Transferred to South Vietnamese control in 1955, all the aforementioned security units were integrated in the early 1960s into a new national police force with the exception of the Civil Guard, which was placed under the authority of the Ministry of Defence.

The CSQG had an initial strength of only 16,000 uniformed and plainclothes agents, being essentially an urban constabulary with no rural Gendarmerie component to counter the threat posed by the increasing Viet Cong (VC) insurgency in the countryside.

[2] Even before the official creation of the National Police, President Diệm was quick to employ the security forces inherited from the French in repressing both internal political dissent and organized crime.

Throughout the late 1950s and into 1960, they helped the Vietnamese National Army (VNA) in suppressing the Hòa Hảo and Cao Đài militant religious and political sects, with approximately 25,000 armed militiamen, and the smaller but better organized Bình Xuyên Saigon-based gangster group.

[3] The CSQG strength peaked in February 1971 at 103,859 personnel – including 3,144 female agents, mostly engaged in clerical work[4] –, 4,450 vehicles and some 830 motorcycles of various types.

[5] Plans were drawn late that year to further expand the Police to 124,050 and later to 160,000, though the actual authorized strength in 1973 stood at about 130,000 men and women.

After finishing the course, the best-qualified students were selected to be sent for officer training to the National Police Academy (Vietnamese: Học viện cảnh sát quốc gia) at Saigon, where they attended advanced instruction programs at all levels, which comprised: Those recruits with lower qualifications went instead to the Non-commissioned Officer (NCO) School run by the ARVN at its Combat Training Centre (Vietnamese: Trung tâm huấn luyện chiến đấu) in Da Lat, co-located to the namesake South Vietnamese Armed Forces Military Academy, where they received special training that would enable them to graduate as Police NCOs.