Federal Police (Belgium)

General Commissioner's Office (CG)

The General Commissioner 's Office (Dutch: Commissariaat-Generaal; French: Commissariat-Général; German: Generalkommissariat ) incorporates all the top-level central services of the Federal Police. It is commanded by the General Commissioner who directs and manages the Federal Police and ensures regular contact with the Local Police. The Office is responsible for integrated police operations, coordination, cooperation with local police and foreign police, intelligence gathering and management, dispatching and external communication.

The directorates of the Commissioner General's Office (CG)

The Directorate of International Police Cooperation (CGI) is Belgium’s national central bureau for the European Police Office (Europol), Schengen Information System and International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol).

The General Commissioner's Office also includes decentralized Coordination and Support Directorates (CSD/DCA) located in each judicial district. The CSD's, headed by coordinating directors (DirCo's), represent the Federal Police in the field and act as the link between the Local and the Federal Police. They play a key role in the integrated functioning of Belgium's police, together with the decentralized Directorates of the Judicial Police (FGP/PJF) which are also present in each judicial district. The CSD/DCA's offer support (logistical, personnel-related, managerial) and coordination to both local police forces and the other federal police units. In other words: the CSD/DCA's provide mainly administrative police services, while the FGP/PJF's offer judicial police services.

The Coordination and Support Directorates of the capital city of each province and of Brussels each command a platoon of the federal police's non-specialized intervention reserve: the Intervention Corps (CIK). The CIK consists of 500 non-specialized police officers which can be requested by local police forces and federal units for support in diverse missions.

General directorate of the administrative police (DGA)

This general directorate, abbreviated as DGA (Dutch: Algemene Directie Bestuurlijke Politie; French: Direction Générale Police Administrative; German: Generaldirektion Verwaltungspolizei), is the uniformed branch of the Belgian Federal Police which provides both specialized and supra-local services. Its counterpart is the General Directorate of Judicial Police, containing the non-uniformed investigative personnel. The Administrative Police consists of several directorates which command the different federal police units. The DGA performs administrative police operations such as traffic policing on the main roads, waterway policing on the North Sea and waterways, railway policing on the railways and in the stations, air policing at the national airport and in the five regional airports, immigration and border control, air and police dog support. The members of this general directorate also carry out protection missions, such as escorting the transport of valuables or the protection of royal palaces.

Moreover, the directorate supports the administrative authorities and the Local Police, for instance by supplying specialized staff and equipment (water cannons, etc.) for order maintenance missions.

The directorates of the DGA

The Directorate of protection (DAP) consists of two units: its Royal Palaces Security Detachment is responsible for protecting the Belgian Royal Family and their palaces, while the other unit of DAP, its Security Detachment at the SHAPE protects the SHAPE headquarters which is located at Casteau north of the Belgian city of Mons.

The Road Police has approximately 1000 officers who monitor traffic on the major highways.

The Waterway Police regulates ship navigation on inland waterways and on the North Sea.

The Railway Police is divided into five divisions and its 470 officers patrol the railways and stations to prevent crime and damage to rail property.

The Directorate of the aviation police maintains security at Brussels International Airport and at five regional airports. Finally, the immigration and border protection police is responsible for manning border crossing points and controlling immigration.

The Directorate of air support offers specialized support to the police such as event management (traffic jams, plane crashes, crowds, sporting events, etc.). The group’s five helicopters and two planes also search for missing people, suspects, clandestine laboratories, etc. The protection of VIPs and the transport of funds is also part of the mission.

The Directorate of canine support has 35 dog teams. Some dogs are trained to detect drugs, human remains, hormones or fire accelerants. About a third are tracker dogs trained to find or identify living people. These teams are often deployed to earthquake areas to locate people trapped in collapsed buildings. The federal police’s explosive detector dogs are attached to the CGSU special units.

General directorate of the judicial police (DGJ)

The General Directorate of the Judicial Police (Dutch: Algemene Directie Gerechtelijke politie; French: Direction Générale Police Judiciaire; German: Generaldirektion Gerichtspolizei) is a large component that operates at both the central level (from its Brussels-based headquarters) and local levels (through deconcentrated directorates (FGP/DPJ) in each judicial district).

The directorates of the DGJ

The DGJ's 4 central directorates coordinate serious crime investigations at the national and international level:

The Central Directorate of the operations of judicial police (DJO) manages the use and payment of police informants. It also coordinates and supports the operations of the decentralised investigation bureaux. The DJO also manages the national center for police information management and criminal analysis. Moreover, the operations section assists in the deployment of special units.

The Central Directorate of the fight against serious and organized crime (DJSOC) combats organised crime at the strategic level as well as the operational and tactical levels. Its purview currently includes Italian Mafia, Asian, Balkan, Russian and Hells Angels crime gangs. The DJC also operates the Belgian witness protection program.

The Central Directorate of the technical and scientific police (DJT) operates the fingerprint identification system and maintains laboratories for forensic and scientific work, audio and video analysis, and research and development. Other sections concentrate on profiling, special interrogation techniques and polygraphs.

The Directorate of the special units (DSU) is Belgium's police special units (with an intervention unit, an observation unit and a technical unit at the central level, and the five so-called Protection, Observation, Support and Arrest (POSA) platoons at the decentralized level), but also encompasses the Disaster Victim Identification unit.

The decentralised directorates of the DGJ (FGP/PJF)

Eighty-five percent of the DGJ's personnel is assigned to 14 decentralised investigation directorates, abbreviated as FGP/PJF. Manpower at each district varies: small bureaus can have as few as 40 personnel whereas the large ones can exceed 200. The organisation and management of these units are entrusted to the judicial directors (DirJud) (Dutch:gerechtelijk directeur /French: directeur judiciaire). Each decentralised FGP/PJF is made up of several sections directed towards the region's main criminal phenomena and executes specific support or criminal investigation missions. Although organisation differs from one district to another, sections dealing with drugs, people smuggling, financial and organized crime, vehicle theft rings are the most common. In addition, the PJF/FGP provides support services for the federal and local police, such as computer crime units, technical and forensic support, criminal information, operational criminal analysis and coordination with the administrative police.

Communication and information service of the district (SICAD)

Each judicial district has a "Communication and information service of the district" (Dutch: Communicatie- en informatiedienst van het arrondissement; French: Service d’information et de communication d’arrondissement;), which is part of the Coordination and support directorate of each district. The SICADs are manned by federal and local police officers that gather, assess and spread intelligence and information within the local and federal police forces. This is to facilitate the coordination of investigations and even day-to-day police operations. Each SICAD processes the criminal data from the local and federal police forces to analyze recent cases and events, thus identifying trends and issuing any necessary warnings. It also correlates the connections between cases, people, vehicles, etc. and sorts information for operational and strategic purposes. Each SICAD contributes to the cross-border exchange of police data and supports the managers of the police zones with data processing capabilities. Each chief of investigations has overall responsibility for a SICAD but a department chief ensures the daily management of the centre.

Ranks

The ranks of the Federal Police are the same as those in use in local police forces. The ranks currently are civic, as opposed to the paramilitary ranks that were in use in the former Belgian Rijkswacht/Gendarmerie, which was the Federal Police's main predecessor. This was chosen during the 1998–2001 reformation of the Belgian police forces to emphasize the change to a less militaristic police force, because paramilitary traits were considered less transparent as well as less approachable and thus less desirable.

The difference between local police and the Federal Police is shown by the different colors of the styling lines (orange for the Federal Police and light blue for local police) on the insignia, which are worn on the left chest pocket flap. Officers of both entities are hierarchically equal. Auxiliary officers are rather rare within the Federal Police and can mainly be found in the Air Police where they are deployed for traffic control at the Belgian airports.

Weapons

Such weapons listed out is used to equip ordinary officers. Federal Police Special Units possibility would gain other weaponry including rifles, machine guns, grenade launchers and sniper rifles depend on the situation encountered.