NationStates Jolt Archive

Okay, forgive me for posting something that I just know has been asked before, but that was awhile ago and I couldn't find the thread. I tried! I suck at searching or some such.

Now, my country has a gendarmerie as a police and irregular military force, as they tend to be in many countries -- there are no actual civilian police, it's taken care of by the gendarmerie and in some instances the personal security forces of noble houses in areas where the relevant family literally owns everything. The problem I'm facing is that I'm not entirely sure what kind of ratio there should be. It has been suggested that I use a 1:1000 ratio, but that means the gendarmerie is consumed by the civilian role, making them nothing more than a police force (and I relatively small one, no?). They need to be able to take care of peacekeeping abroad, anti-terrorist work, etc.

I've seen statistics of an average of 2.5 police officers for 1000 population, too, and I know Italy has about 5:1000 so I'm not sure what to generally take as a good estimate of having decent police coverage. Then beyond that, the force needs to capable of deployment.

I think I could probably just pick something at random if I didn't also have compulsory military service (which I toned down to "for commoners who don't attend university" to stop from having an abominably high percent population in the military). I think I'm justifiably worried in people thinking I'm being wanky no matter what I do, by either having a high number of military personnel (I've seen bragging about 5 billion-pop nations having always less than 1% in the military), or by having my people be far, far too law-abiding for the police numbers.

There was more I had to say but for some reason, I'm blanking right now. So, I'll leave it at that until I get some advice or questions for clarification are asked.

Oh, and for quick reference, my population is 7.246 billion.

It depends largely on how comprehensive you want your force to be. If you really want it to be like an irregular army serving as military police, then even numbers as high as 20 per 1000 people is not unnatural. Hell, in Stoklomolvi, there is 1 policeman for every 10-50 people. It's truly an Orwellian nightmare, but I can field those forces into battle when I don't want to use my main army.

From what you've told me about your nation, you should probably get medieval on its ass. Noble Houses with private militaries. Be them noblemen or private military contractors. The modern equivalent is large corporations in control of private armies...take Blackwater and exaggerate the shit out of it, man.

That'd be awesome, in my opinion.

Ah, I might consider having the Gendarmerie be the largest branch (45%, I'm thinking) and run by the elected government as a whole, not any House, and the other 55% be provided by army groups/fleets/air wings provided by the Major Houses -- for that, I'm thinking 30% army, 15% navy, 10% air force. Having tens of thousands of ships in the navy seems really wanky to me, so I think the small navy may be necessary. Though, the Gendarmerie would have a naval aspect, as well, just not the same thing.

Of course, the percentages may change based on the number of people I have in the military. That number will seem rather high (like, pushing that 5%, possibly) due to having a gendarme, so that leads to the major question of the thread: will people generally accept that if the police force is also a military force of some kind, then you can push the 5% without being economically ruined? Will I not, typically speaking, be bitched at for combining my defense and law & order budgets? I mean, just because it makes sense for me doesn't mean people won't dislike it and shoot ignores at me.

What happens to your crime rate when you send the Gendarmerie off to war?
;)

Well, nothing much if I only send them in small groups. If the ratio is high, then there are more police than needed, so it shouldn't be problem to send out a few thousand, really. If I tried to involve myself in a large conflict and made too much use of the Gendarmerie, then yeah, crime rates would increase (and, relatively speaking, skyrocket) despite our progressive social policies.