Bavarian State Police

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The Bavarian State Police has approximately 32,000 officers and roughly 5,600 civilian employees and is therefore one of the biggest police forces in Germany. By adopting a coordinated and aggressive approach to crime, Bavaria aims to guarantee public safety and order so it can proudly boast it is number one in the "Security in Germany" rankings.

Bavaria is in the midst of a police reorganization that aims to reduce bureaucracy by changing from a four-tier hierarchy (Interior Ministry, Regional Police Authority, Police Department, Police Station) to three levels (Interior Ministry, new Regional Police Authority, Police Station). The seven Polizeipräsidien in Würzburg, Bayreuth, Regensburg, Nuremberg, Augsburg, Munich (City) and Oberbayern (HQ in Munich) will give way to 10 new areas and the Polizeidirektionen will disappear.

A pilot project began in mid-2005 in Lower Franconia to test the new system which required the rewiring of all police radio and emergency notification networks. The reorganisation is to be complete by the end of 2008.

Citizens in Bavaria also participate in public safety. This commitment to civic action is seen, for example, in the Sicherheitswacht Neighborhood Watch program, where citizens in 510 Bavarian towns voluntarily assist their local police.

Bavaria is also very interested in cooperation with Eastern European countries. As a significant percentage of Bavaria’s crimes are committed by organized gangs from Eastern Europe, it makes sense to cooperate with the police forces there to stop these gangs. The Landeskriminalamt (State Investigation Bureau) is situated in Munich and employs 1,500 officers and civilian staff. Its missions are: witness protection, state security, SWAT (Spezialeinsatzkommando) team operations, undercover investigations, statistics, monitoring the development of crime, crime prevention, criminal investigations analysis, exchange of information with foreign countries and forensic science.

The Police Support Group HQ (Bereitschaftspolizeipräsidium) in Bamberg employs 6,000 officers and civilian staff at seven Bereitschaftspolizeiabteilungen (BPA), the police schools, the police orchestra and the police helicopter squadron. The BPAs are situated in Munich, Eichstätt, Würzburg, Nuremberg, Königsbrunn, Dachau and Sulzbach-Rosenberg and have 10 companies as the state’s mobile police reserve. The helicopter squadron has nine modern choppers stationed at Munich Airport and Roth Airfield near Nuremberg. Bavaria has two basic training schools, one professional development school and a working dog school.

The Bavarian River Police is directly subordinate to the Ministry of the Interior. The HQ is in Nuremberg and has 10 river police stations along the Main and Danube rivers and the Main-Danube Canal. It also supports 14 police stations that cover the major lakes in Bavaria.