: Denmark’s police, organised into twelve geographical districts, with the Faroe Islands and Greenland each forming a district of their own.
National enhed for Særlig Kriminalitet: A nationwide investigative unit established in 2022 which, in the Danish police’s own description, forms the fifteenth police district.

Estonia

Politsei ja Piirivalveamet: One board that polices, guards the border, runs rescue at sea and issues identity documents — a combination no other institution in this registry holds.

Finland

Poliisihallitus: The body that guides and directs operational police activity in Finland — a governance and command body rather than a police force in its own right.
Keskusrikospoliisi: Finland’s national criminal-investigation police unit, one of the police agencies the interior ministry lists beneath the National Police Board.
Suojelupoliisi: One of the police agencies the Finnish interior ministry lists — a security-intelligence service inside the police structure rather than outside it.

France

Police nationale: One of France’s two national forces. It is a civil force, bound with the Gendarmerie nationale by a single regulatory code of ethics.
Gendarmerie nationale: France’s armed force instituted to see to the execution of the laws — a gendarmerie, and the other half of the pair of national forces bound by one code of ethics.

Germany

Bundespolizei: Germany’s federal police, within the Federal Ministry of the Interior, responsible for borders, railways and civil aviation security — not for general policing, which belongs to the Länder.
Bundeskriminalamt (BKA): Germany’s federal criminal police office: a central investigative and coordinating body that takes on investigations at the direction of the Federal Prosecutor General.
Polizei Berlin: The police force of the Land of Berlin — one of sixteen Land forces that carry out general policing in Germany, each under its own Land government and police law.
Bayerische Polizei: The police force of the German state of Bavaria — one of the sixteen Land forces that carry out everyday policing in Germany.

Gibraltar

Royal Gibraltar Police: The police force of Gibraltar, operational since 1830 under the name Gibraltar Police and granted the prefix “Royal” in 1992.

Hungary

Rendőrség: A state armed law-enforcement body, organised as a national headquarters with county and capital commands beneath it, and with border control and counter-terrorism written into its statutory task.

Indonesia

Kepolisian Negara Republik Indonesia (POLRI): A single national police force which, uniquely among the systems in this registry, reports directly to the President rather than to a ministry.
Badan Narkotika Nasional (BNN): Indonesia’s national narcotics agency, led by a head who reports directly to the President and operating under the 2009 narcotics law.

Ireland

An Garda Síochána: Ireland’s national police and security service, governed by the Garda Síochána Act 2005, with the statutory function of providing policing and security services to the State.

Italy

Polizia di Stato: Italy’s civil national police force, directed by the Department of Public Security within the Ministry of the Interior — one of several national police forces, not the only one.
Arma dei Carabinieri: An armed force of the Italian state in permanent public-security service: a gendarmerie answering to the Minister of Defence as a military service and to the Minister of the Interior as a police force.
Corpo della guardia di finanza: One of the police forces listed by Italy’s Law 121/1981, alongside the Polizia di Stato and the Carabinieri.

Jamaica

Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF): Jamaica’s national police force, which states a commitment to protecting lives and property, preventing crime and strengthening public confidence.

Japan

National Police Agency (NPA): Japan’s central police organisation. It draws up policy, coordinates and supervises on matters of national concern — it does not command a national operational police force, because there is none.
National Public Safety Commission (NPSC): The commission that supervises Japan’s National Police Agency, and over which the Prime Minister is not empowered to exercise direct command or control.
Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department: The prefectural police of Tokyo — one of the forces that actually carry out policing in Japan, not a branch of the National Police Agency.

Kenya

National Police Service: Kenya’s national police service, constituted by the National Police Service Act and comprising the Kenya Police Service, the Administration Police Service and the Directorate of Criminal Investigations.

Latvia

Valsts policija: Latvia’s national police force, which states its own responsibility for public order and for the internal security of the state.

Liechtenstein

Landespolizei: Liechtenstein’s single police force, whose published task list runs from criminal investigation and traffic supervision to searching for missing persons and helping in disasters.

Luxembourg

Police Grand-Ducale: Luxembourg’s single national police service, responsible for internal security across the whole country.

Netherlands

Politie: One national police force for the Netherlands, headed by one Commissioner, comprising ten Regional Units, the Central Unit and the Police Services Centre.
Koninklijke Marechaussee: A component of the Dutch armed forces under the Ministry of Defence that also carries police tasks — the gendarmerie-type body alongside the civil national police.
Fiscale Inlichtingen- en Opsporingsdienst (FIOD): The criminal investigation service of the Dutch Ministry of Finance, investigating fraud rather than carrying out general policing.

New Zealand

New Zealand Police: A single national police force of twelve districts, whose Commissioner must act independently of ministers on investigations and prosecutions.
New Zealand Customs Service: New Zealand’s border service, responsible for customs enforcement and Crown revenue at the border, and separate from New Zealand Police.

Nigeria

Nigeria Police Force: The single police force the Nigerian Constitution provides for — and which it provides shall be the only one, for the Federation or any part of it.

Norway

Politiet: Norway’s national police service: the Police Directorate, twelve police districts, and a set of national special agencies (særorganer).
Kripos: Norway’s national unit against organised and other serious crime, established in 1959 and given prosecutorial authority in 2005.
Økokrim: One body that both investigates and prosecutes economic and environmental crime — a combination most systems in this registry keep apart.
Utrykningspolitiet (UP): The body holding the main responsibility for the Norwegian police traffic service, and the police’s specialist authority on traffic-safety methods and equipment.
Nasjonalt ID-senter: An expert body on foreign nationals’ identity and identity documents — part of the police organisation without being an operational police unit.

Papua New Guinea

Royal Papua New Guinea Constabulary: The national police force of Papua New Guinea, formed by the 1942 amalgamation of the separate forces of Papua and New Guinea and given its functions by the country’s Constitution.

Poland

Policja: A single uniformed, armed national formation established by the Law of 6 April 1990, headed by the Chief Commissioner of Police and subordinate to the Minister of Internal Affairs.

Portugal

Guarda Nacional Republicana (GNR): A Portuguese security force of military nature, made up of military personnel organised in a special corps of troops, and one of the three general-competence criminal-police bodies.
Polícia de Segurança Pública (PSP): One of the three general-competence criminal-police bodies named by Portugal’s Law on the Organisation of Criminal Investigation.
Polícia Judiciária (PJ): Portugal’s criminal-investigation police, to which Law 49/2008 reserves the most serious offences.

Romania

Poliția de Frontieră Română: Romania’s specialised state institution for the surveillance and control of crossings of the state border.

Scotland

Police Scotland: The police service of Scotland, established on 1 April 2013, covering some 28,168 square miles — about a third of the United Kingdom’s landmass.

Singapore

Singapore Police Force (SPF): A single national police force under the Ministry of Home Affairs, in a city-state with no state or municipal police.

South Africa

South African Police Service: South Africa’s police service, whose National Commissioner answers directly to the Minister of Police, with national policing policy determined under section 206 of the Constitution.

Spain

Policía Nacional: Spain’s civil national police force, under the Minister of the Interior — one of two state security forces in a system that also has autonomous-community and local police.
Guardia Civil: Spain’s armed institute of military nature, with a traditional dual dependence on the Ministries of the Interior and of Defence.
Ertzaintza: The police of the Basque Autonomous Community, within the Basque Government’s Security Department — an instance of Spain’s second policing tier.
Policia de la Generalitat - Mossos d’Esquadra: The police of Catalonia, belonging to the Generalitat rather than to the Spanish state administration — the second instance of Spain’s autonomous-community tier published here.

Sweden

Polismyndigheten: A single national police authority for Sweden, organised into seven police regions, twenty-five police districts and ninety-five local police districts.

Switzerland

fedpol: Switzerland’s federal police office. It is expressly not a national police force, and expressly not superior to the cantonal forces that do the policing.

Trinidad and Tobago

Trinidad and Tobago Police Service (TTPS): The national police service of Trinidad and Tobago, covering both islands of the state.

Uganda

Uganda Police Force: Uganda’s national police force, constitutionally mandated under the 1995 Constitution and tracing its formation to the Uganda Armed Constabulary of 1899.

United Kingdom

British Transport Police (BTP): A police force defined by an estate rather than a territory: the railway across England, Wales and Scotland, under the Department for Transport rather than the Home Office.
National Crime Agency (NCA): A United Kingdom law-enforcement agency against serious and organised crime. It is not a territorial police force, and does not present itself as one.
Civil Nuclear Constabulary (CNC): An armed United Kingdom police force whose jurisdiction is an estate rather than a place: civil nuclear sites, nuclear material in transit, and other critical national infrastructure.

United States

United States Marshals Service: The enforcement arm of the United States federal courts — a federal agency defined by its relationship to the judiciary rather than by a territory.
New York City Police Department (NYPD): A municipal police department — by its own account the largest and one of the oldest in the United States — policing a city of 8.5 million people.
California Highway Patrol (CHP): A state agency established in 1929 to provide uniform traffic law enforcement throughout California — a state force with a defined remit, not a state-wide general police.
New York State Police: A primary state agency with a general remit — roadways, crime, emergencies — which it exercises alongside, not above, the municipal and county agencies in the same state.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP): The United States federal agency responsible for the country’s borders and ports of entry, within the Department of Homeland Security, combining customs, immigration inspection and border security in one body.
United States Secret Service: A United States federal law-enforcement agency with two joined mandates: protecting designated people and events, and investigating crimes against the financial system.
United States Capitol Police (USCP): The police force for the United States Capitol and its grounds, answerable to the presiding officers of the House and Senate rather than to the executive branch.
United States Postal Inspection Service: The law-enforcement arm of the United States Postal Service, investigating crime that involves the mail.
United States Park Police: A police force operating as a unit of the National Park Service, with jurisdiction in federal parks and a permanent presence in three metropolitan areas.

Zambia

Zambia Police Service (ZPS): Zambia’s national police service, established under the Constitution and the Zambia Police Act, with command vested in an Inspector-General subject to the direction of the President.