The National Police Corps (, CNP; ; also known simply as the National Police, ) is the national civilian police force of Spain. The CNP is mainly responsible for policing urban areas, whilst rural policing is generally the responsibility of the Civil Guard, the Spanish national gendarmerie force. The CNP operates under the authority of Spain's Ministry of the Interior. They mostly handle public safety, criminal investigation, judicial, terrorism and immigration matters, having also the exclusive responsibility for national ID cards and passports. The powers of the National Police Corps varies according to the autonomous community. For example, the Ertzaintza and the Mossos d'Esquadra are the primary police agencies in the Basque Country and Catalonia, respectively. In Navarre and Canary Islands, they share some duties jointly with Policía Foral (Foruzaingoa) and Policia Canaria.
It has its own emergency number, 091, which is the hallmark of the National Police and was the first emergency number to be used in Spain, in Madrid in 1958.
History
The 1986 organic law unifying the separate uniformed and plainclothes branches of the national police was a major reform that required a considerable period of time to be brought into full effect. The former plainclothes service, known as the Superior Police Corps (), but often referred to as the "secret police", formerly the General Police Corps (), consisted of some 9,000 officers. Prior to 1986, it had a supervisory and coordinating role in police operations, conducted domestic surveillance, collected intelligence, investigated major crimes, issued identity documents, and carried out liaison with foreign police forces.
The uniformed service, the Armed Police Corps () which became the basis of the current National Police in 1978, was a completely separate organization with a complement of about 50,000 officers, including a small number of female recruits who were first accepted for training in 1984. The Director General of the National Police Corps, a senior official of the Ministry of Interior, commanded 13 regional headquarters, 50 provincial offices, and about 190 municipal police stations. In the nine largest cities, several district police stations served separate sections of the city. The chief of police of each station was in command of both the uniformed and the plainclothes officers attached to the station. A centrally controlled Special Operations Group () was an elite fighting unit trained to deal with terrorist and hostage situations.