Militsiya (Russian: мили́ция; Ukrainian: міліція; Romanian: Miliţia; literally "Militia") was the generic name for the police in the Soviet Union and a few other Communist countries. It is now used as a short official name of the police in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and some other post-Soviet states. Due to the history of the term and the distinctive local features, the militsiya should be considered a special regional kind of policing system, not just a translation of the English "police". Militsiya forces in all post-Soviet countries share similar traditions, tactics and methods, although the differences are increasing over time. A militia is a group of citizens organized to provide paramilitary service. ... Generic can be used in the following contexts: In computer science, generics (or genericity) are concepts used in programming. ... Communism - Wikipedia /**/ @import /w/skins-1. ...

Name and status

The name originates from early Soviet history, when the Bolsheviks intended to associate their new law enforcement authority with the self-organization of the people and to distinguish it from the "bourgeois class-oriented police". Originally militsiya was the official name: the Workers' and Peasants' Militsiya was created in 1917. Eventually it was replaced by Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD in Russian, or MVS in Ukrainian), which is now the official full name for the militsiya forces in the respective countries. Its regional branches are officially called Departments of Internal Affairs—city department of internal affairs, raion department of internal affairs, oblast department of internal affairs, etc. The Russian term for a regional department was "ОВД", "Отдел/Отделение внутренних дел", later renamed to "УВД"—"Управление внутренних дел". Bolshevik Party Meeting. ... Bourgeois at the end of the thirteenth century. ... Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ... See rayon for the textile made of processed cellulose. ... An oblast (Russian, Ukrainian: о́бласть) is a subnational entity of Bulgaria, the Russian Federation, Ukraine, and the now-defunct Soviet Union, approximately equivalent to a province. ...

Functionally, Ministries of Internal Affairs are mostly police agencies. Their functions and organization differ significantly from similarly named departments in Western countries, which are usually civil executive bodies headed by politicians and responsible for many other tasks as well as the supervision of law enforcement. Soviet and successor MVDs are usually headed by a militsiya general and predominantly consist of service personnel, with civil employees only filling auxiliary posts. Although such ministers are members of the respective country's cabinet, they usually do not report to the prime minister and parliament, but only to the president. Local departments are subordinate to their national ministry and are not controlled by local government organisations (although they do formally report to them). General is a military rank, in most nations the highest rank, although some nations have the higher rank of Field Marshal. ... A Cabinet is a body of high-ranking members of government, typically representing the executive branch. ... A prime minister may be either: the chief or leading member of the cabinet of the top-level government in a country having a parliamentary system of government; or the official, in countries with a semi-presidential system of government, appointed to manage the civil service and execute the directives... The debating chamber or hemicycle of the European Parliament in Brussels. ... President is a title held by many leaders of organizations, companies, universities, and countries. ... Local governments are administrative offices of an area smaller than a state. ...

Internal affairs units within the militsiya itself are usually called "internal security" departments. The internal affairs (United States terminology) division of a police agency investigates incidents and plausible suspicions of lawbreaking and professional misconduct attributed to officers on the force. ...

The official names of particular militsiya bodies and services in post-Soviet countries are usually very complicated, hence the use of the short term militsiya. Laws usually refer to police just as militsiya. Law (a loanword from Old Norse lag), in politics and jurisprudence, is a set of rules or norms of conduct which mandate, proscribe or permit specified relationships among people and organizations, provide methods for ensuring the impartial treatment of such people, and provide punishments for those who do not follow...

The short term for a police officer (regardless of gender) is militsioner (Russian: милиционер, Ukrainian: міліціонер). Slang terms for the militsioner include ment (plural: menty, менты) and musor (plural: musora, мусора). Although the latter word is offensive (it literally means "trash" or "garbage"), it originated from an acronym for the Moscow Criminal Investigations Department (МУС, Московский уголовный сыск) in Imperial Russia. Ment is a close equivalent to the English slang term "cop". Slang is the non-standard use of words in a language of a particular social group, and sometimes the creation of new words or importation of words from another language. ... Imperial Russia is the term used to cover the period of Russian history from the expansion of Russia under Peter the Great, through the expansion of the Russian Empire from the Baltic to the Pacific Ocean, to the deposal of Nicholas II of Russia, the last tsar, at the start...

General overview

The organizational structure, methods and traditions of the militsiya differ significantly from those customary in the West. Militsiya officers rank from sergeant (which is actually the lowest rank) to major general. Detectives (Russian: operativnik) hold a minimum rank of lieutenant. The militsiya of an oblast (or other equivalent subnational entity) is usually headed by a general. The rank name is suffixed with of militsiya (e.g. major of militsiya for a major). This article is about the rank of sergeant. ... Insignia of a United States Air Force Major General German Generalmajor Insignia Major General is a military rank used in many countries. ... A detective is an officer of the police who performs criminal or administrative investigations, in some police departments, the lowest rank among such investigators (above the lowest rank of officers and below sergeants), a civilian licensed to investigate information not readily available in public records (a private investigator, also called... A Lieutenant is a military, paramilitary or police officer. ... An oblast (Russian, Ukrainian: о́бласть) is a subnational entity of Bulgaria, the Russian Federation, Ukraine, and the now-defunct Soviet Union, approximately equivalent to a province. ... Subnational entity is a generic term for an administrative region within a country — on an arbitrary level below that of the sovereign state — typically with a local government encompassing multiple municipalities, counties, or provinces with a certain degree of autonomy in a varying number of matters. ... Insignia of an 0-4 in the U.S. Armed Forces In the US Army, Air Force, Marine Corps and the British Army, a major is a commissioned officer superior to a captain and inferior to a lieutenant colonel. ...

Militsiya bodies are divided into functional departments, such as traffic police. Organized crime detectives form highly-independent squads inside regional militsiya. Some units may have the distinctive names (like OMON) which are more specific than militsiya or militsioner. A highway patrol is either a police agency created primarily for the purpose of overseeing traffic safety compliance on roads and highways, such as the California Highway Patrol, or a detail within an existing local or regional police agency that is primarily concerned with such duties, such as the HWP... Organized crime is crime carried out systematically by formal criminal organizations. ... The OMON insignia Otryad Militsii Osobogo Naznacheniya (OMON, Black Berets, or Special Forces Police Detachment of Russia) is a special forces unit within the Russian Ministerstvo Vnutrennih Del (MVD, or Ministry of Internal Affairs). ...

Militsiya personnel carry firearms. However, their usage is strictly limited so shooting cases are relatively rare in comparison to countries such as the United States. Militsioners are not permitted to carry their weapons when they are off duty. A firearm is a kinetic energy weapon that fires either a single or multiple projectiles propelled at high velocity by the gases produced by action of the rapid confined burning of a propellant. ...

Unlike in some other countries' police agencies, militsioners are not assigned permanent partners, but work alone or within larger groups. Neither street patrols nor detectives are allowed to drive police vehicles themselves, so a specialist driver (either a serviceman or a civil employee) is assigned to each car and is also in charge of its maintenance.

Although women constitute a significant proportion of militsiya staff, they are usually not permitted to fill positions which carry a risk (such as patrolman, guard, or detective), but are allowed to carry firearms for self-defense. Instead, they are widely represented among investigators, juvenile crime inspectors, clerks, etc. However, limited attempts are being made to appoint women as traffic officers and operativniks.

Non-police services of the MVD

It should be noted that Soviet/post-Soviet Ministries of Internal Affairs include (or included) not only police-like departments, but also:

• militarized forces ("MVD Troops" or "Internal Troops");
• department of prisons (GULAG and its successor bodies);
• firefighting service;
• passport and registration service;

These non-police services should be distinguished from the militsiya itself. Their members have always used different generic names and specific ranks (e.g. Major of the Internal Service, rather than Major of Militsiya). A military or miltary force (n. ... Gulag (Russian: ГУЛАГ  listen?, an acronym for Главное Управление Исправительно— Трудовых Лагерей и колонии, Glavnoye Upravleniye Ispravitelno-trudovykh Lagerey i kolonii, The Chief Directorate [or Administration] of Corrective Labour Camps and Colonies) was the branch of the Soviet internal police and security service that operated the penal system of forced labour camps and associated detention and transit camps... Firefighter in full turn out gear with an axe A firefighter is a person who is trained and equipped to put out fires, rescue people, and in some areas provide emergency medical services. ... The title page of European Union passports bears the name European Union, then the name of the issuing country, in the languages of all EU countries. ... In computer vision, sets of data acquired by sampling the same scene or object at different times, or from different perspectives, will be in different coordinate systems. ...

Militsiya in the Russian Federation

Throughout the first half of the 1990s, the Russian militsiya functioned with minimal funding, equipment, and support from the legal system. The inadequacy of the force became particularly apparent during the wave of organized crime that began sweeping Russia after the beginning of perestroika. Many highly qualified individuals moved from the militsiya into better-paying jobs in the field of private security, which has expanded to meet the demands of companies needing protection, while others joined the organized crime itself. Frequent taking of bribes among the remaining members of the militsiya has damaged the force's public credibility. Numerous revelations of participation by militsiya personnel in murders, prostitution rings, information peddling, and tolerance of criminal acts have created a general public perception that all militsioners are at least taking bribes. Bribery of officers to avoid penalty for traffic violations and petty crimes is a routine and expected occurrence, as well as tortures and abusing of suspects in the custody. Events and trends The 1990s are generally classified as having moved slightly away from the more conservative 1980s, but keeping the same mind-set. ... Organized crime is crime carried out systematically by formal criminal organizations. ... Perestroika  listen? (Перестро́йка) is the Russian word (which passed into English) for the economic reforms introduced in June 1987 by the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. ... Prostitution is the sale of sexual services, such as oral sex or sexual intercourse, for money. ... A penalty is a punishment: a legal sentence, e. ... The Iron Maiden of Nuremberg was a famous torture device Torture is the infliction of severe physical or psychological pain as an expression of cruelty, a means of intimidation, deterrent or punishment, or as a tool for the extraction of information or confessions. ... In the parlance of criminal justice, a suspect is a term used to refer to a person, known or unknown, suspected of committing a crime. ...

In a 1995 poll of the public, only 5 per cent of respondents expressed confidence in the ability of the militsiya to deal with crime in their city. Human rights organizations have accused the Moscow militsiya of racism in singling out non-Slavic individuals (especially immigrants from Russia's Caucasus republics), physical attacks, unjustified detention, and other rights violations. In 1995 Minister of Internal Affairs Anatoliy Kulikov conducted a high-profile "Clean Hands Campaign" to purge the MVD of corrupt elements. In its first year, this limited operation caught several highly placed MVD officials collecting bribes, indicating a high level of corruption throughout the agency. According to experts, the main causes of corruption are insufficient funding to train and equip personnel and pay them adequate wages, poor work discipline, lack of accountability, and fear of reprisals from organized criminals. 1995 was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Human rights are rights which some hold to be inalienable and belonging to all humans. ... Saint Basils Cathedral Moskau (Russian/Cyrillic: Москва́, pronunciation: Moskvá) is the capital of Russia, located on the river Moskva, and encompassing 1097. ... The Slavic peoples are the most numerous ethnic and linguistic body of peoples in Europe. ... The Caucasus , a region boardering Asia Minor, is located between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea which includes the Caucasus mountains and surrounding lowlands. ... Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ...

Militsiya in Ukraine

The militsiya in Ukraine is officially called the MVS (Ukrainian: Міністерство внутрішніх справ; Ministerstvo Vnutrishnikh Sprav).

See also

• MVD
• MVS (Ukraine)
• NKVD
• OMON

Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ... The Ministerstvo Vnutrishnikh Sprav (MVS; Ministry of Internal Affairs) is the national police authority of Ukraine. ... Black Ravens by Boris Vladimirski, a depiction of the cars used by NKVD agents. ... The OMON insignia Otryad Militsii Osobogo Naznacheniya (OMON, Black Berets, or Special Forces Police Detachment of Russia) is a special forces unit within the Russian Ministerstvo Vnutrennih Del (MVD, or Ministry of Internal Affairs). ...

External links

• Information from the July 1996 CIA World Factbook