Originally Posted by
Hanzo
My mother is a former Policia Nacional, many many moons ago, from what I've been told by her. The Politur are police for tourist, in tourist sections. IE the name Politur. Take example in SD, there's a Politur station on the corner off the street on the main strip in El Conde, I'm sure if some tourist are being hassled, have a crime to complain, or whatever that's who they'd take it up with, my understanding is that they're basically there to make sure tourist stay in one piece, but that they really don't have much power, outside of the pockets of which they're in. The PN, however is the national Dominican police force, and are regular cops just like anywhere else. Politur are there to make sure tourist are fine, but someone like yourself who lives there, and isn't a tourist, would probably be better off going to the PN (although you're really never better off involving them in ANY matter.) It's not like something where the police force is broken into two different sets, the ones for foreigners, and the ones for Dominicans. It's like the politur have a presence in high gringo areas, but don't have much juice or power in comparison to the PN.
This is my basic understanding of how it is, maybe someone else can chime in.