State Police (Albania)
national police and law enforcement agency of Albania
The State Police (Albanian: Policia e Shtetit) is the national police and largest law enforcement agency of the Republic of Albania. This agency is responsible for ensuring the safety of citizens, keeping the public order, and serving the people anytime anywhere. The Albanian Police emergency number is 129, or 112 for general emergency services.
History
The original Albanian Police was founded on 13 January 1913 by the government of Ismail Qemali, Albania's first prime minister.
The collapse of the Communist system and the establishment of political pluralism post-1991 brought important changes to the structure of the Albanian Police. The Ministry of Public Order and the General Directorate of Police were established in April 1991, and the new law of July 1991 established the Public Order Police. Nearly 80% of police manpower, i.e. personnel who had served under the previous system, were replaced by new recruits.
On 4 November 1991, the Albanian Police was accepted as a member of Interpol.
The unrest of 1997
Following the collapse of the Albanian economy in January–February 1997 in the wake of the implosion of the Ponzi pyramid banking schemes promoted by the government, increasing insurgency in early March led to the Police and Republican Guard deserting en masse because it became clear they were unlikely to be paid, leaving their armouries unlocked, which were promptly looted by parties unknown, believed to mostly have been the local crime bodies and self-appointed militias: many of the weapons eventually surfaced in the ethnic fighting in Kosovo.
The public source identifies “State Police (Albania)” as national police and law enforcement agency of Albania. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around State, Police and Albania.
Why this record matters
A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “State Police (Albania)”, the useful work is to connect “national police and law enforcement agency of Albania” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4370215. Authority coordinates are 41.324, 19.813. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1913, 1991 and 1997.
Official terminology may obscure informal participation, dissent or communities documented only indirectly. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.
- Event chronology
- Institutional context
- Locating named record creators
Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “State Police (Albania)”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow State Police (Albania) primary sources, State Police (Albania) archive and State research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “State Police (Albania)”?
- What chronology connects this entry to wider political or social change?
- Which voices are present, absent or mediated by the institution?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “State Police (Albania)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.