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( Prisoners of war)
A prisoner of war (POW, PoW, PW, P/W or PsW) is a combatant who is imprisoned by an enemy power during or immediately after an armed conflict. To be entitled to prisoner of war status, the captured service member must be a "lawful combatant" entitled to combatant's privilege--which gives them immunity for crimes constituting lawful acts of war, e.g., killing enemy troops. To qualify under the Fourth Geneva Convention, the combatant must have conducted military operations according to the laws and customs of war be part of a chain of command and wear a "fixed distinctive marking, visible from a distance", and bear arms openly. Thus, francs-tireurs, "terrorists", saboteurs, mercenaries and spies may be excluded. In practice, these criteria are not always interpreted strictly. Guerrillas, for example, may not wear an issued uniform or carry arms openly yet are sometimes granted POW status if captured (although Additional Protocol 1 may give them POW status in some circumstances). These criteria are normally restricted to international armed conflicts in civil wars insurgents are often treated as traitors or criminals by government forces, and are sometimes executed. However, in the American Civil War both sides treated captured troops as POWs despite the Union considering the Confederacy separatist rebels, presumably because of reciprocity. After the hunger strike by Bobby Sands and his Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) colleagues, the British government allegedly gave some POW privileges to IRA prisoners. However, guerrillas or any other combatant may not be granted the status if they try to use both the civilian and the military status. Thus, uniforms and/or badges are important in determining prisoner of war status.
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