secret police, policing organization operating in secrecy for the political purposes of its government, often with terroristic procedures.

The Nature of a Secret Police

Enforcement of the law has required, in nearly all societies, a certain amount of secrecy, particularly in the investigation of crime and the identification of what are often considered conspiracies. The emergence of a uniformed, clearly recognizable police force is of much more recent origin than secret bodies formed by governments for their protection from internal and external attack. In its wider meaning, the term secret police embraces all those members of any police force that operate, often out of uniform, without giving warning to the suspected criminal. Some countries have laws limiting the role of such secret police to investigation only, giving the indicted offender the right to an open trial and complete access to the evidence.

Wherever these interrelated conditions are not fulfilled, a secret police in the narrower sense of the term either exists or is in process of developing. This secret police is a body officially or in fact endowed with authority superior to other law-enforcing agencies. It investigates, apprehends, and sometimes even judges the suspect in secrecy, and is often accountable only to the executive branch of the government. In extreme cases such a secret police force may even have its own courts and prisons, and its activities are kept secret not only from the mass of the population but also from the legislative, judiciary, and executive authorities of the state, except at the topmost level.

The Evolution of Secret Police Forces

Some argue that secret police forces have always been primarily concerned with the security of the state and that they are invariably created by governmental action, but this is not the case. Thus the formidable Vehmgericht of medieval Germany was a spontaneous creation of a segment of the people to protect its interests; it may be argued that the Vehme and similar institutions were secret societies rather than bodies of secret police, but the distinction is not always easy to make.

The institution of a secret police has existed in most societies where a minority has exercised an uneasy rule over a majority. In ancient Sparta, a well-organized secret police controlled the helots and ruthlessly suppressed any sign of rebellion. In Rome, particularly under the Julian emperors, a professional class of informers who received a share of their victims' confiscated fortunes, was employed by the state. Among the earliest secret police forces organized along modern lines were the Venetian Inquisition (see Ten, Council of) and the Oprichina of Czar Ivan IV of Russia. The institution has reached its most menacing aspect in the modern state—largely because of the improved technology at its disposal. Two 20th-century examples, that of Russia and later the Soviet Union and that of Nazi Germany, illustrate the workings of modern secret police forces.

Russia and the Soviet Union

After the abortive Decembrist coup of 1825, a powerful secret police was organized in Russia at the order of the repressive Nicholas I. This notorious Third Section (thus named because it was the third department of the czar's chancery), established a rigid and complicated system of censorship and sought to suppress not only subversive activity but even subversive thought. (The culmination of this trend, typical of police states, was symbolized by the name of the Japanese secret police before 1945—Thought Police.) The use of agents provocateurs by the czarist police led to such extremes that secret police, posing as revolutionists, actually helped to assassinate government officials.

After the Russian Revolution of 1917 the Soviet government instituted its own secret police, the Cheka (the Russian acronym for All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for the Suppression of Counterrevolution and Sabotage), under Feliks Dzerzhinsky. This was reorganized (1922) as the GPU, later the OGPU (United State Political Administration). In 1934 the functions of the OGPU were transferred to the NKVD (People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs), which was also responsible for all places of detention (e.g., forced labor camps) and for the regular police. In 1936, Stalin named Nikolai Yezhov as its head, and under Yezhov's direction Stalinist purges culminated in the wave of terror (1936-38) known as the Yezhovshchina. When Yezhov himself was convicted of conspiracy in the 1938 Moscow treason trials, he was succeeded by Lavrenti Beria.

Under Beria's long tenure the vast apparatus of the Soviet security organs became the most powerful and the most feared section of society. The NKVD was split (1943) into the NKVD and the NKGB (People's Commissariat for State Security), the former retaining responsibility for internal security; in 1946 the NKVD became the MVD (Ministry of Interior), and the NKGB became the MGB (Ministry of State Security). After Stalin's death in 1953 the two ministries were fused into a new MVD under Beria. Later in the year Beria was arrested on charges of conspiracy and was killed; the charges illustrated the inherent danger of a strong secret police and its potential for overthrowing the very state that it is supposed to protect.

After Beria's fall the Soviet security service was placed under the KGB (Committee of State Security). Although the KGB's functions resembled those of its predecessors, it employed terror to a far lesser degree. Subordinated to party control, its main duties were concerned with internal intelligence. Much of what is now known about the secret police in the Soviet Union was made public in reports by Khrushchev. Under Gorbachev's policies, the power of the KGB was strongly curtailed, and in the aftermath of the attempted coup (1991) against him, in which KGB leaders played a major role, reformers were named to head the KGB and Interior Ministry. The KGB was then renamed and restricted to counterintelligence, economic crimes, and air and rail security. Foreign intelligence gathering was assigned to the new Central Intelligence Service.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia absorbed the KGB's remnants, combining most of them under the Security and Internal Affairs Ministry. President Boris Yeltsin ordered the ministry replaced with a new Federal Counterintelligence Service (FSK) in 1993. In 1995 the FSK was given expanded powers and renamed the Federal Security Service (FSB). Since the collapse of Communism and the breakup of the Soviet Union, many documents have been made available concerning the activities of the secret police.

Nazi Germany

Although the secret police in Italy during Mussolini's rule were notorious, probably the most extreme and terrible example was that in Germany under Adolf Hitler. Under National Socialism, Germany became a police state, a state where the power of the police, and especially the secret police, over security and justice was tyrannically applied with virtually no procedural checks.

The German secret police had its genesis in the SS, or Schutzstaffel [defense echelon], created as Hitler's bodyguard under the SA (the military arm of the Nazi party), and in the SD, or Sicherheitsdienst [security service], organized in 1931 as the intelligence branch of the SS. From 1929, Heinrich Himmler controlled the SS. The Gestapo (secret state police) originated in 1933 under Hermann Goering and was ultimately merged with the SD. Just as the Gestapo had its secret operatives among the mass of the population, the SD had agents, known only to the chief SD officers, in every department of the German government, in the armed forces, in the Nazi party, among chief industrial executives, and among the Gestapo itself. While the Gestapo was known and feared, the existence of the SD was known to few.

The powers of the Gestapo, the SS, and the SD were vast; virtually any person suspected of disloyalty to the regime or of social aberration could be summarily arrested, executed, or interred in a concentration camp. The SS, literally a separate army, was responsible to Himmler alone; thus, probably for the first time in history, a secret police wielded virtually absolute power. The crimes and atrocities of the Nazi authorities in Germany itself and throughout German-occupied Europe during World War II were largely carried out by the SS and the Gestapo, who controlled the concentration and extermination camps, and who set up their subsidiary agencies in every conquered country.

Other Modern Nations

Many states, including Chile, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Romania, and South Africa, have used secret police to control internal dissent; the former East Germany's much feared Stasi (State Security Ministry) controlled every aspect of life, including the postal service and communications industry. Before 20,000 Germans stormed its headquarters, it included an extremely loyal 10,000-man army alongside 86,000 regulars, and owned its own prisons, hospitals, and construction firms. In the United States, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has been accused of operating as a secret police force. Documents released under the Freedom of Information Act reveal a history of domestic political spying on famous authors such as Ernest Hemingway, on civil-rights leaders such as Martin Luther King, Jr., and on a wide variety of legitimate organizations. These domestic counterintelligence programs (COINTELPROs) used infiltration, eavesdropping, and disinformation campaigns to harass and destroy such groups as the Black Panthers and the American Indian Movement.

police power, in law, right of a government to make laws necessary for the health, morals, and welfare of the populace. The term has greatest currency in the United States, where it has been defined by the Supreme Court as the power of the states to enact laws of that type even where, under ordinary circumstances, Constitutional law or federal statute would override them. The doctrine was first stated by Chief Justice John Marshall, who ruled that the power of Congress over interstate commerce (Article 1, Section 8) could not prevent the states from controlling goods shipped from another state after they had been broken out of the original package. The concept of police power became very important after the passage (1868) of the Fourteenth Amendment; on the one hand, the states had to be restrained from taking liberty or property without due process of law; on the other hand, the states could not be made helpless in dealing with grave problems of an economic and social nature. Gradually the court moved away from its initial strict interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment, during which time it had struck down economic regulations such as minimum wages and maximum hours as a violation of the amendment's due-process clause. Since the late 1930s, however, the court has upheld almost all state economic regulation as falling within the police power.

police dog: see German shepherd.

police court, court with jurisdiction limited to minor offenses, chiefly the least grave misdemeanors and breaches of municipal ordinances. In practice the trial is usually held before a judge sitting without a jury. A police court may also examine persons accused of felony and commit them to jail pending indictment and trial or release them on reasonable bail. Magistrate's court, justice's court, and municipal court are other names for the police court.

police, public and private agents concerned with the enforcement of law, order, and public protection. In modern cities their duties cover a wide range of activities, from criminal investigation and apprehension to crime prevention, traffic regulation, and maintenance of records. In many countries they also have a political function (see secret police). The foundations of the present English metropolitan police system were formulated in 1829 by Sir Robert Peel (see Scotland Yard). On the North American frontier, before the government was well organized, vigilance committees (see vigilantes) functioned as volunteer police. The Texas Rangers and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police are examples of organizations that function especially in large, sparsely populated areas. The colonies maintained constables, and this office survives in the rural sheriff. Regular police forces appeared in many states after the establishment (1844) of the New York City organization. Administration of the police system varies in different countries. In Europe, especially on the Continent, it tends to be centralized. In the United States there is decentralization: Metropolitan police have the widest functions, and state police are chiefly concerned with traffic control and rural protection. Police agents of the federal government include members of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, agents of the Dept. of Homeland Security (including the members of the Secret Service, who guard the president and certain other public figures), and agents of the Dept. of Justice. The fight against crime on the international level is coordinated by the International Criminal Police Commission, popularly known as Interpol.

Royal Canadian Mounted Police, constabulary organized (1873) as the Northwest Mounted Police to bring law and order to the Canadian west. In 1920 the name was changed to the present title. The corps, which gained a romantic reputation for daring exploits and persistence in trailing criminals, originally numbered 300 men; they came to be known as Red Coats, Riders of the Plains, and, most popularly, Mounties. The force later absorbed the provincial police forces of all the territories and provinces except Ontario and Quebec and enforces all federal and provincial laws except in those provinces. It also takes part in selected international peacekeeping activites. The force numbers about 16,000.

Northwest Mounted Police: see Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

International Criminal Police Organization: see Interpol.

Canadian Mounted Police: see Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

Power of a government to exercise reasonable control over people and property within its jurisdiction in the interest of general security, health, safety, morals, and welfare. It is generally regarded as one of the powers reserved to the states under the U.S. Constitution. In considering cases involving the exercise of police power, the courts have applied a doctrine called “balance of interests” to determine when the public's right to health and well-being outweighs private or individual concerns. Of equal concern is that due process of law be observed.

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In England and Wales, any of the inferior courts with primarily criminal jurisdiction covering a wide range of offenses, from minor traffic violations and public-health nuisances to somewhat more serious crimes, such as petty theft or assault. Magistrates' courts with similar jurisdictions, including jurisdiction over small civil claims, may be found in certain large U.S. municipalities.

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Body of agents organized to maintain civil order and public safety, enforce the law, and investigate crime. Characteristics common to most police forces include a quasi-military organization, a uniformed patrol and traffic-control force, plainclothes divisions for criminal investigations, and a set of enforcement priorities that reflects the community's way of life. Administration may be centralized at the national level downward, or decentralized, with local police forces largely autonomous. Recruits usually receive specialized training and take an exam. The modern metropolitan police force began with Sir Robert Peel in Britain circa 1829. Secret police are often separate, clandestine organizations established by national governments to maintain political and social orthodoxy, which typically operate with little or no restraint.

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or Mounties

Federal police force of Canada. It is also the criminal and provincial force in all provinces except Ontario and Quebec and the only force in the Yukon, Northwest, and Nunavut territories. It was founded as the North West Mounted Police (1873) with a force of 300 men to bring order to western Canada, where U.S. traders were creating havoc by trading whiskey to the Indians for furs. That success was followed by peacekeeping in the Klondike gold rush (1898) and later settlement of the west. The group assumed its current name in 1920, when it became a federal force and its headquarters were moved to Ottawa.

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officially International Criminal Police Organization

International organization whose purpose is to fight international crime. Interpol promotes the widest possible mutual assistance between the criminal police authorities of affiliated countries and seeks to establish and develop all institutions likely to contribute effectively to the prevention and suppression of ordinary crime. The organization traces its history to 1914, when a congress of international criminal police, attended by delegates from 14 countries, was held in Monaco. Interpol was formally founded in Austria in 1923 with 20 member countries; after World War II its headquarters moved to Paris and, in 1989, to Lyon, France. By the early 21st century, its membership exceeded 180 countries. Interpol pursues criminals who operate in more than one country (e.g., smugglers), those who stay in one country but whose crimes affect other countries (e.g., counterfeiters of foreign currency), and those who commit a crime in one country and flee to another.

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