Twentieth Century
When the most intense of the civil wars broke out, known as the Thousand Days War (1899–1902), the National Police was once again assigned to the Ministry of War until September 6, 1901. Under the Decree 1380 of September 16, 1902 the National Police created the Presidential Palace Honor Guard Corps with the name Guardia Civil de la Ciudad de Bogotá (Civil Guard of the City of Bogotá).
During the presidency of Rafael Reyes, the government authorized by decree 743 of 1904 the Police was once again transferred to the Ministry of War, with the president micro-managing the institution. By authorization of Law 43 the Judicial Comisary of Police was established under the dependency of the Gereral Command of the National Police to investigate crimes within its jurisdiction.
From 1906 to 1909 the government created a cloned institution with similar functions to the National Police named National Gendarmerie Corps (Cuerpo de Gendarmeria Nacional) intended to function descentralized from the National Police command and more militarized regime, managed by the Ministry of War. When General Jorge Holguín suppressed the National Gendarmerie Corps, the province governors were given the authority to organize police service at their own will.
Law 14 signed on November 4, 1915 defined the National Police functions to "preserve public tranquility in Bogotá and any other place were needed to execute its functions, protect citizens and aid the constitutional law by enforcing it and the judicial branch of government. The institution was divided into three groups; the first in charge of security and vigilante functions, a second group acting as civil gendarmerie guard with the main function of protecting the postal service and controlling the prison system, the third group functioning as the judicial police. In 1916 the institution was trained by the Spanish Guardia Civil in their doctrine, mainly related to criminology. Two years later the organization was restructured by the Decree 1628 of October 9, 1918, assigning the direction, sub-direction and Inspector General duties to the Colombian Army. Soon thereafter, as authorized by Law 74 of November 19, 1919, Colombia's president hired a French instructor and chief of detectives, expert in the anthropometric system to train the National Police.
In 1924 the Criminal Investigation School was founded to update personnel working in this area. In 1929 the Colombian government in agreement with the Argentine government, hired Enrique Medina Artola to train the Colombian Police in dactylography to replace the anthropometric system. In 1934 in agreement with the Spanish government the National Police was trained in scientific identification until 1948.
On July 7, 1937 by the Decree 1277, the government authorized the creation of the General Santader Academy, which began operating in 1940 as an institute for every policemen recruit in the force. In 1939 the Colombian government receives the first cooperation agreement with the United States, through a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) committee headed by agent Edgar K. Thompson.
Read more about this topic: History Of The Colombian National Police
Famous quotes related to twentieth century:
“Hastiness and superficiality are the psychic diseases of the twentieth century, and more than anywhere else this disease is reflected in the press.”
—Alexander Solzhenitsyn (b. 1918)
“Advertising is the greatest art form of the twentieth century.”
—Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980)
“In the twentieth century one of the most personal relationships to have developed is that of the person and the state.... It’s become a fact of life that governments have become very intimate with people, most always to their detriment.”
—E.L. (Edgar Lawrence)
“As the twentieth century ends, commerce and culture are coming closer together. The distinction between life and art has been eroded by fifty years of enhanced communications, ever-improving reproduction technologies and increasing wealth.”
—Stephen Bayley (b. 1951)
“In the twentieth century, death terrifies men less than the absence of real life. All these dead, mechanized, specialized actions, stealing a little bit of life a thousand times a day until the mind and body are exhausted, until that death which is not the end of life but the final saturation with absence.”
—Raoul Vaneigem (b. 1934)