The Bolivian National Police Corps (Spanish: Cuerpo de Policía Nacional) is responsible for internal security and maintaining law and order. Unlike many South American countries, the Bolivian police force always has been accountable to the national government rather than to state or local officials. The 1950 Organic Law of Police and Carabiniers officially separated the police from the military. Frequently, however, the national police call upon the military for assistance in quelling riots and civil protests.
The countrywide emergency number for the police, including the highway patrol, is 110.
Historical background Although the Marshal of Ayacucho, Antonio José de Sucre, had organized the first Bolivian police force on June 24, 1826, the National Police (Policía Nacional) was not established officially until 1886. The Bolivian police became institutionalized on the national level in 1937 with the creation of the National Corps of Carabineers (Cuerpo Nacional de Carabineros) and its professional training school, the Police School (Escuela de Policía), later renamed the National Police Academy (Academia Nacional de Policías). The carabineers constituted a post-Chaco War merger of the military police, the Gendarmerie Corps (Cuerpo de Gendarmería), the paramilitary Security Police (Policía de Seguridad) and the Army's Carabineer Regiment (Regimiento de Carabineros).
Bolivia's police forces had always been responsible to the national government rather than to lesser political authorities. The concept of centralized police power is established by the Constitution. The Police Law of 1886 formalized the system that remained in effect throughout the first half of the twentieth century. In 1950 the Organic Law of Police and Carabineers of Bolivia (Law No. 311) revised the police system substantially. Law No. 311 and the 1886 law provide the legal basis for the present-day police system.
Before the 1952 revolution, the police corps was subordinate to the army and to the Ministry of National Defense. The army assumed most police functions and treated the corps as a reserve to be called on only in times of dire emergency. As a result of its active support of the revolution, however, the national police received greater jurisdiction over police affairs and was modernized. It and the carabineers were transferred to the jurisdiction of what was then the Ministry of Interior, which concerned itself exclusively with administrative supervision. Nevertheless, the police resented being commanded by an army officer and having lower status and pay than the military.
Mission
The constitutional mission of the national police is to preserve public order, protect society through its specialized agencies, and guarantee enforcement of the laws. The police are also responsible for protecting foreign diplomatic missions. The police do not deliberate or participate in partisan politics. The Constitution stipulates that the president of the republic is the commander in chief of the police forces. In this capacity, the president—acting through the minister of interior, migration, and justice—names the director general of the National Police Corps (Cuerpo de Policía Nacional), another name for the national police.
In a national emergency, the president is empowered to administer directly the activities of the police corps. During an international conflict, the police forces would be subordinate to the military commander-in-chief and the Ministry of National Defense. In that event, the Constitution requires that police activities be integrated with those of the army as though the police were reserve units called to active duty for the duration of hostilities. The director general, who may be a civilian but almost invariably has been a high-ranking career police officer (usually with colonel rank), normally exercises operational control.
Organization
The police corps, with at least 40.000 personnel in the 2020s, consists of: The General Administration (Administración General) section. The 5,000-member paramilitary National Guard (Guardia Nacional), referred to as the carabiniers (Carabineros). The Directorate of National Investigations (Dirección de Investigaciones Nacionales, DIN), which cooperated with the International Police (Interpol). The Customs Police (Policía de Aduana). The Traffic Police (Policía de Tránsito). The National Highway Service (Servicio Nacional de Carreteras), which operated under the authority of the Ministry of Transport and Communications. The Fire Corps (Cuerpo de Bomberos), which is staffed by police personnel. The National Police Academy.
All of these subordinate entities were separate administrative units within the director general's office. This office, which also served as national headquarters for all police and national guard activities, consisted of a command group (the Police General Command), which was established in the early 1980s; and a staff (Estado Mayor) made up of twelve numbered, conventionally established staff sections.
Leadership The National Police are led by a Commandant General, currently Colonel Ciro Oscar Farfán Medina, who was named in the wake of the René Sanabria affair and took office on 11 March 2011. His predecessor was General Oscar Nina who served from 24 January 2010 to this date.
Regional police organization The National Police Corps is a centralized force, organized on a territorial basis. Each department of Bolivia has a police district subdivided into zones. Field elements of the National Police and National Guard were stationed in all sectors of the country and reported directly to the office of the director general in La Paz. Each department generally had one brigade (brigada) of carabineers, consisting of an urban and a rural force. Subordinate headquarters (also known as brigades), stationed in the capital of each of the nine departments, coordinated and supervised operations. Each brigade was divided into an urban command and a rural command. The urban command, at the departmental capital, operated the police stations and local jails and was also divided into patrol and criminal investigation sections.
Most corps personnel and units within a department were consideredregardless of their size, composition, mission or stationto be part of the brigade in the area they served and were members of a single departmental unit. An exception was the city of La Paz, where two separate regiments of carabineers were kept under the direct control of the director general and the president. Other exceptions to the integral brigade organization were made in sections of the country where dependence on the regular departmental brigade forces was not deemed advisable or feasible. Two such areasSan Ignacio de Velasco in Santa Cruz Department and Tupiza in Potosí Departmenthad independent carabineer detachments in addition to the department brigades.
Certain departmental brigade personnel of the rural command were assigned to a series of frontier posts scattered at twenty-seven critical points along the borders and at river and lake ports of entry. They included Customs Police integral to the corps, as well as uniformed carabineers concerned with combating smuggling and other forms of illegal border crossing. The carabineers were also heavily involved in civic action in the more remote and less populated regions of the country. In an effort to improve its public relations, the police created the Department of Social Communication (Departamento de Comunicación Social) in the early 1980s.
Corps personnel were classified in three distinct groups: uniformed personnel (carabineers); technical and auxiliary personnel; and civilian police investigators and identification personnel. Ranks of uniformed personnel generally corresponded to those of the army. There were four general classificationsjefes (field officers), oficiales (company officers), clases (NCOs) tropas (privates)with a graded system of rank within each class. Uniformed personnel were promoted on the basis of annual examinations given when they attained the required time in grade, which was usually four years for all except captains and sergeants, who must spend five years in grade before becoming eligible for promotion. Classification of civilians was based on a nonmilitary two-category system composed of superiors (funcionarios superiores) and subalterns (funcionarios subalternos).
In the mid-1980s, approximately 80 percent of the National Police Corps were uniformed carabineers. The remaining 20 percent were civilian police investigators involved in crime detection, forensic science, administration, or logistics. Approximately half of the total uniformed personnel and 60 percent of the nonuniformed personnel of the police force were stationed in La Paz. The La Paz Departmental Police also had an Explosives Brigade (Brigada de Explosivos), which was subordinate to the Fire Corps. The 600-member Traffic Police administered traffic law. Only officers of this force normally carried sidearms. All motorcycle patrolmen were commissioned officers. The Feminine Police Brigade (Brigada Policial Femenina) served in an auxiliary or support capacity to the operational units. In addition to directing traffic, members of this brigade helped in police matters involving children and women.
Municipal police All municipalities were entitled to raise local police forces to enforce local ordinances. Only La Paz, however, had established such a force, called the La Paz Municipal Police (Policía Municipal de La Paz). In the mid-1980s, this force numbered about 400 uniformed and 100 nonuniformed members, none of whom was armed. Their functions were limited to enforcing parking regulations and local bylaws.
Most of the city of La Paz was under the jurisdiction of Police District No. 2, which consisted of five squadrons. Police District No. 3 was responsible for the sprawling shantytowns above the city known generally as El Alto. Police Regiment No. 4 exercised jurisdiction over the area south of La Paz.
Special police forces
Other police forces under the Ministry of Interior, Migration, and Justice included antiriot, antinarcotics, and antiterrorist units.
Special Security Group The Special Security Group (Grupo Especial de Seguridad, GES) was an operational, technical, and specialized unit. Its approximately 450 members were organized into motorcycle companies. They were mobilized to reestablish public order or to respond to an attack against private property. Normally, they served in the Legislative Palace; Ministry of Interior, Migration, and Justice; and other public institutions; or in the national police's National Guard and DIN.
The GES also assumed counterterrorist functions. In March 1987, French police advisers and Bolivian experts began giving a three-month antiterrorism courseconsisting of technical and psychological trainingto 400 GES members. The purpose of the training was to form a special group for responding to hostage taking incidents. That June the Bolivian police announced officially the creation of a twenty-two-member antiterrorist command, the Multipurpose Intervention Brigade (Brigada de Intervención Polivalente, BIP), responsible for solving cases of "uncommon violence" such as kidnapping, hostage-taking, and outbreaks of subversion.
Elite Antiterrorist Force The government of President Jaime Paz Zamora gave responsibility for anti-terrorist actions to the Elite Anti-terrorist Special Force (Fuerza Especial Antiterrorista de Elite, FEAE).
Special Antinarcotics Force