Policja - Terminology

Terminology

The force's name, Policja, translates into the English language as Police, whilst the force's full name Policja Rzeczypospolitiej Polskiej is best translated as 'Police of the Polish Republic' or 'Police of the Republic of Poland', however, the full official title of the force is rarely used in speech.

An individual officer is typically called a policjant (plural policjanci); these are not, however, official titles and are not included in the official rank structure, they are simply terms used to refer to any police officer regardless of the rank they may hold. A police station is known as Komenda Policji or Komisariat Policji both of which translate more or less into English as Police Commissariat. Female officers may be referred to as policjantki, the singular of which is policjantka.

On the whole, officers' individual ranks are not used by the general public and thus when addressing an officer, it is common to hear the term Pan (female - Pani), Polish for mister/miss used to refer to police officers. On occasion, this may or may not be followed by the term Oficer.

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