| > How does/did a citizen make the decision of which police force to call? It is a good question. It depends. There may be territorial choices or also "political" ones. Typically Carabinieri have more presence in the country/villages/small towns whilst Police have more presence in larger cities (but there are Carabinieri there as well and - additionally - the local police, which were once called Vigili Urbani and now are called Polizia Municipale, and there is also the Polizia Regionale, to the joy of foreigners that do have a really hard time to understand the subtleties), highways and main roads are typically Police only (Polizia Stradale), but minor roads are usually patroled by the Carabinieri. So usually you call (called) 112 or 113 depending on where you are (where the emergency happens). The "political" part is even more subtle. The Carabinieri are a branch of the military, whilst the Police are "civil", people leaning to the right tend to trust the Carabinieri (whose motto is "nei secoli fedele" i.e. "faithful in centuries") more than Police, whilst people leaning to the left tend to trust the Police as being more independent. Until not so many years ago if you (or your family) had some relationship/contacts with some (left side) parties or association you would have not been allowed to join the Carabinieri (whether this was official policy or simply what happened is another thing). The popular perception was (is) that the Carabinieri operate strictly by the Law, whilst Police is a little more "giving/flexible" (on minor things). On the other hand, once it was easier to join the Carabinieri with a lower level of school/education than to join the Police, so we have here all the jokes about stupidity/ignorance targeting the Carabinieri (the same ones that traditionally in the UK are about the Irish or the Polish). |