State Police

In the United States, state police are a police body unique to each U.S. state, having statewide authority to conduct law enforcement activities and criminal investigations. In general, they perform functions outside the normal purview of the city police or the county sheriff, such as enforcing traffic laws on state highways and interstate expressways, overseeing the security of the state capitol complex, protecting the governor, training new officers for departments too small to operate an academy, providing technological and scientific support services, and helping to coordinate multi-jurisdictional task force activity in serious or complicated cases.

23 US states actually call their state police, the State Police. In this case state police are general power law enforcement officers with statewide jurisdiction who conduct patrols and respond to calls for service and perform all the other forementioned duties. Such states include Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Indiana, New Mexico, New York, Illinois, Maryland, Virginia. Etc.

In other states the state police are limited function agencies called Highway Patrols, State Bureau of Investigations, etc. These agencies tend to be brought together under a state Department of Public Safety or may be under several agencies, such the Higway Patrol being under the state Department of Transportation.

State police agancies exist in every U.S. state and territory. They have emerged at various times in the history of each particular state, alternately evolving from corps of mounted rangers (the term trooper coming from cavalry parlance) or being newly established as a fully motorized highway patrol.

Other countries

In Australia, the state police are the primary arrangement for law enforcement, and thus provide all local law enforcement services, even in large cities such as Sydney or Cairns.

The Canadian provinces of Ontario, Québec, and Newfoundland respectively have a provincial police, a sûreté, and a constabulary which are roughly analogous to U.S. state police forces.

The Italian State Police are a national police agency which usually restricts its activities to the larger toans and cities, while the Carabinerie is active in rural and border ares.