For more information on Interpol, visit Britannica.com.
| Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Interpol |
For more information on Interpol, visit Britannica.com.
| 5min Related Video: International Criminal Police Organization - Interpol |
| Columbia Encyclopedia: Interpol |
Bibliography
See studies by M. Anderson (1989) and M. Fooner (1989).
| Intelligence Encyclopedia: Interpol (International Criminal Police Organization) |
Interpol is an international organization based in Lyon, France, that fosters global police cooperation by sharing intelligence about cross-border criminal activities among its 181 member nations. Despite popular misconception, the organization maintains no police force of its own. Each member nation maintains and staffs a National Central Bureau to direct Interpol intelligence, while local authorities investigate and prosecute criminals according to national laws. Interpol's actions are limited to receiving requests for assistance; analyzing criminal activities that are not of a political, military, religious, or racial character; and disseminating notices published in four languages (English, French, Spanish, and Arabic) to its members. It currently focuses upon public safety and terrorism, organized crime, illegal drug production and smuggling, weapons dealing, trafficking in human beings, money laundering, and financial and high technology wrongdoing.
Begun in 1923, Interpol is an international effort to halt crime that has occurred or is projected to occur in multiple countries. Although headquartered in France, no country dominates the group and its funding is provided by a sliding scale membership fee that is based upon each country's gross national product (GNP). The organization's policies are set by a vote of its member countries while the governors on its executive committee are required to be drawn from different continents. The secretary general, elected every five years by two-thirds of the members attending the annual General Assembly, is Interpol's chief executive and senior full-time official. Daily activities are conducted at the General Secretariat in Lyon with a staff of 384 who represent 54 different countries. National Central Bureaus (NCB) in member countries ferry Interpol information to appropriate local authorities who bear responsibility for apprehending and extraditing suspected criminals. Five NCBs also act as Regional Stations with Lyon covering Europe, North America, and the Middle East: Nairobi, Kenya, responsible for East Africa; Abidjan, Ivory Coast, focusing on West Africa; Buenos Aires, Argentina, addressing South America; Tokyo, Japan, transmitting to Asia; and Puerto Rico, assisting the Caribbean and Central America.
No nation is required to respond to an Interpol request. Some countries, notably the United States in the years leading up to World War II, have declined to fully cooperate with Interpol for fear that its files may be misused for the prosecution of political criminals. In 1956, the organization agreed to forbid any activities of a political, military, religious, or racial character, but concerns remain that some countries may potentially ignore these guidelines. The chief fear of many member countries is that classified information may fall into the hands of terrorists since the distribution of intelligence cannot be restricted once it enters the Interpol system. Although this worry has reduced the amount of classified information flowing through Interpol, the organization has experienced a steady increase in information traffic. In 2000, Interpol transmitted 2.5 million messages, placed 15,116 notices of criminal activity in circulation, and projected that 1400 people would be arrested or located as the result of Interpol intelligence. Interpol notices are coded into ten different colors that represent different purposes. The red wanted notices are the most common and this type of communication requests the arrest of subjects for whom an arrest warrant has been issued and extradition will be sought. The other notices are: seeking the identity and location of subjects who have committed or witnessed criminal offenses (blue); providing warning about career criminals who have committed offenses in several countries (green); seeking missing or lost people, especially children abducted by parents (yellow); seeking the identification of corpses (black); warning of unusual modus operandi (purple); sharing knowledge of organized crime groups (gray); and advising of criminal activity with international ramifications that does not involve a specific person or group (orange). Stolen property notices are also distributed but are not coded.
As the second largest international organization behind the United Nations, Interpol has a record of proven success. It continues to grow as new nations join and the organization betters its communications system. The increasing global movement of people and the concomitant jump in international crime likely means that Interpol will remain a popular crime-fighting tool well into the twenty-first century.
Further Reading
Books
Anderson, Malcolm. Policing the World: Interpol and the Politics of International Police Co-operation. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989.
Bresler, Fenton. Interpol. London: Sinclair-Stevenson, 1992.
United States Department of Justice and United States Department of the Treasury. Interpol: The International Criminal Police Organization. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 2002.
Electronic
Interpol. "Interpol Information." <http://www.interpol.int/Public/Icpo/default.asp> (January 17, 2003).
| Law Encyclopedia: Interpol |
The acronym for the International Criminal Police Organization, which is a group designed to coordinate international law enforcement.
Interpol is an international organization of police forces from 176 countries. The purpose of Interpol is to further mutual aid and cooperation among the police forces of its national members and to prevent and inhibit crime.
Interpol was established in 1923, with the General Secretariat — the international headquarters — located in Lyons, France. Delegates from member countries meet once a year to discuss police problems and admit new members. Each member nation maintains and staffs its own national central bureau. In the United States, the bureau is located in Washington, D.C. The U.S. bureau is under the direction and control of the Departments of Justice and of the Treasury, and is staffed by personnel from those departments.
The General Secretariat is supported by membership dues. Its budget is based on the Swiss franc, since that is a stable currency. Approximately five percent of the total budget is paid by the United States.
Interpol is forbidden by its constitution to undertake any intervention or activities of a political, military, religious, or racial character. Each national central bureau coordinates and responds to inquiries received from local and foreign law enforcement agencies. Each bureau also arranges for resolutions adopted by Interpol to be applied at the national level, and works to ensure that the basic principles laid down by Interpol's constitution are followed. National central bureaus are linked electronically to the Interpol General Secretariat's main database in Lyons.
The organization uses a system of international notices (circulars) to inform peace officers in the national bureaus of cases where known criminals abandon their usual residence and travel abroad surreptitiously. The color coded circulars are distributed by Interpol Headquarters to member countries within twenty days of their issue, or, in urgent cases, the same day. In the case of a fugitive whose arrest is requested and whose extradition is likely, a wanted notice containing details of the arrest warrant and the offense committed is circulated.
In addition, Interpol conducts investigations of criminal activities, including drug trafficking, terrorism, counterfeiting, smuggling, organized crime, and new forms of economic crime. It conducts criminal history checks for visa and import permits and traces vehicle registration and ownership. Interpol also performs humanitarian services such as locating missing persons and providing notification of serious illness or death.
| Wikipedia: Interpol |
| International Criminal Police Organization – INTERPOL | |
| Common name | Interpol |
| Abbreviation | ICPO |
| Logo of the International Criminal Police Organization – INTERPOL. | |
| Agency overview | |
|---|---|
| Formed | 1923 |
| Legal personality | Governmental: Government agency |
| Jurisdictional structure | |
| International agency | |
| Countries | 188 member states |
| Governing body | Interpol General Assembly |
| Constituting instrument | ICPO-INTERPOL Constitution and General Regulations |
| General nature |
|
| Operational structure | |
| Headquarters | 200, quai Charles de Gaulle, Lyon, France |
| Agency executives |
|
| Facilities | |
| National Central Bureaus | 187 |
| Website | |
| http://www.interpol.int/ | |
| Footnotes | |
Interpol, whose full name is the International Criminal Police Organization – INTERPOL,[1] is an organization facilitating international police cooperation. It was established as the International Criminal Police Commission in 1923 and adopted its telegraphic address as its common name in 1956.
Its membership of 188 countries provides finance of around $59 million through annual contributions. The organization's headquarters are in Lyon, France. It is the second largest intergovernmental organization after the United Nations.
Its current Secretary-General is Ronald Noble, formerly of the United States Treasury. Jackie Selebi, National Commissioner of the South African Police Service, was president from 2004 but resigned on 13 January 2008, later being charged in South Africa on three counts of corruption and one of defeating the course of justice. He was replaced by Arturo Herrera Verdugo, current National Commissioner of Policía de Investigaciones de Chile and former vice president for the American Zone, who remained acting president until the organization meeting in October 2008,[2] and was subsequently replaced by Commissioner of Police Singapore Police Force, Khoo Boon Hui.
In order to maintain as politically neutral a role as possible, Interpol's constitution forbids its involvement in crimes that do not overlap several member countries,[3] or in any political, military, religious, or racial crimes.[4] Its work focuses primarily on public safety, terrorism, organized crime, crimes against humanity, genocide, war crimes, Piracy, illicit drug production, drug trafficking, weapons smuggling, human trafficking, money laundering, child pornography, white-collar crime, computer crime, intellectual property crime and corruption.
In 2005, the Interpol General Secretariat employed a staff of 502, representing 78 member countries. The Interpol public website received an average of 2.2 million page visits every month. The Interpol's red notices for the year led to the arrests of 3,500 people.
Contents |
Interpol was founded in Austria in 1923 as the International Criminal Police (ICP). Following the Anschluss (Austria's annexation by Nazi Germany) in 1938, the organization fell under the control of Nazi Germany and the Commission's headquarters were eventually moved to Berlin in 1942. It is unclear, however, if and to what extent the ICPC files were used to further the goals of the Nazi regime. However, from 1938 to 1945, the presidents of Interpol included Otto Steinhäusl (a general in the SS), Reinhard Heydrich (a general in the SS, and chair of the Wannsee Conference that appointed Heydrich the chief executor of the "Final solution to the Jewish question"), Arthur Nebe (a general in the SS, and Einsatzgruppen leader, under whose command at least 46,000 people were killed), and Ernst Kaltenbrunner (a general in the SS, the highest ranking SS officer executed after the Nuremberg Trial).
After the end of World War II in 1945, the organization was revived as the International Criminal Police Organization by European Allies of World War II officials from Belgium, France, Scandinavia and the United Kingdom. Its new headquarters were established in Saint-Cloud, a town on the outskirts of Paris. They remained there until 1989, when they were moved to their present location, Lyon.
Each member country maintains a National Central Bureau (NCB) staffed by national law enforcement officers. The NCB is the designated contact point for the Interpol General Secretariat, regional bureau and other member countries requiring assistance with overseas investigations and the location and apprehension of fugitives. This is especially important in countries which have many law-enforcement agencies: this central bureau is a unique point of contact for foreign entities, which may not understand the complexity of the law-enforcement system of the country they attempt to contact. For instance, the NCB for the United States of America is housed at the United States Department of Justice (DOJ). The NCB will then ensure the proper transmission of information to the correct agency.
Interpol maintains a large database charting unsolved crimes and both convicted and alleged criminals. At any time, a member nation has access to specific sections of the database and its police forces are encouraged to check information held by Interpol whenever a major crime is committed. The rationale behind this is that drug traffickers and similar criminals have international ties, and so it is likely that crimes will extend beyond political boundaries.
In 2002, following United Nations Security Council Resolution 1373 passed in the aftermath of September 11, Interpol began maintaining a database of lost and stolen identification and travel documents, allowing member countries to be alerted to the true nature of such documents when presented. Passport fraud, for example, is often performed by altering a stolen passport; in response, several member countries have worked to make online queries into the stolen document database part of their standard operating procedure in border control departments. As of early 2006, the database contained over ten million identification items reported lost or stolen, and is expected to grow more as more countries join the list of those reporting into the database.
In accordance with the definition provided on the Interpol website:
A preliminary condition for extradition is that the individual is to be prosecuted: if (s)he is merely wanted to give evidence as a witness, the matter must be settled by a so-named letter rogatory and not by extradition.
Extradition can be done by international courtesy based on the principle of reciprocity, or based on the extradition law that has two legal sources: international law and national legislation. The latter may be bilateral extradition treaties or multilateral extradition conventions, such as the European Convention on Extradition, the Commonwealth Scheme for the Rendition of Fugitive Offenders, the Arab League Extradition Convention, the Interamerican Extradition Convention and the Economic Community of West African States Extradition Convention, or other international conventions that incorporate provisions relating to extradition law.
The basic principles of extradition law are as follows:
The extradition procedure in the requested State may be one of three types:
Depending on extradition laws, there are two kinds of examination:
Sub-bureaus shown in italics.
Secretaries-general since organization's inception in 1923:
| to 1946 | |
| to 1951 | |
| to 1963 | |
| to 1978 | |
| to 1985 | |
| to 2000 | |
| since 2000 |
Presidents since organization's inception in 1923:
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
| Translations: Interpol |
Dansk (Danish)
abbr., -
n. - Interpol, international kriminalpolitikommission
Français (French)
abbr. - Interpol
n. - Interpol
Deutsch (German)
abbr. - Internationale Kriminalpolizeiorganisation
n. - Interpol (Internationale Kriminalpolizeiorganisation)
Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - Ιντερπόλ, Διεθνής Αστυνομία
Português (Portuguese)
abbr. - Polícia (f) Internacional
n. - Interpol (f)
Español (Spanish)
abbr. - Interpol, policía internacional
n. - Interpol
Svenska (Swedish)
abbr. - International Criminal Police
n. - Interpol
中文(简体)(Chinese (Simplified))
国际刑事警察组织, 国际警察组织
中文(繁體)(Chinese (Traditional))
abbr. - 國際刑事警察組織
n. - 國際警察組織
한국어 (Korean)
abbr. - International Criminal Police Organization(국제경찰협회)
n. - 국제경찰
العربيه (Arabic)
(الاسم) الإنتربول : منظمه الشرطه الدوليه ( البوليس الدولي)
עברית (Hebrew)
abbr. - האינטרפול
n. - המשטרה הבינלאומית
If you are unable to view some languages clearly, click here.
To select your translation preferences click here.
| extradition | |
| arrest warrant | |
| visa |
| What are the roles of police in criminal investigation? Read answer... | |
| When can police run criminal history? Read answer... | |
| What does the International Criminal Court do? Read answer... |
| Explain the the organization of criminal justice such as the police court and corrections? | |
| How do Interpol combat international crime? | |
| What are the various code of conduct for policing and the internal managment of law enforcement organizations? |
Copyrights:
![]() | Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 2006 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more | |
![]() | Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2003, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/. Read more | |
![]() | Intelligence Encyclopedia. Encyclopedia of Espionage, Intelligence, and Security. Copyright © 2004 by The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more | |
![]() | Law Encyclopedia. West's Encyclopedia of American Law. Copyright © 1998 by The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more | |
![]() | Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Interpol". Read more | |
![]() | Translations. Copyright © 2007, WizCom Technologies Ltd. All rights reserved. Read more |
Mentioned in