rganized into five battalions. Individual units
are manned with fewer personnel than Sigurimi battalions, however, and
the total strength of the force is lower. Although the force is
organized strictly along military lines, it is under the Ministry of the
Interior and is more closely associated with the security police than
with the regular armed forces.

The stated mission of the Frontier Guards is to protect the State's
borders and to take action against spies, criminals, smugglers, and
infiltrators along the boundaries. In the process they also prevent
Albanians from leaving the country.

Frontier Guards personnel, like those of the Sigurimi, may be acquired
during the annual conscription. Career personnel are often those who
have served tours in the regular services. A guards' school was
established in 1953 in Tirana. Its students, as well as others allowed
in the force, are carefully screened for political reliability.

People's Police

The People's Police has five branches--the Police for Economic
Objectives, Communications Police, Fire Police, Detention Police, and
General Police. The Police for Economic Objectives serve as guards for
state buildings, factories, construction projects, and similar
enterprises. Communications Police guard bridges, railways, and wire
lines. Firefighting is a police function, accomplished by the Fire
Police. Detention Police are prison and camp guards. The fifth branch,
the General Police, attend to traffic regulation, local crime, and other
duties usually performed by local or municipal police.

General Police functions overlap those of the security police to some
extent, but the force operates in the local, as opposed to the national,
environment. Headquarters in the larger towns have security sections
that maintain records on suspected anti-Communists, an alien section
that maintains contact with Albanians outside their own districts as
well as aliens, and a political commissar who is so placed as to assure
the proper political orientation of all other personnel.

Citizens are required to carry identification cards. These contain
family and employment data and, as they are needed even for intervillage
travel, constitute an effective control over movement of the population.

Minimum service on the police force is for three years. Individuals with
earlier service in the armed forces, security police, or Frontier Guards
are preferred.

Auxiliary Police

A 1948 law requ