Mounted Police Today

[Pat Holscher]

Spanish mounted policeman participating in a soccar stadium evacuation.

http://channels.netscape.com/fotosrch/3 ... PS100D.jpg

Pat

[luigi]

Hi Pat, it is always rare to see Carabinieri in full mount (?) uniform with the characteristic headgear called "lucerna", very nice pic.
The two uniformed servicemen at the extreme right of the picture are municipal police

Regards

Luigi

[Jim Bewley Φ]

Luigi, when I was stationed in Italy as an MP were were in the same building as the Carabinieri. One of their men was killed in a traffic accident and they were getting ready for the services. I was walking down the hall and saw an officer comming towards me walking fast. He was wearing black riding boots, dark blue brittches (w/red stripe)blouse and a long scratlet lined cape flowing behind. I was sorta awe struck as it was very impressive. When he passed I asked if that was the Col. The Sgt with me said, "No. That was the Chaplain". <G>

Jim

[luigi]

Jim, I think this was the officer's parade mount, if I understand correctly: was the cape you mention a kind of feathered felucca?
I found a link in english providing good information about carabinieri: http://utenti.lycos.it/romancop/carabinieri.htm
Unfortunately no fotos...
http://www.carabinieri.it/arma/oggi/Uni ... torica.htm here you can see the two historical uniforms, for officer and soldier (yes the soldier is presenting arms with a winchester carabine) navigating this section you can find a lot of pics depicting various type of uniforms in use.

Regards

Luigi

[Jim Bewley Φ]

Luigi, thanks for the links. I worked hand in hand with them for two years. I was surprised that it was a "cast" system then (don't know about now). They were great to work with, friendly and respected/feared by the public. We could not leave post without one of them with us as the .45 we carried was considered a "war weapon" under the SOFA agreement.

The cape was wool (I think). Went all the way to the ankles and hooked at the neck. He was walking briskly down the hall, the heels of his spured boots clicking on the marble floor and cape bellowing out behind. A very impressive uniform.

I have some posters dipecting them in combat during WWI, but alas due to time they are not in good condition.

Jim

[luigi]

Sorry, I was confused by the word cape... you mean the dark cape, meaning cloak or coat, with red inside (you see it in the picture of the mounted carabinieri linked by pat) whereas I had some kind of headgear in mind... Indeed they look impressive when they wear it.
Rather than a cast system I would say they have a very high esprit de corp and, they are well respected by the civilians, although we have a lot of jokes about them, but this is a witness of the love Italian citizens usually have for them.
More over they are part of the military, but they are an arm apart which has almost all the capabilities of an Army inside it, they are something like an army in the army... difficult to explain.

Luigi

[george seal]

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by luigi</i>
<br />Sorry, I was confused by the word cape... you mean the dark cape, meaning cloak or coat, with red inside (you see it in the picture of the mounted carabinieri linked by pat) whereas I had some kind of headgear in mind... Indeed they look impressive when they wear it.
Rather than a cast system I would say they have a very high esprit de corp and, they are well respected by the civilians, although we have a lot of jokes about them, but this is a witness of the love Italian citizens usually have for them.
More over they are part of the military, but they are an arm apart which has almost all the capabilities of an Army inside it, they are something like an army in the army... difficult to explain.

Luigi
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

I understand the Carabineri started as one of the oldest regiments of the Italian Army and now are an independent corp. In the Chilean Army when I was studying Peace Operations one of my teachers, who worked with Carabineri in the former Yugoslavia told me Italy had studied the possibility of putting all police forces in the Ministery of Interiror (including Carabineri and Guarda di Finanzza from Finance Ministry) but that the succsess of Carabineri in UN peace ops. convinced the gobernment of maintaining the military nature of the Carabineri. Do you know anything about this Luigi?

My teacher told me Carabineri were good troops but he had a hard time working with them due to language barriers. He thought their English was bad but kept putting on Poker Faces and saying yes to everything with out asking questions. He was not too sure hoever because he worked as a military police liazon for the UN and the Carabineri were in Kosovo Force working under NATO and the relation at times was not smooth. The Europeans might have been keeping a distance on purpose (they did extraofficialy keep to themselves some police duties in some hazarous areas because UN police is a very mixed bag with good and lousy personel in a confusing mix)

[luigi]

It is a complex argument...
Well, very recently the Carabinieri were taken out of the Army (Esercito) and are considered something "else", howewer they are definitely military. The major visible effect of this change for us "civilians" is that their number plates on the cars are no longer "EI" (Esercito Italiano) but "CC" folllowed by a number. They still are dependant from the Defense Ministry but their territorial arm (the Carabinieri stations in the cities and landside) also take orders from Interior Ministry. There were thoughts of demilitarizing the Carabinieri and the Guardia di Finanza (they also are military) but then the project was abandoned mainly, I think, because of "internal" resistance. Other than the Polizia di Stato (State Police), Carabinieri and Finanzieri never saw themselves as civilians in uniform, as the Police sees itself.
End of the '70ies the State Police was demilitarized also, if not mainly for intyernal pressure inside the police.

Carabinieri were founded in the Piedmontese (also known as Sardinian) Kingdom in 1814 as a military force with police duties, and still are up to today.
Carabinieri distiguished themselves in recent times for being the initiators of th MSU (MultiSpecilizedUnits) deploied in the Balkans and which experience was used again in other cases of peacekeeping / enforcement.
No wonder about language barriers, English still is a foreign language for the major part of Italians: I wonder they couldn't understand eachother in "Itanolo"

Regards

Luigi

[george seal]

Thanks for the info Luigi, I did not know The Guardia di Finanza was militarized and that State Police had been militarized. I think it's a good idea the Carabineri and Guardia di Finanza whant to retain their military traditions/finctions.

In many countries there is a bigpolitical preassure to demilitarize police forces. I think it's a bad idea, specially if you also have a purely civilian police. People don't seen to realize taht if the police has no military qualifications, a lot of internal security functions (such as frontier patroll and counterbnarcotics) end up in military hands, so demilitarizing the police means "policezising" the military. Of course, in the US they don't have political problerms with that, tha National Guard does police-like functions.

As for talking in "Itanolo", that sounds terribly similar to "Portuñol", a sistem used by Brazilians to ensure 100% lack of communication in Spanish speaking countries!

Anyhow, the Italian Carabineri have a pretty good reputation in Chile. Actually some people mistake the similarity in name with an Italian legacy our own Carabineros.

[Jim Bewley Φ]

George, in the U.S. the military is prohibited from doing any enforcement of civil law under the Posse Comatatis (sp) act. The National Guard belongs to each individual state. It is only part of the military when called to active duty with the federal government. This is why the state can call them out for a civil disturbance, but not the Army.

Jim

[Pat Holscher]

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Jim Bewley</i>
<br />George, in the U.S. the military is prohibited from doing any enforcement of civil law under the Posse Comatatis (sp) act. The National Guard belongs to each individual state. It is only part of the military when called to active duty with the federal government. This is why the state can call them out for a civil disturbance, but not the Army.

Jim
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Actually the modern National Guard is a branch of the Army, like the Army Reserve. It is one of the three branches of the Army, and is one of the two reserve branches of the Army. So while the governor of a State may call the State's National Guard into active service seperately and apart from its federal status, probably 90%, if not more, of a National Guardsmen's service is federal. In terms of pay, for example, a Guardsmen's pay is probably 95%, or higher, federal, with a very small percentage of it being State. In areas where there's an active Reserve unit, at least by my observation, flow back and forth between Reserve and NG units was not uncommon (but who knows know).

Many years ago, when I was in the Guard, I remember always being surprised when the State pay would come in after Annual Training. It was so small that it was like a gratuity pay, and only came once a year, normally, after AT. The exception was the couple of times I was active for forest fires..

Pat

[luigi]

George, indeed one of the main task of the Guardia di Finanza is border control,which is of more military nature, and investigating illicit behaviour which leads to tax evasion or financial crimes (see Parmalat bonds for example). At the end, however, you have different State's armed bodies doing the same and overlapping competences, and I don't know how productive this is.
Example: Carabinieri have their own marine capability deplying small boats for narrow coastal control, Guardia di Finanza has from smaller boats up to large coast guard corvettes for controlling smugglers of drugs and illegal immigrants: the same does the Guardia Costiera, which is at the dependances of the "Capitanerie di Porto". The Guardia di Finanza has this maritime capability with focus on smuggle, and the Guardia Costiera with focus on SAR and "Traffic Police"-duty, but when it comes to do a SAR operation or board a suspect vessel for whatever reason, both Guardia di Finanza and Coast Guard can do it... I'm going a little of topic, but I think it can be interesting

Luigi

[george seal]

I was talking in general that is why I omitted mention of Posse Comitatus, a very sui generis piece of legislation, totally different from my country (in Chile, one of the Army's mayor functions is to control order at elections. They guard and oversee polling locations). The fact is guardsmen have military training instead of police training. Of course, that is changing now and US MPs get a very sofisticated training. The strange thing is that militarized security duties are done by organizatuions like state guards and not police forces like the Texas Rangers, that used to have military functions (but now it is more like the FBI). However the US has a Coast Guard separate from the Navy.

In Italy you do have a lot of overlap. That is the big reason Carabineros will not allow municipal or other parallel police. The only exceptions are Gendarmeria (penitenciary police) and the Investigations Police.

I supose Italy's maritime law enforcement could save a lot by sharing boats, or at least harbour space, maintenance and training.

[Pat Holscher]

On the topic of militarized police, it is interesting to note that the three North American countries have very different histories, and attitudes, towards the relationship between the the police and the military.

The US has, as detailed at legnth in an earlier thread on the topic, has traditionally had a very small military, exclusive of periods of conflict. Indeed, even during some conflicts, such as the Indian Wars, the army was pretty small. Given the very strong fear of the founders of the country, and generations of politicians thereafter, and the general attitude of the populace, there was a very strong antipathy towards any sort of large standing military. There were in fact periods of time in which there was very nearly no military at all.

And because the US is a federal system, and was very much a federal system prior to the 20th Century, basic powers, except for certain ones, were really those of the States, not the Federal Government. Whole books could be, and have been, written on that topic, so I won't try to go into it in detail.

Anyhow, these factors operated together to really prevent the US from forming much in the way of federal police early on. Other that tax collection entities, (and note the Coast Guard was founded by the Treasury Department) there wasn't much of any kind at all until the Civil War when the Secret Service was founded. Much, much later we get organizations like the FBI. Most policing work has traditionally been done by local police forces. Some states barely even have a state police force, mine included.

Americans still have an instinctive reaction, to a degree, to militarized police and it is very often difficult for us to really fully understand paramilitary police forces. I confess that in my mind the categories of police and military are seperate, and understanding outfits like the Carabineri is difficult as a result. Occasionally here you will find concern expressed when police forces begin to appear too much like military forces, and I've read essays from time to time expressing some worry over various police forces becoming militarized to a degree. At the present time there is some use of the military to support police, but it is very limited, and typically quite controversial.

Anyhow, probably the only really good instance of US troops being used as a type of police is the frontier era. People do not often think of it in this fashion, but the Army on the Frontier was an Army pressed into a sort of police role. It kept the peace between the native Tribesmen and settlers to a large degree, and frequently intervened on behalf of natives against settlers in certain circumstances. And even many of its more famous campaigns were essentially in the nature of huge "escaped fugitives" type missions. The Army also acted as sort of a government funded construction agency in the West as well. And it had direct policing duties over the National Parks.

This contrast interestingly with the Northwest Mounted Police in Canada. Faced with a simliar problem, policing the Frontier, the Canadians chose to use a militarized police force, where the US chose to use the Army in a policing role. Just as the Army performed policing duties, the NWMP occasionally performed purely military ones. It makes for an interesting comparision, and I will leave it to others to determine which was more successful. Suffice to say, it would not have been possible to form a Mounted Police in the US in the 19th Century, if it would even have been regarded as Constitutional at the time.

In Mexico we seem to have the Rurales. I do not know much about them, but they seem to have been some sort of localized agrarian police, but they fought in the Mexican Revolution as troops. So here we seem to have yet another type of entity, localized in nature, for a similiar role.

Pat

[luigi]

Interesting Pat,
To better understand the military nature of a police force like the Carabinieri, we must go back to 1814.
Then we have little Piedmont under the house of Savoy, just restored back on the throne after the Napoleonic storm. Piedmont was the most "prussian" of the Italian states, with respect to military attitude, however, under the Napoleonic rule, citizen became accoustomed of having a "Guardia Civica" an armed police force at disposal of the local administration which was seen now as the counterbalance, somehow, of the military power proper of the king. Under these circumstances, the house of Savoy became conscious of the need and effectiveness of a widespread police force capable of controlling the territory of the kingdom and able to report in the shortest time to the crown the slightest notice of an uprising, therefore the King made the "concession" of creating a police corp present in every corner of the State, as requested by many people but, wanting to make clear who had to rule and avoiding any resemblance to past Guardia Civica (after all he was an absolutist monarch), he made it military (thus responsible against the King, going so far as to make them the escort of the king) and called it "Reali Carabinieri" because they went armed with a carabine. Like the Canadian Mounted Police, one of their first emplyment was in feat of arms of unmistakely military nature during a siege of a southern french city following the definitive fall of Napoleon at Waterloo in 1815

Something similar happened in France with the Gendarmes and, I guess, in Austria, where you also have a Gendarmerie.

Somehow I think in Europe, or at least in Italy, it went the other way around as in the States. Army were big and states were very much militarized by then so it was rather normal to think that a police had to be a military body.

After the reunification the problem of territory control posed itself rather in military terms again, as the so called "brigantaggio" in the new acquired territories in the south had for a long time the characteristic of a popular rebellion against the house of Savoy, which was seen as the Piedmontese Occupant rather than the Italian Brother Bringing the Torch of Freedom... Again the Carabinieri proved more useul than normal police because of their double nature.

The post is becoming very long: suffice to say that these proves, and other they had to bear under slightly "more democratic" circumstances, hardened the "military inside" concept the Carabinieri have of themselves.

Regards

Luigi

[Pat Holscher]

To add slightly to this, I had a really interesting conversation once with a retired policeman who I use as an expert from time to time. He'd been a policeman for a very long time, and had served as a patrol officer, detective, etc., before being the Chief, and then going on to teach criminal justice.

Anyhow, he related to me how, over the years, there'd be a hiring dicotomy between various schools of thoughts held by successive chiefs. One police chief would very highly value military service in applicants, so all new policemen would be veterans. The next one would very highly value college degrees, ignore vetern status, and hire all college graduates, and so on. The retired chief expressed no opinion on the matter himself, although he was not a veteran.

This is well outside the present topic, but I've noted here an evolution of this type. I've personally known a couple of retired policemen, and some sheriff's officers, who are veterans, with some seeing some pretty notable action. They're all pretty good policemen. But now the emphasis is more and more on college trained men and women, who do not seem to have military experience as a rule. This is likely the wave of the future on it in the US, I suspect. Indeed, one of the notable generational shifts is that a very high percentage of men who came of age in the US during the Cold War have some sort of military service, whether it be active or reserve, and everyone is close to somebody who has, while those who came of age after the end of the Cold War likely do not. Even now, in a time of war, the US military is small in comparision to that of the Cold War.

Pat

[Ron Smith]

More and more law enforcement agencies have entry requirements that stress at least 60 hours college for a recruit to be considered. Military service has an impact on Civil Service application but not always on acceptance stds. Former MP's do get some prferenace on asignment with "some" depts. but not always.

One trend I see and it was developing when I retired was the type young men coming in were generally of the same make up in physical and educational characteristics.

When it comes to Mounted Police it is often hard to find officers with equine skills and most agencies look for non riders to fill the slots. Now that the world situation has changed as it has and US Law Enforcement is facing Counter Terrorism as a major task, military style tactics are seeing greater acceptance/application.

Also interaction between military and law enforcement agencies has increased a great deal and it is not uncommon to have training between the two take place. But it is primarily NG and State Guard troops doing that task.

Regards,
Ron Smith

[luigi]

To add just a few cents on this: the draft reform just accomplished in Italy, with the switch from a draft to a full professional army, foresees that people who volunteered in the Army (one can volunteer for 1, 2 or 3 years, then there are full time soldiers) but didn't become full time, has precedence in filling personnel requirements of other armed bodies of the State.
I don't know how this will work in reality, but I see the risk of a deep militarization of structures which is not said that they should be. Carabinieri of the "Territorial Arm" have a military training deep enough to act as -and to interact with- soldiers if the case should be, but their focus is on oter matters... I fear that someone who had 3 years long drill deep seeded inside might not be flexible enough to convert to police duties... who knows

Luigi

[george seal]

Pat, you said you find it strange to have a militarized police force. I suposse the cultural difference depends on what are the FUNCTIONS you think police should carry out. It is not surprising that most civilians when they think of police, they think of beat officers and traffic officers, that's what they know. However, there are several security functions were police training is important that don't get the spot light. Many of these functions are carried out in extremely hazarous circunstances simmilar to the operational reality of the military.

An obvious one is frontier duty. In many frontiers you don't have law and order and the threat is excesive for regular police: terrorists, foreign military, piracy (a big thing in Africa and South East Asia), drug traders or even bandit warlords in several places. Another case is counterinsurgency and very violent organized crime. Even in guerrilla war, the police have a role. In the successfull British sistem, the police (specially colonial constabularies) actually lead the army in counterinsurgency war.

Adittionally you have peace operations. This happen in a bellicose environment. (example:Australians decided to arm their police in peace operations after witnessing a huge massacre just outside the UN garrison). Sddittionally the UN has detected a big quality issue with civilian police. Allmost all armies, even bad ones, have some core skills: discipline, fighting ability, capacity to operate and survive in field conditions, clear chains of command. However in Police, every country is different. Some are almost worthless. Police tend to have more corruption issues. Militarized police, solve this problem, plus they work well with armies.

In Chile we are surprised non federaliced National Guards do so many police functions.

My theory is that police and military should develop a joint operations doctrine, so they can support each other in this special situations were the enemy is not an army, but not a normal criminal. The big thing the police have going for them is their capability to comunicate and educate the civilian population.

I don't think giving military training to police is dangerous. Among other things, in Chile it helps by reinforcing military preparedness as the police is ready to lend men to the army.

It's more important to worry about the gobernment that gives orders to police. For example, in Argentina they decided that military intelligence could not be used inside the country. Mennen just used the Gendarmerie's intelligence to spy on his oponents, so the law was worthless. Finally Homeland Defense just needs military assets, including intelligence, so you just need to create a way for police and military to operate together.

[Pat Holscher]

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by george seal</i>
<br />Pat, you said you find it strange to have a militarized police force. I suposse the cultural difference depends on what are the FUNCTIONS you think police should carry out. It is not surprising that most civilians when they think of police, they think of beat officers and traffic officers, that's what they know. However, there are several security functions were police training is important that don't get the spot light. Many of these functions are carried out in extremely hazarous circunstances simmilar to the operational reality of the military.

An obvious one is frontier duty. In many frontiers you don't have law and order and the threat is excesive for regular police: terrorists, foreign military, piracy (a big thing in Africa and South East Asia), drug traders or even bandit warlords in several places. Another case is counterinsurgency and very violent organized crime. Even in guerrilla war, the police have a role. In the successfull British sistem, the police (specially colonial constabularies) actually lead the army in counterinsurgency war.

Adittionally you have peace operations. This happen in a bellicose environment. (example:Australians decided to arm their police in peace operations after witnessing a huge massacre just outside the UN garrison). Sddittionally the UN has detected a big quality issue with civilian police. Allmost all armies, even bad ones, have some core skills: discipline, fighting ability, capacity to operate and survive in field conditions, clear chains of command. However in Police, every country is different. Some are almost worthless. Police tend to have more corruption issues. Militarized police, solve this problem, plus they work well with armies.

In Chile we are surprised non federaliced National Guards do so many police functions.

My theory is that police and military should develop a joint operations doctrine, so they can support each other in this special situations were the enemy is not an army, but not a normal criminal. The big thing the police have going for them is their capability to comunicate and educate the civilian population.

I don't think giving military training to police is dangerous. Among other things, in Chile it helps by reinforcing military preparedness as the police is ready to lend men to the army.

It's more important to worry about the gobernment that gives orders to police. For example, in Argentina they decided that military intelligence could not be used inside the country. Mennen just used the Gendarmerie's intelligence to spy on his oponents, so the law was worthless. Finally Homeland Defense just needs military assets, including intelligence, so you just need to create a way for police and military to operate together.
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Likely what you say is correct, but even so, probably the history of it impacts things a lot as well.

Frontier duty is a good example. The US Army has assisted the Border Patrol in some ways in recent years, but it has been highly controversial. Not since the the US feared actual combat with Mexico, has the Army really played much of a role in patrolling the border. There's some exceptions to that, but by and large that's the case.

Drug trafficing, etc., are also exclusively the domain of domestic state or federal police agencies here, and counter terrorisim is largely the domanin of federal agencies. This isn't to say the military isn't involved here to some extent, but it is fairly contrained.

I think in the case of the US, it is simply that local police forces developed far in advance of national ones, and policing still has a localized focus seperate from what is generally conceived of as the military's. People were used to local police at a time when they might actually never see a federal soldier their whole lives in some places. And the first use of federal troops for a domestic insurrection, the Whiskey Rebellion, left such a bad taste that there seemed to be a dedicated effort to avoid such a thing occuring again. Even the big domestic event, the Civil War, was largely regarded as a real declared war, even though the legal theory on the Union side was decidedly different, so that the US Army avoided the thorny problems of whether they were dealing with criminal traitors or a foreign army.

So, even when federal police forces came about, they did not really resemble military ones very much at first, and to a large extent they more closely resemble state and local forces. The FBI perhaps provides a good example. Originally nearly every FBI officer was a lawyer or an accountant. And quite a few FBI fellows still fit those categories.

It is true, of course, in this day and age that many police forces here have military looking gear, or appearances. Still, by and large, you rarely would see a US policeman carrying an automatic weapon, for example, unless there is an immediate expectancy of it being used.

Pat