Police administrations tend to be conservative, resisting all efforts at modernization. As a result, in democratic societies, the police are often seen to be in conflict with democratic forums and controls. The Hungarian police organizational structure resembles a military organization, based on a strict hierarchy that requires subordination and absolute obedience to the leadership. The author applies the most important organizational and functional factors affecting police modernization to the situation in Hungary, where the entire society is transforming itself from communism to a bourgeois-democracy. In this new system, the police organization is responsible for protecting the society and for providing for the sole power of one or another political group by force.