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Convergence of military and police roles is a trend within individual countries and for international organizations carrying out peacekeeping operations. The article analyzes police organizations with military capabilities in relation to this role convergence. Discussions of such organizations are hampered by inexact terminology, and, therefore, the study distinguishes between civil police, army policing, militarized police, paramilitary police, and combined armies/police forces. Some police organizations may be counterweights to armies with uncertain loyalties, moreover. Criticisms of militarized and paramilitary police forces are common, but with appropriate organization, training, and indoctrination, such forces can provide services beyond the ability of civil police, while minimizing military involvement in policing. In an era of role convergence, tensions may develop between military and police organizations.
In their pioneering analysis of "paramilitary forces," Scobell and Hammitt (1996:221) asserted that the "bailiwick of state sponsored paramilitary forces tends to fall between that of the regular police and that of the regular armed forces." This article examines one of the types of forces Scobell and Hammitt considered: police organizations with military characteristics, which merit additional study because of their growing importance for governments facing perceived internal security threats and for international organizations seeking to improve their peacekeeping operations, on the one hand, and because of the need to bring greater order to discussions of such forces, on the other hand.
Many governments have believed and many continue to believe that certain threats demand security organizations in addition to conventional police forces and the armed forces. Some paramilitary or militarized police forces are counterweights to untrustworthy armies, moreover. In other instances, they are intended in part to provide at least the appearance of limiting security expenditures by substituting police officers for more expensive soldiers.
One of the problems in discussing such police organizations is the ambiguity of words or phrases associated with them, and, therefore, discussion of these terms continues throughout this article. "Paramilitary," "militarization," "demilitarization," "paramilitary police," "militarized police," "military police," "military policing," and "paramilitary policing" have been used so loosely that they mean little unless they are defined precisely. The word "military" refers to the armed forces. "Para" suggests a resemblance between two entities. Thus, "paramilitary" refers to matters that are partially military or quasi -military without being wholly military. The...