Talk:North Rhine-Westphalia Police

The IAF has been largely supplanted by the newly formed LAFP. Robertwalton 13:43, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

New police structure
In 2006, the structure of the North Rhine-Westphalia Police Force changed: Due to the Verordnung über die Kreispolizeibehörden des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen (Regulation on the constabularies of the state North Rhine-Westphalia) the number of constabularies was reduced to 18 urban constabularies and 29 rural constabularies.

The district governments lost their supervising tasks. These tasks are now realized by the Landesamt für Zentrale Polizeiliche Dienste (LZPD; State Agency for central police services). District governments also used to fulfill the tasks of the highway patrol, and the incident commandment of extraordinary situations. The duties of the highway patrol were given to 5 urban constabularies (as written down in the article). For every governmental district one big sized urban constabulary received the highway patrol (Gov. District Arnsberg: Dortmund; Gov. District Colonge: Colonge; Gov. Distict Detmold: Bielefeld; Gov. District Münster: Münster; District Gov. Düsseldorf: Düsseldorf). For the duties of incident command see below (Article 4 Agencies). Also the tasks of the ZPD, which was part of the State Investigation Bureau, are now realized by the LZPD.

There from, also the structure of the State Investigation Bureau slightly changed. The Departments 1 to 5 remained. Department 6 was closed down. The duties were transferred to the Landesamt für Zentrale Polizeiliche Dienste and other Departments of the State Investigation Bureau. For administrative tasks, a new department called Zentralabteilung (Central Department) was founded.

Literally translated, Kreispolizeibehörde means District Police Agency. The 18 urban constabularies are called Polizeipräsidien (sing.: Polizeipräsidium), but still remain District Police Agencies, even though if 16 urban constabularies have more duties, than the rural constabularies. Those duties are the investigation of serious crimes, the investigation of political motivated crimes and the prevention of those crimes. Those duties are given to these agencies by the Articles 1 and 2 of the Kriminalhauptstellenverordnung (Regulation on Main Criminal Departments). The split-up in rural and urban constabularies is caused by the will to prevent a concentration of power. In rural constabularies the District Administrator is the chief of police. In urban constabularies, the mayor would be chief of police. But the mayor is also chief of the municipal law enforcement agencies. So, he would govern the municipal and the state law enforcement agencies. And to prevent this concentration of power, a neutral person (president of police) becomes chief of police. So Polizeipräsidium may not be translated as “Police Headquarter”.

The urban constabularies Bielefeld, Dortmund, Düsseldorf, Essen, Cologne and Münster received more duties. Those 6 agencies are called Pagragraph-4-Behörden (Article 4 Agencies). This name is caused by Article 4 Kriminalhauptstellenverordnung. The duty of these agencies is the commandment of extraordinary incidents like hostage-taking situations and investigations linked with those incidents. The special forces are also located at the Article 4 Agencies.

The NRW Police Force holds the third largest Bereitschaftspolizei (riot police; lit. Alert Police) in Germany. It consists of 18 Hundertschaften (Companies; lit. Hundredship/group of a hundred), 3 Technische Einsatzeinheiten (Technical  Deployment Unit) and three Abteilungsführungen (Battalion Commands), with approximately 2400 officers. The Hundertschaften are located in 14 urban constabularies. Except for the constabularies Bochum, Wuppertal and Cologne, one Company is located one constabulary. In the constabularies Bochum and Wuppertal are 2 Companies, 1 Battalion Command and 1 Technical Deployment Unit located. In Cologne 3 Companies and also 1 Battalion Command and 1 Technical Deployment Unit. The Technical Deployment Unit hold special trained officers and equipment. Technical Deployment Units consist of 3 Gruppen (Squats). - Technische Gruppe (Technical Squad) - Wasserwerfer- und Sonderwagengruppe (Water Cannon and APC Squad) - Informations- und Kommunikationsgruppe (Information and Communication Squad)

The system of the governmental number tables also changed. The federal government recommends to give governmental number tables with code 4 to vehicles of the interior ministry. But the NRW government does not follow these recommendation and gives those number tables only to police vehicles. So “NRW 4-????” always is a police vehicle.

Unfortunately I am no native speaker, so it’s hard for me to write down all these information in the article properly. So I would appreciate, if someone could give suggestions, or is able to write these information directly in the article.

Buffetfraese (talk) 07:44, 26 June 2012 (UTC)