The North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) State Police Force is the largest of the sixteen German state police forces with 50,000 personnel.

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 Duisburg () is a city in the Ruhr metropolitan area of the western German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Lying on the confluence of the Rhine and the Ruhr rivers in the center of the Rhine-Ruhr Region, Duisburg is the 5th largest city in Nor ...

State Investigation Bureau

The NRW ''

Landeskriminalamt The State Criminal Police Office, or Landeskriminalamt (LKA) in German, is an independent law enforcement agency in all 16 German states that is directly subordinate to the state's ministry of the interior. Missions Investigations LKAs superv ...

'' in

Düsseldorf Düsseldorf ( , , ; often in English sources; Low Franconian and Ripuarian: ''Düsseldörp'' ; archaic nl, Dusseldorp ) is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in th ...

(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. *Department 1 conducts investigations and analysis of organised crime. *Department 2 is responsible for state security and investigations of political extremism. *Department 3 deals with the analysis and evaluation of crime and works on crime prevention and crime control projects. *Department 4 provides operational support. It coordinates the missions, training and equipment for highly specialised operational units, it gives advice to the police commanders at major incidents and provides support to international law enforcement agencies. The department hosts the Central Information Service for Sport Events and the NRW Police Aviation Group. *Department 5 is the NRW Forensic Institute. It performs all forensic tests needed for prosecution. About 200 scientists and experts perform roughly 25,000 tests per year. *Department 6 has special technical support units that assist other law enforcement agencies with technical or special know-how. This may occur if investigations become difficult e.g. scenes of fire, accidents (explosives, explosive devices) or computer researches etc. The department also has a surveillance team and a target search unit.

Water police

The state's

Water police Water police, also called harbor patrols, port police, marine/maritime police, nautical patrols, bay constables, river police, or maritime law enforcement or coastal police are police officers, usually a department of a larger police organizat ...

(''

Wasserschutzpolizei The ''Wasserschutzpolizei'' (WSP - literally translated "Water Protection Police" in German) is the river police that patrols the waterways, lakes and harbours of Germany around the clock. The WSP are part of the ''Landespolizei'' (State Pol ...

'') is centrally organized and patrols over 900 km of waterways. Its headquarters is in

as part of Duisburg Constabulary NRW Police about its Water Police (in German) http://www1.polizei-nrw.de/wasserschutz/Wir%20stellen%20uns%20vor/Dienststellen/ and it has stations (''Wasserschutzpolizeiwache'') in

Bonn The federal city of Bonn ( lat, Bonna) is a city on the banks of the Rhine in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with a population of over 300,000. About south-southeast of Cologne, Bonn is in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ruhr r ...

Cologne Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western States of Germany, state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 m ...

Wesel Wesel () is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is the capital of the Wesel district. Geography Wesel is situated at the confluence of the Lippe River and the Rhine. Division of the city Suburbs of Wesel include Lackhausen, Obrighove ...

, Emmerich,

Münster Münster (; nds, Mönster) is an independent city (''Kreisfreie Stadt'') in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is in the northern part of the state and is considered to be the cultural centre of the Westphalia region. It is also a state distr ...

Minden Minden () is a middle-sized town in the very north-east of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, the greatest town between Bielefeld and Hanover. It is the capital of the district (''Kreis'') of Minden-Lübbecke, which is part of the region of Detm ...

, Bergeshövede,

Datteln Datteln is a town in the Recklinghausen (district), district of Recklinghausen, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is situated on a crossroads of four canals (Datteln-Hamm Canal, Wesel-Datteln Canal, Dortmund-Ems Canal and Rhein-Herne Canal), ...

and

Essen Essen (; Latin: ''Assindia'') is the central and, after Dortmund, second-largest city of the Ruhr, the largest urban area in Germany. Its population of makes it the fourth-largest city of North Rhine-Westphalia after Cologne, Düsseldorf and D ...

. The force has 24 boats and patrols the

Rhine ), Surselva, Graubünden, Switzerland , source1_coordinates= , source1_elevation = , source2 = Rein Posteriur/Hinterrhein , source2_location = Paradies Glacier, Graubünden, Switzerland , source2_coordinates= , so ...

Weser The Weser () is a river of Lower Saxony in north-west Germany. It begins at Hannoversch Münden through the confluence of the Werra and Fulda. It passes through the Hanseatic city of Bremen. Its mouth is further north against the ports of Bre ...

, Ems and

Ruhr The Ruhr ( ; german: Ruhrgebiet , also ''Ruhrpott'' ), also referred to as the Ruhr area, sometimes Ruhr district, Ruhr region, or Ruhr valley, is a polycentric urban area in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. With a population density of 2,800/km ...

(as far as

) rivers and the North German canals.

Highway Patrol

Highway Patrol (''

Autobahnpolizei is the term in Germany for the highway patrol. Heavy traffic and high-speed accidents resulted in the creation of special police units to patrol the expressways known as ''Autobahnen''. Organisation Although the autobahns are federal roads, t ...

'') duties are conducted from bases in the five biggest local police districts -

Dortmund Dortmund (; Westphalian nds, Düörpm ; la, Tremonia) is the third-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia after Cologne and Düsseldorf, and the eighth-largest city of Germany, with a population of 588,250 inhabitants as of 2021. It is the la ...

, and

Bielefeld Bielefeld () is a city in the Ostwestfalen-Lippe Region in the north-east of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. With a population of 341,755, it is also the most populous city in the administrative region (''Regierungsbezirk'') of Detmold and the ...

Support institutions

Besides the operational authorities there are three police institutions that support operations and provide training and development: * The NRW State Bureau for Training, Professional Development and Personnel (''Landesamt für Ausbildung, Fortbildung und Personalangelegenheiten'' or LAFP) provides all basic operational training for police candidates and offers a wide range of vocational training and professional development for all officers. The LAFP's headquarters is in Selm-Bork and has facilities in Brühl, Linnich, Neuss, Münster and Schloss Holte-Stukenbrock. * The State Agency for Central Police Services (''Landesamt für Zentrale Polizeiliche Dienste'' or LZPD) offers technical support, testing and research. It is responsible for vehicle and equipment acquisition and provides IT and communications support and supervising the 47 constabularies. * The City of

in NRW hosts the national German Police University (DHPol) which is a jointly administered institution for all the state and federal forces.

References

External links

* https://web.archive.org/web/20070927213912/http://www1.polizei-nrw.de/lka/Start/welcome-to-the-lka-1/article/allgemeine_Beschreibung_eng..html {{Law enforcement in Germany State law enforcement agencies of Germany Organisations based in North Rhine-Westphalia