The Turkish Police Organization

Organization. The police render services nearly 50 million people in Turkey, which has a population of more than 70 million people. This figure equals 70% of the population. The General Command of the Gendarmerie furnishes police services in rural areas, where the population is not very dense.

The Turkish Police Organization renders services under the title of Directorate General of Security, which is attached to the Interior Ministry. The central organization is the Directorate General of Security in Ankara, the capital and the Provincial Directorate of Security in 81 other provinces throughout the country.

In the central organization, certain departments are directly attached to the Directorate General of Security (Chairmanship of Supervisory Commission, Chairmanship of the Police Academy, Intelligence and Special Operations Department, Legal Assistance-Research and Counseling Center Chairmanship, Legal Counseling and Press Protocol and Public Relations Department) and departments working under five separate Deputy General Directors (Public Security, Struggle against Smuggling and Organized Crime, Struggle against Terrorism and Operations, Security, Safety, Criminal Police Laboratories, Aviation, Interpol-Europol-Sirene, Foreign Relations, Foreigners, Traffic Training and Research, Traffic Planning and Support, Traffic Practice and Inspection, Communication, Data Processing, Research-Planning and Coordination, Main Command Control Center, Archive and Documentation, Education, Personnel, Health Affairs, Social Services, Administrative and Financial Affairs, Supply and Maintenance, Construction, Real Estate and Apartment Chairmanships, Department of Traffic Research Center and the Civilian Defense Expertise).

Apart from the big cities, directorates of branch offices and police centers work in provincial centers within the police units rendering services under the public administration heads (governors of provinces or district governors) and, depending on the population density, directorates of district security or district security authorities and police centers render services to the public.


 The Personnel Situation. (The police official and the ranking) personnel from nearly 170,000 classes of security services work within the Turkish Police Organization as from the year 2005. In 1923, when the Republic was established, this figure was only 4,000. According to the population, each member of the police department serves 287. individuals in his/her area of responsibility.
  

Ranking personnel (nearly 14,000 people) constitute 8% of the current number of police and police officers form the remaining portion (nearly 156,000 individ-uals). More than 9.000 female police (5.3%) are employed in the organization.

Nearly 50,000 police out of 170,000 police serve in three metropolises, where the country’s population is densest (27,000 in İstanbul, 13,000 in Ankara and 10,000 in İzmir). In addition, there are more than 5,000 police in the headquarters.

When adding nearly 18,000 personnel from other branches of service (academic staff, teaching services, general administrative services, health services, technical services, auxiliary services and laborers) to the above-mentioned class of security services, the Turkish Police Organization has established a great force in terms of safeguarding law and order with its staff of 188,000 individuals.

Social services (holiday camps, the police house, crèche, dormitories, dining halls, etc.) have been established in order to ensure the clear conscience of the personnel of the organization, which serve 24 hours a day, and their family, and meet their social, economic and moral needs. Similarly, the members of the organization and their families are provided with health services thanks to the police hospital and clinics. In addition, legal services are provided for police who become suspects in the line of duty (the lawyer’s fee is either paid for or they are provided with the opportunity of being defended by contractual lawyers who are part of the organization).

Education and Training. In the Turkish police organization, the hierarchy is from bottom-up is as follows: Police officer, sergeant, high commissioner, chief superintendent, law enforcement chief, 4th police chief, 3rd police chief, 2nd police chief and police chief (Security General Director).

The Police Academy, which meets needs of the employee, commander and administrators of the organization, was established in Ankara in 1937. It consists of the Security Academy, the Security Institute and Police vocational high schools.

The period of training in the Security Academy is four years. It consists of Police College graduates, and high school graduates who will be called to take an exam in case of need, and students who are foreign nationals (in accordance with the bilateral agreements to be made with the relevant countries) Presently education is given to students from thirteen countries, Albania, Azerbaijan, Bosnia-Herzegovina Georgia, Palestine, the TRNC, Mongolia, Moldova, Turkmenistan Kyrgyzstan, Macedonia, Belarus and Jordan. The students who graduate from the Security Academy are nominated to the organizations as permanent staff as sergeants. In addition, students who attend the state universities on one of the branches which the Security General Directorate feels is needful, can also attend the training camp at least once and start working as sergeant after graduation.

The Police College, which constitutes the main source of the Security Academy, was founded in 1938 by order of founder of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. The Police College is a four-year institute. In the first year, there is only language education. Sports activities also concentrated.

The Security Institute offers a masters degree in education, meets the need of the Academy’s academician and educates specialized personnel.

The organization has 26 Police Vocational High Schools throughout the country. The students who attend these schools are selected from among high-school graduates after taking an examination. Students who successfully graduate from this school are nominated to various posts as police officers.

Presently, 32 percent of the police who works in the organization consist of university graduates, and 65 percent high school graduates. A large percentage of high-school graduates attend the “Professional Education Training Masters Program”.

The training and education of personnel is not limited to schools. These individuals constantly take in-service training courses. In addition there is cooperation with the Middle East Technical University, and a distance training and comprehension project have being implemented.

Meanwhile, every year, over 200 courses and seminars are held on issues that are considered necessary, for example on the development of personnel, planning, public relations, public administration, fast reading techniques, improving foreign language skills, etc.)

Hundreds of personnel are being sent abroad, primarily to the USA and to developed European countries either to obtain masters’ or doctoral degree. 

The Turkish police use around
22,000 motor vehicles throughout
the country

 Equipment and Information Technologies. For ser-vices to be rendered effectively and in good quality, equip-ment and information technologies are re-quired as well as personnel. Within this framework, in the ser-vices given by the organization, approx-imately 22,000 motorvehicles are used 15,000 of which are cars. Along with this, there are more than 1,500 motorcycles. 24 helicopters and 58 boats enable police to carry out activities in the sky and on the sea. There are also 33 horses and 220 dogs used either for training, narcotics and explosives detection or public security.

The PolNet project, which is a quick and modern information system, was launched in 2002. As part of this project, 65,000 police officers have been given computer education. PolNet consists of 39 different projects. PolNet constitutes the infrastructure of the Security Information System, AFIS-Automatic Finger-Print Identification System, Traffic Information System, Mobile Electronic System Integration Project, the Criminal Police Laboratory Network, Personnel Administration Information System, Communications and Archive systems. 

The Turkish police use the most up-to-date
technology in fighting crime
 

By using PolNet, the correspondence to reach information and the time lost while doing this has ended, and better quality service is given to people. The e-mail which is in the same system, has taken the place of telex and fax and has enabled urgent documents to reach other units faster and safer.

Fighting Crime and Criminals. Fighting crime and criminals internationally is being carried out with great harmony between the units of the organization and the Gendarmerie General Command and Coast Guard Command. Other public organizations also carry out coordinated work on this subject.

In order to prevent incidents, which might harm public order and in the event these acts are realized, investigations are carried out in coordination with the Public Order Department by the Public Order Section of the provinces, the preventive services department, the juvenile department (polices for minors) and by police stations throughout the country and by subsidiary mobile police stations and on-the-spot inspection departments.

A department called Education Center for Criminal Research and Investigation (SASEM) has been established with the aim of carrying out preparations of police investigations in accordance with scientific facts and with. The center trains staff in fields such as on-the-spot inspection, scientific investigation, criminal psychology, on-the-spot first aid, finger-print techniques, digital photography, appearance description methods, forensic medicine. It also trains police of many foreign countries with the framework of agreements pertaining to cooperation in security.

Thanks to AFIS (Automatic Fingerprint Detection System), which has the capacity of storing millions of fingerprints and thousands of photos, of fingerprints may be compared. In addition, thanks to the Public Order Project and Criminal Analysis Project, profiles of modus operandi and defendants may be detected and thus the fight against crime will be won.