THE ROLE OF BORDER GUARD IN ENSURING SEAPORT SECURITY

Abstract

The Border Guard (BG) has a very important function in ensuring the proper pro-tection of the state border. Poland's accession to the Schengen Area itself has con-tributed to the freedom of movement within the territory of the Parties to the Agreement. The above event imposed a number of duties and powers on various services in Poland, including the Border Guard. Supervision over exploitation of Polish maritime areas is undoubtedly a responsible task performed by the Border Guard. The quality of the border checks on persons or means of transport contrib-utes to an adequate level of security. The article presents the organizational struc-ture of the Border Guard and the Maritime Unit of the Border Guard with head-quarters in Gdansk. Based on the data obtained from the Border Guard, the num-ber of border checks performed at the Border Guard posts operated by the Mari-time Unit of the Border Guard (MUBG) is presented. The presented numbers of disclosures of various negative incidents by the Border Guard officers show the scale of threats that may exist in Polish maritime areas. The large number of bor-der checks carried out by Border Guard officers, accompanied by a high rate of detected crimes and offences, only proves the commitment and professionalism of the said service.