Police in Vietnam

From: Cox, Pamela <pamcox@essex.ac.uk>

Date: 2008/8/7

To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>

Dear all

Does anyone know of any recent studies of the various police and security forces operating in Vietnam from the 1980s onwards?

I believe that (under the 1985 Criminal Code) there were four main types:

1. PSF – People's Security Force (or People's Police, for mainly urban areas)

2. PPSF - People's Public Security Force (and a village version of this, the PSS – People's Security Service)

3. Secret police/plain clothed police

4. PASF – People's Armed Security Force (which included some members of PAVN – People's Army of Vietnam)

Is this broadly right? And how different is it today? Are all policing agencies (apart from those linked to the military) managed within the numerous divisions of the Ministry of Public Security?

Best wishes,

Pam Cox

Department of Sociology

University of Essex

UK

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From: Stephen Denney <sdenney@ocf.berkeley.edu>

Date: Thu, Aug 7, 2008 at 12:37 PM

To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>

Our library here at UC Berkeley has some books on this subject, not many, mostly from Vietnam, in Vietnamese, on the history of the police in Vietnam, the most significant one probably is this book:

TI: 60 nam Cong an nhan dan Viet Nam : 1945-2005

IM: Ha Noi : Nha xuat ban Cong an nhan dan , 2006

CO: 1443 p. : ill. ; 28 cm

CALL: HV8252.5.A2.S38 2006

The Indochina Archive of U.C. Berkeley where I used to work had four file cabinet drawers on Security in the DRV/SRV, almost all FBIS and JPRS translations from the Vietnam press. I am not sure what the status or future of these files are at this time, as the archive has been closed for some time.

- Steve Denney

library assistant, U.C. Berkeley