The Directorate General for National Security ( ar, المديرية العامة للأمن الوطني (also DGNS, Sûreté nationale, or Sûreté) is the national civil

police force The police are a constituted body of persons empowered by a state, with the aim to enforce the law, to ensure the safety, health and possessions of citizens, and to prevent crime and civil disorder. Their lawful powers include arrest and th ...

Algeria ) , image_map = Algeria (centered orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Algiers , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , relig ...

. It polices Algeria's larger cities and urban areas. The Sûreté is part of the

Ministry of Interior An interior ministry (sometimes called a ministry of internal affairs or ministry of home affairs) is a government department that is responsible for internal affairs. Lists of current ministries of internal affairs Named "ministry" * Ministry ...

and is charged with maintaining law and order, protecting life and property, investigating crimes, and apprehending offenders. It also performs other routine police functions, including traffic control.

Organization

The DGNS is headed by a Director General and in 2007 consisted of a force of 130,000, including specialist operational and investigative branches and supporting services. The

judicial police The judicial police, judiciary police, or justice police are (depending on both country and legal system) either a branch, separate police agency or type of duty performed by law enforcement structures in a country. The term judiciary police is mo ...

branch is responsible for

criminal In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definitions of", in Can ...

investigations, working in close coordination with the Office of the Public Prosecutor in the Ministry of Justice. Police are assigned to the capitals of the

wilayat A wilayah ( ar, وَلاية, wālāya or ''wilāya'', plural ; Urdu and fa, ولایت, ''velâyat''; tr, vilayet) is an administrative division, usually translated as "state", "province" or occasionally as " governorate". The word comes f ...

are under the nominal control of the individual governors. A special riot

police The police are a constituted body of persons empowered by a state, with the aim to enforce the law, to ensure the safety, health and possessions of citizens, and to prevent crime and civil disorder. Their lawful powers include arrest and t ...

force is equipped with modern riot-control gear. Although the police were able to cope with urban disturbances and violence during the early and mid-1980s, the

military A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. It is typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with its members identifiable by their distinct ...

had to be called in to help quell the severe riots in late 1988.

Internal security

Elements of the DGNS nationale also play a role in countering threats to the government arising from political subversion. The Sûreté assigns police contingents to work with customs inspectors at legal points of entry to control illegal activities. Their main concerns are apprehending undesirable immigrants and contraband traffickers. The

Département du Renseignement et de la Sécurité The Department of Intelligence and Security (DRS) (Arabic: دائرة الإستعلام والأمن) (french: Département du Renseignement et de la Sécurité) was the Algerian state intelligence service. Its existence dates back to the strug ...

(DRS) is the Algerian state intelligence service. It is separate from Directorate General for National Security and was an active player in the

Algerian Civil War The Algerian Civil War ( ar, rtl=yes, الْحَرْبُ الْأَهْلِيَّةُ الجَزَائِرِيَّةُ, al-Ḥarb al-ʾAhlīyah al-Jazāʾirīyah) was a civil war in Algeria fought between the Algerian government and various Is ...

of the 1990s.Jeanne Kervyn and François Gèze
L’organisation des forces de répression
Comité Justice pour l'Algérie, Dossier n° 16. September 2004.

Weapons

Glock 17 Glock is a brand of polymer-Receiver (firearms), framed, Recoil operation#Short recoil operation, short recoil-operated, locked-breech semi-automatic pistols designed and produced by Austrian manufacturer Glock Ges.m.b.H., Glock Ges.m.b.H. The ...

Beretta 92 The Beretta 92 (also Beretta 96 and Beretta 98) is a series of semi-automatic pistols designed and manufactured by Beretta of Italy. The Beretta 92 was designed in 1975, and production began in 1976. Many variants in several different calibers co ...

Caracal pistol The Caracal pistol is a series of semi-automatic pistols manufactured by Caracal International LLC a subsidiary of Tawazun Holding from the United Arab Emirates. The Caracal pistol series are the first pistols made in the United Arab Emirates an ...

Smith & Wesson M&P The Smith & Wesson M&P (Military and Police) is a polymer- framed, short recoil operated, locked breech semi-automatic pistol introduced in the summer of 2005 by the American company Smith & Wesson. It uses a Browning-type locking system. Whil ...

AKM The AKM () is an assault rifle designed by Soviet small arms designer Mikhail Kalashnikov in 1959. It is the most ubiquitous rifle of the Kalashnikov rifles. It was developed as a replacement to the AK-47 introduced a decade prior. Introduc ...

Beretta M12 The Beretta M12 (Model 12) is a 9×19mm Parabellum caliber submachine gun designed by Beretta. Production started in 1959, the first users were the Italian Carabinieri, Italian State Police and the Guardia di Finanza, though in limited number, it ...

HK MP5 The Heckler & Koch MP5 (german: Maschinenpistole 5) is a 9x19mm Parabellum submachine gun, developed in the 1960s by a team of engineers from the German small arms manufacturer Heckler & Koch. There are over 100 variants and clones of the MP5 ...

Vehicles

Motorcycles

* BMW K1100RT *

BMW R1100RT The BMW R1100RT is a BMW touring motorcycle with a horizontally-opposed twin-cylinder boxer engine. It was built from 1996 to 2001 in the BMW Berlin plant in Spandau, together with several sister models of similar design, including the R1100R, ...

* BMW K1600GT

= Cars

Special vehicles

BCL M-5 BCL may stand for: Law & Politics * Bachelor of Civil Law, the term used to describe a variety of legal degrees offered by universities in English-speaking countries (as distinct from Canon Law and Common Law) * Bangladesh Chhatra League, the stud ...

Nimr (armored personnel carrier) The Nimr () is a family of all-terrain military armored personnel carrier (APC) vehicles, co-developed with Military Industrial Company and produced by Nimr LLC in the United Arab Emirates. The Nimr is designed specifically for military operation ...

Aerial equipment

AgustaWestland AW109 The AgustaWestland AW109, originally the Agusta A109, is a lightweight, twin-engine, eight-seat multi-purpose helicopter designed and initially produced by the Italian rotorcraft manufacturer Agusta. It was the first all-Italian helicopter to ...

Eurocopter AS350 Écureuil The Eurocopter AS350 Écureuil (or Squirrel), now Airbus Helicopters H125, is a single-engine light utility helicopter originally designed and manufactured in France by Aérospatiale and Eurocopter (now Airbus Helicopters). In North Americ ...

References

Notes

Law enforcement in Algeria National Central Bureaus of Interpol {{law-enforcement-agency-stub