ABSTRACT
With the exception of the security services, law enforcement organizations have remained remarkably stable throughout the volatile periods of Italian governance. There are currently several different police forces in Italy, two of which are the most important, namely the polizia di stato, and the carabinieri. The Piedmontese government was the first to develop a modern cabinet system of government and to assign law enforcement to the Interior Ministry, at the time of the Risorgimento. Organizational hierarchy, combined with a vast bureaucracy and fragmentary units, causes organic obscurity and a relative lack of autonomy, making it nearly impossible to mobilize individuals within the police organization. A dual system of policing was installed, and old "pre-unitary" police forces were integrated in the carabinieri and the guardia di pubblica sicurezza. In the course of the twentieth century, the police forces mainly concentrated on internal security rather than criminality and focused on various revolutionaries.
