Parapolice are law enforcement officers or intelligence agents considered "beyond", "ancillary" or "subsidiary" to the regular police force. The term has been used in criminology to refer to private security with an explicit relationship to public police forces.[1][2]
Parapolice organizations are generally considered legally sanctioned bodies acting either beyond or in addition to the duties and responsibilities normally attributed to the public or state police. Parapolice organizations, therefore, can include all private security companies, auxiliary or adjunct police services, or other legal albeit politically motivated intimidation squads acting either at the behest or with the acquiescence of government and/or power elites.[3]
The term 'parapolice' has acquired a measure of currency among some criminologists and is one that connotes a relationship as well as a distinction between private security and public police. The word 'parapolice' was first deployed in legislation that attempted to define penalties for neighbourhood watch group members who falsely identified as police officers and was thus specifically portrayed as illicit. More recently, sociologists and criminologists ... have made use of the expression in ways that do not treat it as an inherently illegal practice.
Para-police bodies exist more or less in the absence of any appropriate legal basis, are closely linked to the police, and in practice wield some of their powers.