Sûreté

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sûreté (French for "surety" but transliterated as "safety" or "security"(1)) is a term used in French speaking countries or regions in the organizational title of a civil police force.

1 French Police
- 1.1 History
2 Notable First Members:
3 See also
4 Notes

[edit] French Police

The former title of the French National Police was La Sûreté Nationale. It served initially as the criminal investigative bureau of the Paris police and did not function as the national command and control organization until much later, when it no longer had any detectives on its staff. Both the PP of Paris own Brigade Criminelle and the Direction centrale de la police judiciaire directly trace their history to the Surete..

[edit] History

It was founded by Francois-Eugene Vidocq in 1812 and headed until 1827. It is the direct ancestor of Criminal Investigation Department of Scotland Yard, the FBI and other departments of criminal investigation throughout the world. Vidocq was convinced that crime could not be controlled by then-current police methods, so he organized a special branch of the criminal division modeled on Napoleon's political police. The force was to work undercover and its early members consisted largely of reformed criminals. By 1820 – eight years after its formation – it had blossomed into a 30-man team of experts that had decreased the crime rate in Paris by 40%.