Laos

AuthorGeorge Kurian
Pages577-578

Page 577

Official country name: Lao People's Democratic Republic

Capital: Vientiane

Geographic description: A landlocked country in Southeast Asia wedged between China, Thailand, and Vietnam

Population: 6,217,141 (est. 2005)

LAW ENFORCEMENT
History

The police services of Laos were reorganized several times between independence in 1945 and 1975. In the process, a number of previously autonomous forces, such as the Gendarmerie and the security forces, were consolidated into a single Laotian police force. The consolidation was complete by 1955, when the United States began a training program. For the next six years the United States furnished advisers, weapons, uniforms, vehicles, communications equipment, and funds to construct precinct stations and the Laos National Police Training Center outside Vientiane. After the program was discontinued, the police were brought back under military control and became, in effect, a paramilitary organization known as the Directorate of National Coordination. In 1965 the police were again reconstituted as a separate organization and renamed the Lao National Police under the civilian control of the Ministry of the Interior.

Structure and Organization

The Ministry of the Interior controls all security forces, including the National Police, Security Police, and Border Police. The communication police are responsible for monitoring telephone and electronic communications. The headquarters of the National Police is the Police Directorate headed by a director general. Below the directorate the force is organized regionally into the metropolitan force of Vientiane and the territorial police of the provinces, under provincial police commissioners. Organizationally, the headquarters is divided into sections dealing with administration, logistics, communications, and training services. Besides the regular uniformed police, three special units exist: the Special Police, the Judicial Police, and the Immigration Police. Only officers of the Judicial Police have the formal power of arrest.

Although all units are under the direct authority of the directorate general in Vientiane, provincial commissioners of police report not only to the central headquarters but also to their respective provincial...

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