The UK Police Service Approach to Specialist Search: Structure, Training and Capability of Search Assets

The Police Service in the United Kingdom has a well-established and very effecive program of training in specialist search planning and management. This training, together with the development and application of technical search assets and deployment methodologies, has been fundamental to the delivery of highly effective search operations in numerous operational arenas over many years. Whilst these methodologies were initially and primarily developed to defeat the threat from terrorism, the use of these and other techniques are now widely and effectively used in the search of the ground to locate buried items and objects that may include for example; missing persons, the graves of murder victims, the location of the remains of no-body murder victims, to recover evidence and concealed items in support of a prosecution, to gather intelligence, and to deprive criminals of their resources and therefore reduce the opportunity to commit crime.