Director Maïwenn's first idea for the title was "Police", but another film already had this name: none other than famous French director Maurice Pialat's film in 1985. Her next idea was, "Vous êtes de la police?", but it too was already a film title. One day, as her young child was learning to write, he misspelled "Police", and she saw in front of her eyes the perfect title considering the subject of her movie, with a child's writing: "Polisse".
The French word for Police is spelled and said the same as in English. The title "Polisse" sounds like "police" and it is written as a child would do (the film is about the Youth Crime Squad in Paris).
The film is heavily inspired by Christine François and Rémi Lainé's documentary 'Brigade des mineurs: l'amour en souffrance' (1999). Real-life situations depicted in the documentary were included in the movie.
Baloo locks up the mother on drugs telling her "Police. Handcuffs. Prison." This can be seen as a reference to Luc Besson's movie Subway (1985), as it is the exact laconic sentence of Commissioner Gesberg capturing the "Roller Skater".
In Hungary the release date of the film had to be postponed because the film was rated "18". The Hungarian distributor appealed the decision.