Having adopted the model of the French police, the papal regime also assumed all of the attending functions and responsibilities. Yet, the tactlessness and inefficiency with which the papal police executed those functions soon became a subject of resentment and eventually scandal. On the one hand, critics accused the police of not performing their primary task: protecting the citizens' lives and property from crime. On the other hand, such critics complained that the police were vessatorie, or oppressive. In the eyes of the public, the police had their priorities scrambled. Instead of controlling dangerous suspects and catching criminals, they spent their time prying into people's private lives and arbitrarily harassing reputable citizens for their political opinions. In a sense, Consalvi's early dream of the police as an instrument of political power backfired, becoming a nightmare in which the police symbolized the Papal States' inefficient absolutism. Unable to cope with either the political or the social problems of the regime, the police helped set the stage for the revolution of 1831. Indeed, the failure of the police to maintain public security directly contributed to the revolution by provoking the city's elites to take control of the government in the name of law and order.

To appreciate this process, however, one must understand the variety and complexity of tasks assigned to the police, as well as the critical economic and political environment in which they were carried out.