Royal Carabinieri Schools Command (Kingdom of Italy)

Royal Carabinieri Schools Command
Comando Carabinieri Reali delle Scuole
Country	Italy
Branch	Royal Carabinieri
Type	Training command
Role	Coordination of training
Commanders
Current commander	Army Corps General Cristiano D'Ambrosi

The training organization is entrusted to the Royal Carabinieri Schools Command (Italian: Comando delle Scuole dell'Arma dei Reali Carabinieri). The Command, directly dependent on the Commandant-General of the Royal Carabinieri, provides initial or basic training and periodically carries out qualification courses, specialization courses, and maintenance and refresher courses.

Mission

The Royal Carabinieri Schools Command provides initial or basic training and periodically carries out:

• Qualification courses: with the aim of deepening the knowledge already acquired by the staff, providing additional knowledge and skills for the exercise of normal duties, or training in the exercise of particular tasks unrelated to common professional experience, even if not specialized
• Specialization courses: aimed at training personnel assigned to tasks of a distinctly technical nature, providing specific knowledge or skills necessary for the exercise of particular, defined tasks
• Maintenance and refresher courses: intended to update the knowledge and skills of the military, acquired both in basic and subsequent training, where there is reason to believe that they no longer adhere to the changed regulatory, social, operational or technological.

The Royal Carabinieri Schools Command is set up in order to:

• Guarantee initial training actions for all active military members of the Royal Carabinieri (officers, subofficiers and troops) and ongoing training actions carried out by specialized training organisms.
• Adopt and carry out the most recent educational methods in the formation of the Royal Carabinieri.
• Create and disseminate documentation for instruction and training.

Organization

The Royal Carabinieri Schools Command is led by an Army Corps General, and consists of:

• Commander;
• General Staff;
  • Courses Service;
  • Schools Service;
• Common Requirements Commission;
• Royal Carabinieri Officers School in Rome;
• Joint Higher Institute of Public Security in Rome;
• Marshals and Brigadiers School (in Florence)
  • 9th Royal Carabinieri Marshal Cadets Regiment (in Florence);
  • 10th Royal Carabinieri Brigadier Cadets Regiment (in Velletri);
  • 11th Royal Carabinieri Brigadier Cadets Regiment (in Spoleto);
• Royal Carabinieri Recruits Legion (in Rome);
• Specialization Institutes Inspectorate:
• Applied Psychology Institute
• Royal Carabinieri Sports Centre

Common Requirements Commission

The Common Requirements Commission (Commissione per i Requisiti Comuni) is a commission mandated to promote and maintain a high level of professional standards for all law enforcement and correctional officers. Its purpose is to promote a high level of training and standards for all law enforcement personnel, working in conjunction with relevant legislative offices.
Responsibilities of the Commission include developing and providing quality training and education, setting standards and providing assistance. The Commission elaborates standards for the selection and training of agents and officers of public security and of judicial police both at the entry and advanced level so as to improve their training and performance. Further, the Commission conducts research and evaluation needed to develop and improve its own standards and training based upon objective knowledge and the performance needs required.
The Commission is chaired by the Schools Commander, currently Army Corps General Cristiano D'Ambrosi. It also consists of: a Vice-Prefect Inspector coming from other Directorates-General; a Vice-Prefect Inspector of the Public Security Administration; a Police Inspector; a CC.RR. Colonel; a C.P.P. Colonel; a Coast Guard Vessel Captain; a G.R.d.F. Colonel; a First Director of Local Police in charge of a Provincial Command; a First Director of Local Police in charge of a Municipal Command; a First Director of Local Police in staff position; a Colonel from the Gendarmerie forces of the Realms of the Italian Empire (in rotation; a Chief Superintendent for Montenegrin Police).
The Commission is supported by some Offices: General affairs Office; Police education research Office; Police standards and training Office; Assistance and support Office; Correctional education research Office; Correctional standards and training Office. A CC.RR. Captain provides secretariat tasks.

Specialization Institutes Inspectorate

The Royal Carabinieri have several specialization schools and centres; as a rule, these schools are handled and operated by Schools Command through the Specialization Institutes Inspectorate. Often such schools and training centres train and educate also personnel coming from the Army, the G.R.d.F. and the M.V.S.N., as well as from the Realms of the Italian Empire and other countries. Specialization Institutes are functionally linked with relevant central specialist bodies. Specialization Institutes train and educate leaders and specialists, assist in doctrine development, identify lessons learned, improve interoperability and capabilities, and test and validate concepts through experimentation.

The primary purpose of Specialization Institutes is to assist with transformation within the Italian Armed Forces, while avoiding the duplication of assets, resources and capabilities already present. They generally specialize in one functional area and act as subject matter experts in their field of expertise. They distribute their in-depth knowledge through training, conferences, seminars, concepts, doctrine, lessons learned and papers. Specialization Institutes also help to expand interoperability, increase capabilities, aid in the development of doctrine and standards, conduct analyses, evaluate lessons-learned and experiment in order to test and verify concepts.

The Specialization Institutes Inspectorate of the Royal Carabinieri deals with Specialization Institutes pertaining to the field of internal security:

• Nautical and Diving Centre (Centro Nautico e Sommozzatori): managed and operated by the Coast Guard;
• Mechanic Maintenance Training School (Scuola di Addestramento per meccanico e manutentore);
• Alpine Police School (Scuola di Polizia Alpina) in Bolzano and Moena;
• School of Judicial, Administrative and Investigative Police (Scuola di Polizia Giudiziaria, Amministrativa e Investigativa, Pol.G.A.I.), where police personnel is trained in the core matters.
• Forestry Carabinieri School;
• K-9 School;
• Training Centre for Public Order;
• Shooting School (in Rome);
• Explosive Ordnance Disposal and CRBN Defence School;
• Foreign Languages Centre;
• Higher School of Investigations in Rome;
• School of Judicial, Administrative and Investigative Police in Brescia;
• Territorial Control School in Pescara;
• Police Technical School in Rome;
• Border Police School in Cesena;
• Transportation School in Forlì;
• Scientific Police School in Rome;
• Military Police School in Florence;
• Occupation Police School in Vicenza.

School of Judicial, Administrative and Investigative Police

The School of Judicial, Administrative and Investigative Police (Scuola di Polizia giudiziaria, amministrativa e investigativa, Scuola POL.G.A.I.) is the educational institution for specializing and updating the Carabinieri who operate in the administrative, judicial and investigative techniques sector.
In particular, training courses are organized in investigative and prevention and control services in the area, developed in relation to the new operational requirements. On some occasions, the two Schools are also used to carry out basic training courses for the Carabinieri.
The Pol.G.A.I. was established in Milan in 1972 and after two years it was transferred to Brescia, to its current location. It has an accommodation capacity of 500 seats, extends over 38,000 square meters and is equipped, among other things, with seven classrooms for training investigative, operational and shooting techniques. It also has two computer classrooms and a multifunctional laboratory with large green spaces and sports facilities. It is equipped with numerous specialist classrooms.

Military Police School

The mission of the Military Police School is to enhance the military policing capability by providing subject matter expertise on all aspects of military policing activities. The Military Police School supports the development of MP standards and capabilities in particular through providing analytical and methodological support in the process of expanding the transformation policy and transformation processes, as well as launching initiatives in these areas, by monitoring main undertakings, ideas and changes in the field of transformation of the military police, supporting and coordinating effort in implementing new doctrines, publications and normative documents in order to facilitate common understating in fulfilling police tasks in every operational environment.
The Military Police School also prepares evaluation, lessons learned from theoretical and practical MP accomplishments, as well as conclusions and ways ahead in order to implement them into the future actions, by formulating, new concepts and directions for utilization.

Troops training

The training of enlisted soldiers has priority in the Royal Carabinieri.

The rank of Carabiniere can be obtained through a public competition for qualifications and exams. The appointment is made 6 months after the course start date. Carabinieri students contract, upon enlistment, a four-year voluntary service. At the end of the voluntary detention, the Carabinieri are admitted to permanent service if they retain their psychophysical fitness and if they are deserving.

The training activity of the student schools has modern technologies and teaching methodologies, such as the refinement of knowledge of military and professional ethics in Italy, the development of skills in the field of community policing.

Training solutions are adopted including the establishment of new subjects of a scientific/investigative and criminological nature, as well as the enrichment of computer knowledge in order to prepare staff for the basic use of computer technologies necessary for institutional activity, in-depth of the methods of use, by means of practical exercises, of various technological devices and of the equipment used by the Carabinieri.

Organisation

The Carabinieri recruits training is overseen by the Royal Carabinieri Recruits Legion based in Rome, which controls twelve Carabinieri Schools dispersed through the national territory:

• Royal Carabinieri Recruits Legion (in Rome):
  • Carabinieri School in Rome;
  • Carabinieri School in Turin;
  • Carabinieri School in Fossano;
  • Carabinieri School in Alessandria;
  • Carabinieri School in Campobasso;
  • Carabinieri School in Benevento;
  • Carabinieri School in Reggio Calabria;
  • Carabinieri School in Iglesias;
  • Carabinieri School in Pescara;
  • Carabinieri School in Piacenza;
  • Carabinieri School in Trieste;
  • Carabinieri School in Vibo Valentia.

Each Carabinieri School is commanded by a Lieutenant Colonel - Corps Commander.

Officers training

Officer Cadets of the Normal Role and Officer Students who have completed the same training process as the corresponding Army organizations of the Technical Role are first trained at the Military Academy in Modena together with the Army and M.V.S.N. Cadets. Army, M.V.S.N. and Carabinieri Cadets are organised in separate Cadet Battalions and follow three similar but separate courses. Common subjects are taught in unitary manner in order to provide homogeneity.

Recruit education is divided into five main pillars of learning: administration and organisations; jurisprudence; military training; military studies; specific police studies; political and humanities studies. In addition to these subjects, there is also a highly prized centre for extracurricular activities, including participation in advanced military training, security studies and voluteering in public order services. Alongside this, there are professional internships at Royal Carabinieri units and experience outside the physical space of the academy, such as the Army training camps.
During the first two years at the Military Academy, Carabinieri Cadets stay at the Military Academy from Monday morning to Sunday evening. They may spend the weekends with their families if they have earned a pass and are not being punished. The recruits are mainly from upper middle‐class backgrounds.

After two years, passed Carabinieri Cadets are promoted Second Lieutenants and then transferred to the Carabinieri Officers School, where military training is less emphasized in favour of the completion of the university degrees in jurisprudence or internal security studies. During the three years at the Carabinieri Officers School, Officers stay at the Military Academy from Monday morning to Friday afternoon. They may spend the weekends with their families if they are not being punished.

Royal Carabinieri Officers School

The Royal Carabinieri Officers School (Scuola Ufficiali Carabinieri Reali) is a military institute, of university rank, which takes care of the training and permanent updating of the official cadres of the Royal Carabinieri. The school takes care of the two-year application course for the training of officers from the military academy (Normal Role) and for ex-Suboffficers, the two-year training course for officers in the technical role and the two-year training course for officers in the forestry role. The purpose of the Officers School is to train officers who are real policemen, and not mere clean uniform and shaved beard controllers.

Furthermore, the school is responsible for the organization of the institute course for the updating of the majors and the seminars for the updating for the officers.

Students of the Officers School are assigned a daily allowance of an amount equal to half of the initial gross pay of the Carabiniere.

Military ethos

Officers have to set an example during their inspections, lead criminal investigations, and carry out administrative functions. Often the indoctrination process begins at a young age since many come from military families, and it continues during their education at the Military Academy. There, a rigid daily schedule is meant to make discipline the cadets’ guiding principal while acclimating them to the military milieu.
The entire structure of the Military Academy life is meant to instill in the cadets the importance of discipline, sacrifice, and a thirst for glory, all of which were to be channeled towards service to the Fatherland.
A conscious effort is made to turn cadets not only into soldiers but also into leaders in a society led by fascists antagonisng bourgeois attitude: cadets receive some training in interacting with political but also bourgeois social circles.

Hazing as method of shaping officers' personality

Hazing rituals are found in many institutions, proclaiming the rules of the group and signaling changes in freshmen's identities. The persistent practice of hazing is a reflection of conservatism in the Royal Carabinieri section of the Military Academy, which cling to old, familiar beliefs and teaching practices. The education of Royal Carabinieri Officer Cadets takes place within the walls of the Military Academy in Modena and then at the Carabinieri Officers School. The Military Academy is a complex steeped in history and tradition. Before a student enrolls and obtains a scholarship, he must take a competitive admissions test.

Hazing works in two ways: it celebrates the inclusion of newcomers, playfully exorcising their civilian identities, as well as benefiting the seniors. The ultimate responsibility for hazing lies with the academic institution, which informally delegates it to the official members of its supervisory staff. These supervisors informally authorise seniors to perform the hazing rite as tradition dictates. Hazing also keeps with concepts of policing as a “craft” rather than a “profession”, in the sense that much of its art is learned through the mysteries of apprenticeship rather than rational instruction.

Seniors often are third-year Carabinieri Officers School students. These seniors are part of an initiatory context that involves a change in status, in preparation for their becoming full-fledged Officers. Hazing rehearses the Carabinieri officer's style of severe leadership better than the official curriculum. The organisation and the conduct of the hazing is also an important test for seniors. In order to avoid excesses, Officers (mainly instructors) are at hand. Hazing simulates the art of leadership; seniors work side‐by‐side with officers, confirming that their learning cycle is coming to an end.

Hazing at the Military Academy begins with the noisy predawn awakening of the freshman class in their dorms. The senior cadets swarm into the dormitory and drag the freshmen from their bunks, while strongly impressing them with the penitential nature of hazing. Amid the confusion, the senior cadets fire blanks in the dorm and blow strident whistles in the ears of their sleepy victims, roughly shaking their hands and feet, screaming like maniacs and sending out dozens of contradictory expletive‐laden messages about making and unmaking their beds, standing up and crawling at the same time and other orders that make the new recruits' heads swim.
The hazing lasts six days, during which time the seniors are the agents of a number of practices such as painful pranks and humorous activities where freshmen humiliate themselves. These sadistic activities serve to strengthen the bonds between freshmen and seniors. The freshmen undergo the hazing period while enduring jokes, pranks, skits and embarrassment. Within the pedagogy of extremes, the seniors overturn order and sense by dressing up and militantly imposing disorder, pranks, psychological pressure and brutality amid howls of laughter and the violent expression of basic impulses. Although forms of hazing use playful means of ridiculing sexuality, hazing at the Military Academy cannot include overt references to it. This is a taboo at military institutions.

The hazing ritual includes a vocabulary of derogatory words and verbs, founded in the senior and new recruits' discourse, that are perfectly understood by the leadership team. Throught sexist, racist and homophobic terminology and the ridiculing of freshmen the association between masculinity, manliness and stoicism and submission to the group code is enforced.
Widespread humiliation aims to make the Cadets to a common starting point, where class and other marks of status are irrelevant. Therefore agents of the rite do not recognise important surnames, money or social prestige. The freshman's previous life is dead and it is unwise to demand special treatment due to their prior status.

As many rites of status elevation, Royal Carabinieri hazing marks the boundary people cross when going from one realm to another, from the civilian/no‐status world to the world of the Royal Carabinieri. This procedure is similar to those carried out by the M.V.S.N.. The passage must be marked. To do so, they must be emptied and stripped of their previous identity. The encounter phase involves separation, liminarity and integration of freshmen. Their former repertoires are useless to them at this stage. The loss of familiar points of reference plunges them into a watershed in the lives of many.
As in Carabinieri training, hazing is part of a counter‐curriculum that is as efficient as official teaching methods in transmitting the values and attitudes of the Carabinieri, filling gaps and putting the Carabinieri's stamp on training. Like the stress training methods characteristic of traditional Carabinieri training, hazing instills in recruits a militaristic sense of what it is to be a Carabinieri officer, including abuse of rank, breaking and silencing others.

Requisites for promotion

Promotions in rank are, beyond the rank of Lieutenant, mostly discretionary. Nonetheless, in order to achieve certain ranks, Carabinieri officers must also achieve some education degrees.

Rank	Education level required
	Special Technical role	Technical role	Forestal role	Special Forestal role	Special role	Normal role
Major	Advanced technical course		Joint Higher Institute of Public Security				Army War School
Lieutenant	Civilian degree+ 1 year-long Officers training	Civilian degree+ 1 year-long Officers training	Carabinieri Officer School	Civilian degree + 1 year-long Officers training	1 year-long Officers training	Carabinieri Officer School
Second Lieutenant			Army Military Academy			Army Military Academy
Notes

Recruitment

The recruitment requirements for police personnel in police educational institutions are ostensibly the same across the Division and are also shared with the other military corps tasked with police duties, except for differences in age and education levels.
These requirements are: Italian citizenship and race; graduation from high school or equivalent; being aged 18 to 23 on 1 January of the examination year (the age limitation is 25 for university graduates); at least 1.65m tall for women and 1.70m for men; the standard of health stipulated in the competition decree; not known to indulge in drunkenness and gambling; not engagedin socio-culturally low and inferior jobs; not married or living with a foreigner or an Italian Jew or a Colonial Italian citizen; not engaged in antifascist political activities, anarchy and terrorist events; enrolled in the P.N.F.; not previously sentenced more than 6 months; no impediments to joining a security organization according to background check of family members; and no military service problem at the starting date of education programme.
The Minister of Interior has three quotas for each Carabinieri entry school and course, the Chief of Police has two, while the Commandant-General of the Royal Carabinieri has one quota for eachschool or course. Each of them has the right to ask the schools' directors that their recommended candidates be accepted into the school and that they be exempt from any of the normal application requirements. This phenomenon is in addition to any “unofficial instructions” issued.

See also

• Royal Carabinieri