Organization of police activities

Abstract

Police tasks have not changed for years and mainly consist in ensuring order and security for citizens. However, the police function as an organization in a certain legal order, it is subject to certain rules that determine its effective operation. Since 1989, that is from the political and social transformation in the functioning of the Polish Police has started in our country, two periods could be distinguished in which it was forced to make organizational changes. The first such moment came with the political transformation when Poland was entering the path of the democratic system. It was not an easy period because the mere change in legislation was not enough. It is worth mentioning that young Polish democracy was struggling with many negative factors, mainly inherited from the previous political system, e.g. the state of the economy, and inflation. From the perspective of the police 30 years of operation, based on statistical data, it can be concluded that the period directly related to political transformation was conducive to negative social phenomena such as crime, social pathologies or the lack of appropriate legal regulations in the new economic conditions. In 1990, the Polish Police leadership faced a lot of work to be done to ensure that the newly formed formation was not identified with the previous system as well as the role it played in the communist system. The second such event forcing a change in the organization of the police activities was January 1, 1999, when the administrative reform of the country entered into force. A difficult task was set up before the formation. After less than 9 years of functioning in the new reality, the then management was faced with adapting the organization to the situation related to, among other things, the new administrative division, transfer of many tasks and competences previously reserved for the central level to the level of local governments, or intensification of efforts to build civic self-governance at all levels of government. The following article presents issues related to police tasks, powers of the Police Commander-in-Chief, and police structures operating in the period in question