The Ministry of Defence Police (or MOD Police; MDP) is the police force of the British Ministry of Defence.
The MOD Police was formed in 1971 by the merger of the Air Ministry Police, War Office Police and Admiralty Police. It is a civil police service with 3,800 personnel. Unlike most British police forces, all of its officers are trained to use firearms and 70 per cent are armed at any one time. The MOD Police has its own Chief Constable (and uses the standard British police rank structure) and since 1995 has been based at the former United States Air Force base at RAF Wethersfield . It works closely with the Ministry of Defence Guard Service, as part of the Ministry of Defence Police and Guarding Agency (MDPGA), and also with the four service police organisations.
The MOD Police is responsible for the security of defence installations and also provides uniformed police and investigative services within these installations. It has a presence at 120 Ministry of Defence sites, including arsenals, depots and housing estates, US Air Force Bases (on a reimbursement basis), Royal Ordnance Factories , Defence Research Establishments, and the Royal Mint. It maintains marine units which are responsible for the waterborne security of Her Majesty's Dockyards and has more watercraft than any other British police force. It also has 400 dog handlers who are teamed with explosive, drug, and search dogs. The Special Escort Group protects nuclear materials in transit between MOD establishments. The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) investigates crimes on MOD property and the Fraud Squad investigates fraud in MOD programmes.
The MOD Police are also authorised to provide assistance to local forces when required, especially during terrorist attacks and other serious incidents.
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