Hcfyk

I was chatting with a course mate in the morning and we talked about alcohol, then he mentioned ''in Poland you can't drink publicly, as the 'civic guard' may talk to you.''

Neither of us knew what the appropriate word for 'civic guard' would be.

It's not like the policeman but more like police only for some certain districts, like a superintendent? Is there any term for it?

Some local councils in the United Kingdom employ meighbourhood wardens. These are civilians, with no special powers of arrest.

The Neighbourhood Warden Service deal with environmental problems to
improve local areas. They promote community involvement and social
inclusion, especially among young people. Regular patrols are carried
out throughout the county, dealing with issues they encounter, or are
reported to them. They also help to tackle low level anti-social
behaviour, where it is safe to do so.

https://durham.gov.uk/article/1892/Neighbourhood-wardens

They may also be called Street warden, community warden, city warden, safety warden

Your day-to-day duties could include:

• responding to anti-social behaviour incidents




• reporting crime to the police




• telling the council and other authorities about environmental problems




• issuing fixed penalty notices for litter, graffiti and dog fouling




• making sure empty properties are safe and secure

https://nationalcareers.service.gov.uk/job-profiles/neighbourhood-warden

Street wardens (sometimes referred to as community wardens) do not
have police powers, nor are they the same as police community support
officers. Most street wardens have no powers, but instead have
priority reports, meaning their calls for assistance are dealt with
sooner. They also have specialist reporting forms to log anti-social
behaviour, environmental issues, and traffic violations.

Some local authorities have empowered street wardens to issue on the
spot fines for littering and dog fouling. Some also have the power to
confiscate alcohol from youths.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_warden

Such terminology is closely tied to the peculiarities of the legal system of a particular country, and there is therefore no straightforward way of translating a term like this into the language of a country with a different legal system. If one is speaking to an audience whose country happens to have something very similar in its legal system, one may use the term that is used for it in that country as the translation. That will, however, rarely be the case.

If the audience is from a country whose legal system does not have anything sufficiently similar, then one has to determine how important the precise legal status of the officers in question is to the point of the communication. If it isn't, one may use some term that is not exactly accurate (e.g. police officer in this case), as long as the inaccuracies do not interfere with the point one is trying to convey. On the other hand, if the point hinges on the precise legal status of these officers, then the only solution is to explain it, by saying something like 'In our country, we have a class of law-enforcement officers who have powers A, B, and C, but not D, E, and F. They are appointed by X, and supervised by Y. In our language, they are called . . . , which literally means . . . '.

It should be noted that the problem here is not, strictly speaking, a translation problem. It is not due to the fact that Polish and English are different languages, but to the fact that Poland is a different country from the country of the audience. Problems of the same kind arise when one is speaking of matters related to, say, Australian law to a U.S. audience, or the other way round.