ABSTRACT
Crime has always represented a threat to the security of ordinary people in all countries and, occasionally, to state institutions also. In recent years, however, this threat has become greater and changed in nature, undermining the capacity of governments to protect both their citizens and themselves. The use of legitimate sovereign force to uphold domestic law and order is universal and has a long history. In some countries state security has traditionally been as much a domestic political issue as an international one. In Italy during the Cold War, for example, the domestic threat posed by political violence (most notably the Red Brigade) and criminal violence (most notably the mafia) dominated state security policy to much the same extent as the Soviet threat preoccupying the rest of Western Europe. This fact manifests itself in the existence and prominence in Italy of the paramilitary police force, the Carabinieri, in contrast to its relatively modest military presence. More and more democratic counties have turned to paramilitary policing in recent years as a blurring of the distinction between internal and external security has prompted a commensurate blurring of the traditional roles of the military and police.
