In the United Kingdom, the phrase military police is normally used to describe two main types of police: service police and regimental provosts. There are a number of civilian police forces whose role is to police other parts of the Defence Estate in the UK and overseas, but such forces are not correctly included in the term military police.
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In the UK, Service Police[1] is a term used to describe the sections of the British Armed Forces responsible for policing the members of the armed forces. They are comparable to the provosts of other countries, however the term 'provost' in the UK has various uses including reference to the staff of military prisons and senior service police officers (e.g. the Provost Marshal). Each of the services has its own service police branch, a standalone unit responsible for policing, close protection of VIPs[2] and, in the case of the Royal Military Police and Royal Air Force Police; other matters such as traffic control.[3][4]
Service police officers are not constables[7] and have powers over non-service personnel in very few cases.[8][9] In some areas, service police patrol alongside ordinary police officers from local territorial police forces. London's Soho is one example of this, in addition to various military towns such as Aldershot Garrison (where there are numerous barracks) and also in Plymouth due to its proximity to HMNB Devonport.[10] During these joint patrols service police may sometimes assist territorial police officers, and may take arrested service personnel back to their respective establishment.[10]
All service police receive their trade training at the Defence College of Policing and Guarding, and utilise the Service Police Crime Bureau operated by the RNP, RMP and RAFP. Each of the service police branches has its own Special Investigation Branch to undertake investigation of more serious crime and plain-clothes investigations.
The British military prison at Colchester is operated by the Military Provost Staff Corps, an all-senior NCO corps which only recruits from serving personnel. The staff of the Military Provost Staff Corps are known as provosts, but should not be confused with regimental provosts who fulfill a different function.
In addition to being policed by the Royal Military Police the British Army has Regimental Provosts, who are members of individual regiments or corps with responsibility for policing only within their own unit. Members of the Regimental Provost can be identified by the brassards they wear, which carry the letters "RP". They have the power to arrest soldiers of the same or lesser rank under the Army Act 1955. Their primary purpose is to enforce breaches of service discipline at a local level.
There are several civil police forces responsible to the Ministry of Defence. They each have specific roles and are staffed by police officers who are not part of the armed forces, thus they are not military police.
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