KriPo and SePo – What’s the difference?

In the broadest sense, KriPo (criminal police) investigate crimes against individuals, and SePo (security police) investigate crimes against society at large. 

No one relishes a visit from SePo

Both KriPo and SePo use the same general classifications of crime:

• Violence
• Theft
• Fraud
• Negligence
• Incitement

It’s the scale of the crime that marks the difference in jurisdiction.

	Criminal	Social/Political
Violence	Stabbed someone after a drunken altercation	Set off a bomb in a shopping centre that killed many
Theft	Stole someone’s wallet	Hijacked a food convoy that would feed thousands
Fraud	Pretended to be someone so you can draw on their pension	Falsified documents so you can influence public policy
Negligence	Involved in a drink-drive incident	Fell asleep at the controls of the nuclear powerplant
Incitement	Paid someone to muder your partner’s lover	Extolled a crowd to riot

All of which sounds perfectly reasonable if you read it fast enough and don’t think about it. But a moment’s consideration will reveal that the boundaries are not clear at all. When does a personal crime become a crime against everyone? A robbery of an architect’s safe seems a criminal matter until it’s revealed that the stolen items were blueprints to the local police station.

Is an attempt to ruin a local politician because he defrauded grandma of her ship share a criminal offence? What if the scam involved many people over a period of time? What if the actions might cause the fall of the local government? Is it a social crime now?

This is the essential and eternal tension between the criminal and political police.

Criminal police, ordinary coppers on the beat and detectives alike, are dedicated to getting to the truth of harm to ordinary people, and making it right. They hunt down rapists and thugs and bring them to justice. 

Security police have exactly the same goals, except they look to the systemic causes and hunt down the criminals that are rotting society from within. 

But where is the hand off? When does a local petty crime become something bigger?

When a crime is first reported it is likely that KriPo will be the first responders. They will assess the crime and make a call if it’s criminal or needs to be kicked up the line to security. Conversely, SePo may be following a chain of events and conclude that the motive was entirely sordid: it was simply a jealousy murder or the motive was simple greed. Then they kick it back down to KriPo.

Criminal police will have one of two typical approaches when starting an investigation. The first is to kick it up the line to political police if it even vaguely sniffs of a ‘bigger picture’. The second is to sink their teeth into the case and try to solve it before political police get involved and blow it out of proportion.

Political police also have two typical approaches. The first is to assume that most crimes are committed by stupid people, and unless there are obvious implications of a conspiracy kick it down to criminal police to handle. The second is to start from the position that everything is political if you dig deep enough and to assume that criminal police are lazy and inefficient. They therefore sink their teeth into a case and keep shaking, even in the face of KriPo obstruction, until they uncover the underlying terrorist counter-revolutionary plot and plotters.

Adventure hooks

Place these crimes on any Republic world. Either KriPo or SePo characters can conduct the investigations, remembering that even if it is a simple criminal case SePo will probably still watch to make sure KriPo don’t obscure evidence of greater crimes. In almost all cases, as in reality today, there will be aspects of a crime that have both personal and societal implications. Regardless of whether the characters are KriPo or SePo there will be interplay between the two forces. 

• The body of a prominent Interkosmos manager has been found starved to death in a robot helicopter that has been circling the city for months. Its controls have been disabled and it only landed now for routine maintenance. Revenge killing, or a complex plot to disrupt Interkosmos on this planet?
• A civilian has been assaulted outside a Rocket Infantry base. Locals are up in arms that justice must be done. One bad apple, or signs that the whole command structure at the base is rotten?
• Guests at the wedding of a prominent family come down with food poisoning. Most of the local council members were present. Negligence on behalf of the head chef, or a plot to ensure that unfavourable voters will not be present at an important government planning session?
• Some easily detected counterfeit money has turned up at a UGS. Pathetic punks attempting to ‘make money’ so they can buy drugs, or a conspiracy to destabilise the local Republic economy? 
• A ship has turned up at the local spaceport with a doctored IFF transponder. As simple as finding the data-engineer who is illegally performing this operation for amateur smugglers, or the tip of an iceburg that leads to a bratva (pirate) enterprise?
• Some racing dogs of a famous trainer have been poisoned. Simple case of rival trainer nobbling his competitor, or a trial run of a new neurotoxin that if released in the local reservoir could kill thousands?

For a look at how an apparent criminal case investigated by a tenacious policemen turns out to be far more complex and politically charged than at first thought try the novel Gorky Park by Martin Cruz-Smith ISBN 1501177966

(Traveller RPG)