Police station

A police station is an organisationally independent authority within a police force. It is commonly understood to mean a police inspection, a police station/guard or a police station that is open to the public and where, for example, a complaint can be filed. Police emergency calls (in Germany: telephone number 110) are often made here, but in any case the local telephone number listed in the telephone directory.

However, the term expands to include other authorities that are also part of the police, but work in a specialized field. These include (explained by the organisational structure of the Bavarian Police) for example

• the criminal police inspectorates (analogous: criminal police station)
• the traffic police inspectorates (analogously: traffic police stations)
• the hundred-strong riot police force
• the search control inspections (analogous: search control stations).

In other federal states, the name of the departments may be different, for example, precincts or section.

In larger cities, it is not uncommon for several police stations to be housed in one building; however, these usually carry out different activities that are unrecognisable to outsiders.

However, a police station is also understood to mean authorities with whom one can rarely or never come into contact, for example

• the special ops teams,
• the mobile task forces,
• the helicopter squadrons,
• the motorcycle squadrons,
• the police departments,
• the police headquarters,
• the state criminal investigation departments and the Federal Criminal Police Office,
• the police music corps.

This is due to the fact that these services often have different tasks (administration, representation, closed operations, no or limited case handling with citizen contact/outreach) than, for example, a police inspection and therefore do not have direct contact with the citizen.

Depending on the area of responsibility, location and federal state, a police station has a size of between 60 and over 100 employees. Depending on its size, the head of a police station is an officer of the higher service or - in most cases - of the higher service.

The superior department depends on the organisational structure of the respective police. In most cases, there is a three- or four-level system: police inspection (or station) / police station - police directorate - police headquarters - Ministry of the Interior (hierarchy from bottom to top).

Administrative offices are not police stations in the original sense; depending on the federal state, they may, for example, be responsible for the administration of personnel or the punishment of traffic offences. Reports or wanted persons that are submitted to an Internet police station are automatically forwarded to the relevant department - so there is no independent police station behind the Internet police station either.