INTERNATIONAL POLICE ORGANIZATION

The International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) has a history going back to 1914, though its present constitution dates from 1956. Each member nation has established a bureau that maintains relations with the General Secretariat in Paris. The bureaus transmit criminal information that may be of interest to other countries; they undertake, within their own countries, inquiries, searches, and arrests requested by other countries; and they take steps to implement resolutions voted by the annual assembly. Interpol can act only within the framework of national laws; criminals can be returned only if an extradition treaty is in force and the offender is a national of the country requesting return. The International Association of Chiefs of Police, with headquarters near Washington, D.C., draws its members largely from the United States and is the leading voice in the United States for professional police standards. It is active in training, research, and public relations. The International Police Association was founded in Britain in 1950 as a social organization. Although it is most active in Europe, its members come from dozens of nations worldwide. The association grants scholarships for study travel and arranges annual conferences. Municipal police reform in the United States.Most efforts to reform the police system during the late 1800s originated from reformers who were outside the occupation of policing. During the early 1900s, pressures for reform started within the police system itself. The most notable and representative police reformer was August Vollmer. Beginning his career in 1905 as the head of a six-person police department in Berkeley, Calif., Vollmer ultimately offered a vision of policing around which the nation's police rallied.
Prohibition was the worst of times for police: corruption flared, fueled by vast amounts of bootlegging profits; public confidence declined; and the profession came to be symbolized by Hollywood's Keystone Kops, who portrayed police as inept and venal. Vollmer and his colleagues were concerned about the broad social issues of policing. Changes in morals, increases in crime and corruption, and, later, the Great Depression, all were seen by reform-minded police as symptoms of the erosion of the authority of basic social institutions like the family, church, schools, and neighbourhoods.

Vollmer saw the police as the vanguard for socializing America's youth. In his view police should continue their traditional law enforcement role, and when necessary they should arrest and process delinquent youths through juvenile and adult courts. Arrest, however, was an undesirable outcome. Special juvenile bureaus should be created to handle problems of children and families; police should take a more active role in casework for social agencies; police should exploit their intimate knowledge of the community and place themselves at the hub of community activities with youth and families.

In addition to giving police an ideal to strive for, Vollmer also helped consolidate the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) into a truly national police organization. Under its auspices he created the Uniform Crime Reports, which became an important indicator of the health of society and of the performance of police departments. Finally, through his work on the Wickersham Commission, Vollmer exposed many unconstitutional police practices to public scrutiny, especially the practice of detectives using the "third degree" in questioning suspects.
 

(ITU), specialized agency of the United Nations that was created to encourage international cooperation in all forms of telecommunication. Its activities include maintaining order in the allocation of radio frequencies, setting standards on technical and operational matters, and assisting countries in developing their own telecommunication systems.The origin of the ITU can be traced to 1865, when the International Telegraph Union was established by a convention signed in Paris. The International Telecommunication Convention of 1932, which merged the International Telegraph Convention and the International Radiotelegraph Convention, provided that the International Telecommunication Union would succeed the International Telegraph Union when the convention became effective in 1934. It was made a specialized agency of the United Nations in 1947, and the convention has been revised several times.

The organization of the ITU includes: (1) the Plenipotentiary Conference, which is the supreme organ of the ITU and meets every four years; (2) World Administrative Conferences, which meet according to technical needs; (3) the ITU Council, which meets annually and is responsible for executing decisions of the Plenipotentiary Conference; (4) the General Secretariat, responsible for administrative and financial services; (5) the Radiocommunications Sector, which was formed by the merger of those activities of the former International Consultative Radio Committee and the former International Frequency Registration Board that were concerned with the assignment of radio frequencies; (6) the Telecommunication Standardization Sector, which was formed by the merger of the former International Telegraph and Telephone Consultative Committee with the standards-setting activities of the International Consultative Radio Committee and conducts technical studies and sets international standards for telecommunications; and (7) the Telecommunication Development Sector, which facilitates the growth of telecommunications in developing nations.The ITU has had its headquarters in Geneva since 1948, when it was moved from Bern.

By name of INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL POLICE ORGANIZATION, organization that exists to facilitate the cooperation of the criminal police forces of more than 125 countries in their fight against international crime. The aims of the organization are to promote the widest possible mutual assistance between all the criminal police authorities of the affiliated nations within the limits of the laws existing in those countries and to establish and develop all institutions likely to contribute effectively to the prevention and suppression of ordinary crime. A general secretariat headed by a general secretary controls the everyday workings of Interpol. (see also Index: criminal law) Each affiliated country has a domestic clearinghouse (called the National Central Bureau, or NCB) through which its individual police forces may communicate either with the general secretariat or with the police of other affiliated countries. Television and motion pictures have portrayed Interpol agents as wandering from country to country, making arrests wherever they please; such representations are false, since the nations of the world have varying legal systems and their criminal laws, practices, and procedures differ substantially from one another. No sovereign state would permit any outside body to bypass its police or disregard its laws. The main weapon in the hands of Interpol is not a universal detective; it is the extradition treaty.

Interpol's principal target is the international criminal, of which there are three main categories: those who operate in more than one country, such as smugglers, dealing mainly in gold and narcotics and other illicit drugs; criminals who do not travel at all but whose crimes affect other countries--for example, a counterfeiter of foreign bank notes; and criminals who commit a crime in one country and flee to another. At its headquarters in Lyon, France, Interpol maintains a voluminous record of international criminals and others who may later fall into that category, containing particulars of their identities, aliases, associates, and methods of working, gathered from the police of the affiliated countries. This information is sent over Interpol's telecommunications network or by confidential circular.There are four types of confidential circular. The first type asks that a particular criminal be detained in order that extradition proceedings can be started. The second does not ask for detention but gives full information about the criminal and his methods. The third describes property that may have been smuggled out of the country in which a crime was committed. A fourth deals with unidentified bodies and attempts to discover their identity.

Interpol began in Europe, which is not surprising since many countries of Europe have common frontiers and a criminal can, for example, be in one of four other countries within an hour of having committed a crime in Belgium. After World War I there was a great increase in crime; one of the countries most affected was Austria, and the Viennese police president, Johann Schober, obtained his government's support in 1923 for calling together representatives of the criminal police of other countries. The representatives of 20 nations met to discuss the problems facing them, and the International Criminal Police commission was formed that year. Vienna was the home of its first headquarters, and Schober became its first president. From 1923 until 1938 the commission flourished. In 1938 the Nazis seized Austria--and Interpol with it. All of its records were taken to Berlin. The outbreak of World War II brought Interpol's activities to a standstill. After World War II, the French government offered Interpol a headquarters in Paris, together with a staff for the general secretariat consisting of officials of the French police. This offer was gratefully accepted and Interpol was thus revived, although its complete reorganization was necessary, since all its prewar records had been lost or destroyed.

Interpol flourished, and by 1955 the number of affiliated countries had increased from 19 in 1946 to 55. A modern and complete constitution for the organization was ratified in 1956, under which its name was changed to the International Criminal Police Organization. The organization continued to progress, and by the mid-1980s the number of affiliated countries had risen to more than 125, representing all the continents of the world.