Talk:List of police ranks

French Gendarmerie
France, like many country (including Spain, a number of former colonies, and until recently Belgium), possess two main police force, a civil one, the Police Nationale, focused on big aglomeration, and a military one, the Gendarmerie. They each have geographic competency over their own non overlapping areas of the french territory, wiht the first one having competency over roughly half the population and 5% of the territory (but including all the big cities), while the other one has competency on, well, what's left.

However, only the Police Nationale is mentionned in the Wikipedia page. I wonder if the reason for such an omission might be because, as a part of the French Military, the Gendarmerie uses the same ranks as the other componants of the French Military, while Police Nationale ranks are both more specific and a bit more messy (as the realtion between the Officer corp and the Commissaire corp is not a strict hierarchic one).

Though, in an absence of any voices raised against it, I'm going to do what was done for the Spain section and add the Gendarmerie ranks to the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.92.249.207 (talk) 22:37, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Reasons for tagging the article as "confusing"
I'm in no way expert on the subject, but I would think, as probably other common readers, that "rank" is not "ranking", even in the context of police language; more precisely that while "ranking" means "system of grading" (as a noun) or "assigning a grade" (as a verb), the term "rank" in itself is just a synonym of grade. Any clarification would be welcome. If my perception is right, then this article defines "ranking", not "rank" and we should rename it (at least). --Gennaro Prota 19:16, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

I would like to see it updated as something more specific, probably retitled and with a new introduction. Also, this isn't a list, it's really a category and should be defined as such, shouldn't it be? TaylorSAllen 02:22, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

General ranks
I think some discussion should be on general ranks of policemen - officer, corporal, sergeant, lieutenant, captain, etc. --AW 21:40, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

UK Police Rank Insignia
I am no expert in this area but it would appear that the rank insignia displayed for Comissioner and Deputy Comissioner in the UK police section are the wrong way round. The lower rank shows two pips while the higher rank shows only one. This goes against the logical progression of "more pips/stars/crowns/wreaths" etc signifying a higher rank....? Can anyone confirm/correct? ColourSarge 11:20, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

I know, it seems hard to believe that the Deputy Commissioner has the rank insignia of a Deputy Chief Constable, Inspector and a Superintendent when the Commissioner only has the insignia of a Deputy Chief Constable and a Superintendent with 1 of the Inspector's Order of the Bath's. This is right and is confirmed in this image I found whilst searching the net.. showing former Commissioner Lord Stevens with former PM Tony Blair wearing his uniform confirming the insignia of the Met Police Commissioner:. -- PoliceChief (talk) 18:30, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Law Enforcement Scientist
The anonymous user 96.229.234.134 re-added the following after I removed it:


 * Law Enforcement Scientist/Law Enforcement Rate Equation: Someone with significant scientific ideas on how to make improvements to the law enforcement system. Physics equation that describes the law enforcement system as a double sided justice system consisting of both a heroic justice system and a criminal justice system for when people do things both right and wrong. Insignia: look for the scientific equation and look for more intelligent police officers. A law enforcement scientist is concerned with the law enforcement system as a whole including more than one community whereas a police chief is concerned with more locally the immediate police department and immediate community.

The whole section is nonsensical and has nothing to do with police ranks in the US. Could the contributor please state a rationale why this section should be kept? Otherwise I will remove it again. Thank you. – Adrian Lozano (talk) 22:40, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Agree with Adrian Lozano, passage is nonsensical and it does not have anything to do with US police ranks. Police,Mad,Jack (talk · contribs) ☺ 16:01, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Colonel & Major
What US police departments use these ranks?75.164.208.19 (talk) 02:36, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

German Ranks
a) I recommend to delete the whole section and give just basic information instead. As Germany has 17 different Police agencies (1 federal and 16 of each state), the comparison of ranks or funcions is not plausible.

b) German "Kommissar" was translated as "commissioner", but is not equal to the English term.

c) Facing military cooperation in international missions, following equivalents were used or are being used:

Polizei(ober-,haupt-)meister - Sergeant;

(Polizei)Kommissar - Lieutenant; (Polizei)Oberkommissar - (First) Lieutenant; (Polizei)Hauptkommissar - (Police) Captain; Erster (Polizei)Hauptkommissar - (Senior)Captain;

Polizeirat - (Police) Major; Polizeioberrat - (Police) LtCol; Polizeidirektor - (Police) Colonel; Lt. Polizeidirektor - (Police) Colonel

d) List of German Police Ranks (in general) from lowest to highest (Police officers of investigations department, similar to detectives, are named "Kriminal-" instead of "Polizei-" in their respective ranks; only trained police officers can join ID via further training - no candidate rank in ID)

Polizeimeisteranwärter (=candidate rank); Polizeimeister; Polizeiobermeister; Polizeihauptmeister; Polizeihauptmeister (mit Zulage)

Polizeikommissaranwärter (=candidate rank); Polizeikommissar; Polizeioberkommissar; Polizeihauptkommissar; Erster Polizeihauptkommissar

Polizeiratanwärter(=candidate rank); Polizeirat; Polizeioberrat; Polizeidirektor; Leitender Polizeidirektor;

Highest ranking staff (equivalent to Generals)

Polizeivizepräsident; (Inspekteur); Polizeipräsident; —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.113.106.151 (talk) 01:16, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

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...
I--I just made a giant contribuition on Brazil, and someone deleted all important things I written on? Can you admins please prevent from hapenning again? I take about one hour writing the first time!

MrMan368
I removed the following [Roblox.com/MrMan368/Group/:8765577588.RBLX.com MrMan368] from Cyprus. Can someone please help me restore the Greek name for the Chief of Police. Creuzbourg (talk) 17:02, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

Standardising representation of Police ranks across Wikipedia
and since you two and myself seem to be the most prolific editors on this page, I suggest we discuss how to standardise how we represent ranks and in doing so declutter the article. My main suggestions are as follows: I look forward to your input. - Cdjp1 (talk) 10:23, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
 * To standardise the layout of rank representation (most likely using the military ranks blank template as a format), that is to display all rank table and charts horizontally throughout the article (and anywhere police rank is displayed), separating "officer" ranks from "other" ranks, with the most senior rank being on the left and the most junior on the right. Recently I re-worked the Template:Indian Police Service Officer Ranks where on the template page you can see that it shows the Equivalent Nato Code chart to aid in editing the template, but that this is not included when the template is displayed in any article. Of course if we have a source that shows the equivalency of the police rank to Nato-codes, as in the case of Bangladesh Police Ranks, or that the police are part of the country's military, as in the case of most gendarmeries, then the Nato-code template can be included.
 * If a separate article exists for the police ranks of a country, such as with Canada, that only a representative sample of the ranks along with explanatory text and a link to the main article should be included on this page. This should aid in reducing the size of the article preventing it from being overly cluttered.


 * Here are some of my thoughts:
 * I don't think standardization should be a goal in itself. Its a pain in the neck to put files into a template.
 * I do not believe in separating a chart into officers and other ranks, except when NATO-Codes can be used (as stated above). Who are the officers, and who are the men, in the Swedish or British police? As far as I can tell, a British Constable is the equivalent of a Lieutenant, and a Sergeant of a Captain.
 * I think this article should be as comprehensive as possible. That is include as much information as possible in the form of displaying rank insignia.
 * Creuzbourg (talk) 10:37, 21 January 2021 (UTC)


 * I agree that we could separate ranks when it makes sense, i.e. police ranks based on military counterparts. However, like Creuzbourg states, many police forces does not have a clear-cut separation of ranks. Ideally (for me at least), is to have 3-5 different "standard" layouts which could be used when most appropriate. These would be, in no particular order:
 * NATO equivalent/military based.
 * vertical tables, for vertical images such as the French Gendarmerie, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan.
 * Maybe one, for those based on British police ranks.
 * One based on the Sweden/Finland/Iceland layout.
 * 1-2 other layouts for the rest.
 * Gotta agree with Cdjp1, concerning size though. It clutters the page unnecessarily, especially if there is already a page dedicate to those ranks. Australia, Canada & UK all have more or less the same ranks, with minor changes in colour. It is just repeating the same information. Just like we don't display variants or old insignia anymore on this page. Skjoldbro (talk) 11:03, 21 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Horizontal rank tables are difficult to read when they don't fit on the screen and require scrolling (Australia, Belgium, Brunei, etc..). Vertical tables should be used if scrolling is required. Using a standard small epaulette image size (px) for all tables would reduce table sizes.--Melbguy05 (talk) 13:48, 21 January 2021 (UTC)


 * As has said yeah making sure the images are not overly large will help.  no argument from me in having a few different templates, minimising the variation will still occur which will help.  whilst it may be a "pain" to put files into tables, it is something you have already been doing, it is something that multiple people would be doing lessening the load on any one individual, and if you choose not to do it yourself, thats completely fine. -Cdjp1 (talk) 09:03, 22 January 2021 (UTC)


 * @Melbguy05: There are some issues with either kind of table. However, using horizontal semi-exclusively will also cause problems, as many ranks have vertical images and if stacked on each other each country section will be incredibly long. Meaning you would have to scroll a lot between sections. Additionally, many people use either tablets or phones when using Wiki, as such there is no way to make sure that they "fit" on every screen. I do however agree that many of those tables that you mentioned do need some rework. The question is, how to do this the most effective way, while also focusing on some kind of standardisation. Skjoldbro (talk) 09:54, 22 January 2021 (UTC)


 * My comment on Horizontal rank tables was in regard to the section title "Standardising representation of Police ranks across Wikipedia" for all articles and not specific to this article but I did use a few examples from this article. I agree that it is difficult to "fit" on every screen but whatever can be done to reduce size helps. In regards to this article, if there is a country article, a representative sample along with explanatory text would reduce the article's size. Otherwise, there are a lot of individual police forces/services ranks from around the world to include one article. It may be difficult to decide which police forces rank best represents all the ranks of a particular country.--Melbguy05 (talk) 07:02, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

Another point: I think we should avoid using the terms commissioned, non-commissioned and enlisted unless its specifically used by the Police Force in question. I do belive RCMP are using the two first terms, but its not used by Surete Quebec; therefore applying it to SQ denotes a rank structure that does not exist in real life. As far as possible we should use the structure used by the Police Force itself, like under Andorra.

For the many Police Forces that are part of the military, I would prefer the terms 'Officers' and 'Others', with further subdivisions as per the actual rank structure. Creuzbourg (talk) 12:09, 23 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Understood, I've changed Quebec. it may be difficult, but I believe we can sort them out, such as with Canada, in English speaking areas the police services are not to dissimilar from the RCMP, and then in the French speaking areas the ranks seem to be based on those used by the Surete du Quebec, so have the RCMP and SdQ ranks with an explanation, as there currently is seems to be the best we could do. Then for say Australia, sue to the similarity between the different States and territories ranks, and the existence of a federal police force I would suggest using the federal police ranks. So we seem to have an idea of how to proceed. I'll get to work on the UK based template and start updating. -Cdjp1 (talk) 12:48, 23 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Remember, there must be sources for the "explanations"! Where will we find them? Under Germany and USA there is a lot of text; informative: yes, sources: no. Everything on this page should be sourced with proper citations. That is more important than standardization. Creuzbourg (talk) 10:00, 25 January 2021 (UTC)


 * I'll get to trawling through associated pages and looking for fresh sources to support any text in the article tomorrow, including seeing if any of the stuff that has already been removed can be cited. -Cdjp1 (talk) 18:59, 25 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Can we have tilted rank insignia in a chart? Creuzbourg (talk) 14:17, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Brazil.
Someone did the dumbest choice of literally deleting around 4000 characters on Brazil. WHY? "Source" I'm literally Brazilian, you can find those "sources" in any Brazilian site that is officially owned by the government and Police forces. But if you're lazy to try and read Portuguese then don't ruin an entire section. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2804:3D5C:27:C401:5D50:5B44:9B72:9A35 (talk) 19:17, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Please don't do that again. I and other Brazilians worked hard in detailing our Police section for MONTHS and you deleted EVERYTHING in a single day. I undid this revision. That could be easily classed as vandalism since it is the work over the course of months with around 3,537 characters of information about ALL our Police forces. Please refrain from ever doing something like that again or I will be forced to report you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2804:3D5C:27:C401:5D50:5B44:9B72:9A35 (talk) 19:21, 25 January 2021 (UTC)


 * If you are too lazy to include the sources, don't be surprised if your additions get nixed. Primergrey (talk) 19:39, 25 January 2021 (UTC)::


 * See the above discussion about standardization. You could move your text to a new article: Law enforcement in Brazil. Creuzbourg (talk) 20:03, 25 January 2021 (UTC)


 * if you can provide website links here for the text that was removed, I'll be able to restore relevant text to this article and add the other text into the Law enforcement in Brazil article. - Cdjp1 (talk) 09:05, 26 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Done I added sources. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2804:3D5C:27:C401:1028:CA3D:6E4A:4536 (talk) 17:42, 31 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Linking to Wikipedia articles is not WP:RELIABLE. We need to be able to WP:VERIFY the sources. Stop adding the content with out RELIABLE sources. Additionally, this wall of text is unneeded for this page. This page only focuses on the ranks. Other information should be placed on the respective pages rather than here. Skjoldbro (talk) 08:31, 1 February 2021 (UTC) ; edited 08:37, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

Brazil and its relevance
I am wondering why you keep on insisting on having this wall of text for Brazil. The purpose of this page is to provide the reader with (at best) a short description of the ranks and its system, and the ranks themselves. That's it. If we include every single piece of information on this page, it would be impressible to navigate, with 200 countries all having 500–1000 words connected to them. This is why you don't see any other entry on this list having so much text. If you feel that this information is important, move it to pages such as Law enforcement in Brazil where it is more relevant. Skjoldbro (talk) 07:04, 10 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Because all that is important to understand the ranks of Brazil Police. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BrazilianNormalGuy (talk • contribs) 20:44, 11 May 2021 (UTC)
 * The Polícia Judicial, Judiciary Police, works at civilian infrations is important to understanding that the Brazilian Police has a Major? Again, you are not understanding the purpose of this page. There should only bee images and some supporting/clarifying text if necessary. All the Brazil text is not this. That text is WP:UNDUE, WP:UNSOURCED and goes against the currently established WP:Consensus. As such, I am going to remove it again. Like I said before, if you feel like this is important, move to a more relevant page or get Consensus on this talk page before re-adding it. Skjoldbro (talk) 07:14, 12 May 2021 (UTC)


 * This is in fact important as each Police uses its own ranks and maximum rank limit which some based on each other, for instance, The PM uses the same as the Army, and the PF the same as PC, and if you want to be useful add Civil Police ranks as well, such as Delegado, Escrivão, Investigador, etc... — Preceding unsigned comment added by BrazilianNormalGuy (talk • contribs) 17:21, 12 May 2021 (UTC)


 * Why must descriptions of every function be given then ? Cause you add lots of info about what the different forces do, but say literally nothing about the ranks of the police forces you talk about. So why have all this information when it does not do what you claim it is needed for? --Cdjp1 (talk) 13:02, 16 May 2021 (UTC)


 * The amount of content on Brazil, in BrazilianNormalGuy's edits, is excessive in my mind for a general article on Police Rank that covers all countries. The lack of citations is an additional issue.-- Eostrix  (&#x1F989; hoot hoot&#x1F989;) 10:29, 20 May 2021 (UTC)

Put yourselves in my place. I spent hours and hours making individual edits to benefit the view on my country that is already corrupt, fucked up, and that can get us killed at any moment in certain states. Now all those hours go to trash just because someone decided there isn't an option to just NOT read this section and didn't consider we, Brazilians, deserve some credits for our Police forces? BrazilianNormalGuy (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 14:02, 20 May 2021‎ (UTC)


 * Re-read the linked Wikipedia policies or comments here and on your talk. I believe that all of these provide more than accurate reasons as to why your information is removed and how the process works on Wikipedia. Skjoldbro (talk) 13:20, 20 May 2021 (UTC)


 * as has been stated multiple times previously, the information is more relevant on a separate article on policing in brazil, than on an article discussing police ranks. Cdjp1 (talk) 16:17, 20 May 2021 (UTC)

Correct Austrian police ranks
For the correct, official translation of the Austrian police ranks see the following link: https://www.gemeinsamsicher.at/downloads/Polizeiglossar_3.0.pdf, page 115 --Der Polizist (talk) 13:55, 26 August 2021 (UTC)