HOME OFFICE POLICE SCIENTIFIC DEVELOPMENT BRANCH

The overall objective of the Home Office Police Scientific Development Branch is the improvement in operational efficiency of the British police forces, by the study and planning of new methods and the development of special-purpose equipment. Scientific staff work closely with senior police officers on a wide variety of subjects. For example, systems research projects include studies of command and control, traffic resource allocation, and major incident record handling, while other groups carry out research on fingerprints and on facial recognition. Equipment work encompasses assessment and development of an extremely wide range of hardware, and four examples are described, namely remote observation, night vision, location of hidden objects, and intruder detection.