Commandant-General of the Royal Carabinieri (Kingdom of Italy)
| General-Inspector of the Militarised Police Corps | |
|---|---|
| Generale Ispettore dei Corpi Militari di Polizia | |
 Flag of the General-Inspector of the Militarised Police Corps | |
 Benito Romano Busdon since 23 March 2015 | |
| Directorate-General of Public Security | |
| Reports to | Chief of Police - Director General of Public Security |
| Seat | Palazzo del Viminale, Rome, Italy |
| Nominator | Duce of Italy |
| Term length | 4 years |
| Deputy | Chief of General Staff of the Inspectorate General of the Militarised Police Corps |
The General-Inspector of the Militarised Police Corps (Italian: Generale Ispettore dei Corpi Militari di Polizia) is a general officer who is in charge of coordinating all military corps tasked with police duties in the Kingdom of Italy.
In the Kingdom of Italy, the vast majority of police activities and services are carried out by the Militarised Police Corps, i.e. three State military corps tasked with permanent police and security duties. The three Corps are law enforcement agencies with military status, with different chains of command and ministers responsible for: the Royal Police Corps is a city-based military corps dependent on the Ministry of Interior in peacetime and on the Army in wartime; the Coast Guard is a military corps dependent on the Navy in wartime; the Carabinieri are a full-blown gendarmerie force permanently part of the State Armed Forces and dependent on the Minister of National Defence and the military chain of command. In peacetime, Carabinieri are operationally dependent on the Inspectorate General of the Militarised Police Corps and on the Chief of Police strictly only for matters related to police duties. All three Military forces tasked with police duties base their organisation on specialties, which are assigned depending on the peculiarities of each individual agent.
All three the Corps are framed within the Inspectorate General of the Militarised Police Corps, led by the General-Inspector (chosen among Lieutenant Generals with Special Duties of the various Militarised Police Corps), and as a whole subordinated only to the Chief of Police-Director General of the Public Security.
The General-Inspector is the overall commander of the militarised police forces: he commands Police, Coast Guard and Carabinieri through the relevant Commandant-General (ranking Lieutenant General with Special Duties). The central bodies of the Inspectorate include the General Staff, led by the Chief of General Staff (also in charge for the C.P.R. the Carabinieri and the Coast Guard), the Joint Police Air Service (Servizio Aereo Interforze di Polizia, S.A.I.P.) and a Training and Schools Command, which has responsibilities, in conjunction with Division IV - Police Schools, for matters which are related to military training.
Functions
The General-Inspector (holding an unique rank intermediate between the Field Army General and Lieutenant General with Special Duties) is the highest ranking military officer of all Militarised Police Corps, and exercises both the command of the Inspectorate-General and overall direction of Militarised Police Corps.
Unlike the Chief of Defence Staff of the Armed Forces, who directly depends on the Minister of National Defence, the General-Inspector is not directly subordinated to the Minister of Interior, but to the Director-General of Public Security-Chief of Police. The General-Inspector is the point of contact for Chief of Defence Staff for what regards institutional activities of Royal Police Corps (in wartime only), Royal Carabinieri and the Coast Guard. Further, he oversees the coordination of preparations of police and M.V.S.N. paramilitary and mobile units of the internal security forces for the event of war.
Functions that in the military are dealt with by the Chief of Defence Staff alone, within the police establishment are shared among the General-Inspector and the Chief of Police, thus holding a position not fully comparable with the position of Chief of Defence Staff nor with the Chief of Staff of an individual Armed Force (such as Carabinieri themselves).
The General-Inspector executes, on the basis of verbal directives of the Chief of Police, the military guidelines on the predisposition and use of military bodies, reports to the Minister on the efficiency of the military bodies, indicating the resources they need, preparing them, after having heard the Commandants General, the general financial planning, defines the overall operational priorities, as well as the long-term key policy criteria.
The General-Inspector also issues joint directives on logistics, transport and military health to ensure the highest degree of integration and interoperability, and issues directives to the Commandants General. The General-Inspector is also the reference authority for the operational use of the funds allocated to the military bodies and issues directives to the General Commanders for the implementation of the technical-financial programs approved by the Minister of the Interior. The General-Inspector is responsible for the extraordinary, unplanned and high priority requirements for the operational use of the operating funds of the Commandants General.
The General-Inspector, on the basis of both written and verbal directives and guidelines of the Minister of Interior and of the Chief of Police, after having heard the Commandants General, sets up the police-related operational objectives of the armed police and develop intelligence, using a specific body. The General-Inspector prepares the general and contingent operating plans, issues the following directives to the Commandants General for the elaboration of the plans of sectoral competence.
The General-Inspector, after having heard the Commandants General, proposes to the Minister of Interior the general organisation of each military corps, proposes to the Interior Minister the distribution of the resources of military personnel to be assigned to the central bodies, issues joint provisions concerning the territorial boundaries of joint commands, departments and entities.
The General-Inspector also directly supervises the Directors of Administration, Health, Engineering, Ideological Training, Motor Pool and the Veterinary Commission. The National Centre for Recruitment and Selection, the Administration National Centre and the Legislation Office depend also on the General-Inspector but retain some connections to the Chief of Staff. All departments, finally, are coordinated with the corresponding ones of the Directorate-General of P.S.
Rank insignia
The General-Inspector of the Militarised Police Corps may come from Royal Carabinieri or, more rarely, Royal Police Corps. In both cases he has an its own insignia.
Shoulder rank insignia of General-Inspector of the Militarised Police Corps coming from Royal Carabinieri
Shoulder rank insignia of General-Inspector of the Militarised Police Corps coming from the Royal Police Corps
General Staff
The General Staff of the Inspectorate General of the Militarised Police Corps (Italian: Stato Maggiore dell'Ispettorato Generale dei Corpi Militari di Polizia, S.M.I.GE.CO.MI.POL.) is the operational arm of the Inspectorate, and it is commanded by the General-Inspector, who in turn is assisted by the Chief of Staff. The General Staff is an organ that is part of the military of Public Security and is represented by the Chief of Staff.
The General Staff of the Inspectorate-General Militarised Police Corps produces guidelines for the military part of the public security and then checks that these are correctly implemented by the various Militarised Police Corps. The General Staff includes officers, subofficers and enlisted personnel specially selected from the armed forces of origin, with a curriculum of training and experience that allows them to operate even international contexts.
The Chief of Staff of the Inspectorate General of the Militarised Police Corps (usually coming from either Coast Guard or Carabinieri) directs and coordinates the work of various departments, submits to the General-Inspector the various issues, giving relevant particulars of the proceedings; in addition, the Chief of Staff can decide over the issues which as the delegated authority to govern. Finally, he exercises command of the General Staff. The General Staff has six departments:
- Military Chaplain;
- Military Police Unit;
- Unit I - "Force Organisation": it has control and coordination functions in the organisation, training and disciplinary matters. It includes the Inspection Office;
- Unit II - "Operations and Security", with control and coordination tasks in personnel assignment and management, given requirements and needs of the larger Administration of Public Security. It includes the Empire Office (the former Colonial Office), responsible for the deployment of units of the military corps with police duties in the other realms of the Italian Empire;
- Unit III "Informatics" with control and coordination tasks in the computer and telecommunications areas;
- Unit IV "Logistics";
- Unit V "Budget Planning and Control" with administrative and financial functions given the general surveillance exercised by the Accountability Inspectorate;
- Autonomous Unit, with logistics, administrative and security tasks within the same command.
Joint Police Command
The General-Inspector is responsible for the planning, coordination and direction of military operations and the inter-force exercises of police bodies. For this task, the Joint Police Command (Italian: Comando Interforze di Polizia, C.I.P.) is used.
The C.I.P. provides a contribution to the development of the doctrine, develops methodologies for simulating strategic and operational scenarios, and analyzes activities by developing training and corrective actions. The C.I.P. is also the entry point for all requests for operational contests provided by the Police Forces to other Institutional Authorities on national territory, in the event of natural disasters and in cases of extraordinary necessity and urgency. For these operations it is responsible for the direction, coordination and control of the activities.
Service for Police Military Corps coordination and planning
The Service for Police Military Corps coordination and planning (Italian: Servizio per il Coordinamento e la Pianificazione dei Corpi Militari di Polizia) of the the Joint Police Command has the task of streamlining the structural and operational capabilities of individual police military corps, optimizing the use and distribution of their respective resources and integrating the organisation and implementation of their respective services like a common and systematic planning. The Service is headed by the Chief of Unit II - Operations and Security of the General Staff.
The Service for Police Military Corps coordination and planning is divided into several Offices:
- General and Legal Affairs Office: the General and Legal Affairs Office provides support to the Service Director in defining the management objectives and in the preparation of programs and projects. The Office also provides technical and legal advice on the regulations on coordination and planning as well as legislative opinions.
- General Planning Office: the General Planning Office carries out general planning tasks of public order and security services and the deployment of police officers. The Office also analyzes and coordinates the individual operational schedules prepared by each police force and the requests of the Prefects.
- Administrative Planning Office: the Administrative Planning Office carries out general planning and coordination tasks of administrative and logistical inter-service services, with reference to the Ministry of the Interior's budget chapters relating to the financing of common expenses for the police forces. The Office also examines the upgrade plans relevant to the various logistics sectors, carries out general financial planning and coordinates individual financial planning.
Functional and hierarchical dependence
In the police field, the hierarchy is double. There is a functional hierarchy, that is, the one between the various offices and a rank-based hierarchy, that is the one between the real subjects. Therefore, an a police military corps, as a whole, may be in the condition of receiving orders from the top of the office in which it belongs, as well as by the hierarchical superior of the chain of command. This situation implies that the military is obliged to obey: subordination not only to hierarchically superordinate, but also to the "hierarchical superior".
Hierarchically, the National Royal Guard is dependent on the General Command of the M.V.S.N. and, as far as internal security is concerned, operates at the functional dependencies of the General-Inspector of the Militarised Police Corps. It is to be noted that, unlike other corps, the G.N.R. does not depend on the Director General of the Public Security.
Hierarchically, the Royal Carabinieri and the Coast Guard are dependent on the Italian Armed Forces Defence Staff and the Ministry of National Defence and, as far as police duties are concerned, operates at the functional dependencies of the Ministry of Interior, i.e. depend on the Director General of the Public Security and of the General-Inspector of the Militarised Police Corps.
Hierarchically, the Royal Police Corps is directly dependent on the General-Inspector of the Militarised Police Corps and, as far as military defence duties are concerned, operates at the functional dependencies of the Ministry of National Defence, i.e. of the Italian Armed Forces Defence Staff.