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Demilitarization of Police Forces - The Case of the Federal Republic of Germany

NCJ Number
96593
Journal
Police Studies Volume: 7 Issue: 4 Dated: (Winter 1984) Pages: 189-199
Author(s)
E S Fairchild
Date Published
1984
Length
11 pages
Annotation
The historical and social correlates of demilitarization in the police of the Federal Republic of Germany are described and discussed in light of the continuing debate about the effectiveness of the 'military model' in policing.
Abstract
A distinction is made between strategic demilitarization and organizational demilitarization. The effort to create a demilitarized police in the Federal Republic in the early post-war years was complicated by strategic considerations of the Allied powers, who proposed to use the police as a substitute for military force. In more recent years, organizational demilitarization has been hampered by the problem of social unrest. It is argued that, while the organizational arrangements for policing which exist in the Federal Republic are more amenable to organizational demilitarization than are those of American police departments, the efforts to create a police organization which would be thoroughly non-military in character have been frustrated by cultural, organizational, and historical realities. (Publisher abstract)

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