North Rhine-Westphalia Police

The NRW state police uniform patch
BK 117 B2 Police helicopter of the North Rhine-Westphalia Police.
North-Rhine-Westphalia Police car.

The North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) Police Force is the biggest of the 16 German state police forces because almost a quarter of the German population lives in NRW. Roughly 50,000 officers police about 19 million people.

Organisation

Constabularies

NRW has 47 police constabularies. The 18 urban constabularies are headed by a President of Police appointed by the NRW state government and the 29 rural constabularies are headed by the county chief administration officer elected for five years by municipal elections. So the chief of police is always a civilian assisted by a senior police officer responsible for law enforcement operations. These authorities are supervised by the State Agency for Central Police Services (LZPD) in Duisburg.

State Investigation Bureau

The NRW Landeskriminalamt in Düsseldorf (LKA NRW) is NRW's State Investigation Bureau. Although investigations are principally the responsibility of each regional police force, NRW’s LKA investigates and prosecutes crimes if the Police Organisation Act requires it or if the Interior Ministry, Ministry of Justice, a court of justice or a public prosecutor’s office requests its involvement.

Its director is the only police officer leading an operational police authority in NRW and reports directly to the NRW Interior Ministry. Its six operational departments are the state’s central authorities for dealing with serious crime.

Water police

The state's Water police (Wasserschutzpolizei) is centrally organized and patrols over 900 km of waterways. Its headquarters is in Duisburg as part of Duisburg Constabulary [1] and it has stations (Wasserschutzpolizeiwache) in Bonn, Cologne, Düsseldorf, Wesel, Emmerich, Münster, Minden, Bergeshövede, Datteln and Essen. The force has 24 boats and patrols the Rhine, Weser, Ems and Ruhr (as far as Essen) rivers and the North German canals.

Highway Patrol

Highway Patrol (Autobahnpolizei) duties are carried out by the five biggest local police authorities. These are PP Cologne, PP Düsseldorf, PP Münster, PP Dortmund and PP Bielefeld.

Support institutions

Besides the operational authorities there are three police institutions that support operations and the development of police excellence:

See also

References

External links