Police diving

Police divers may be called in to investigate and recover evidence in plane crashes, submerged vehicles, boating accidents, suicides, homicides, swimming fatalities and other incidents and crimes.

Forensic divers may face a number of environmental hazards from underwater structures and infrastructure, debris, industrial pollution, medical waste, organic hazards from various sources, shifting currents, poor visibility, hypothermia and hyperthermia, for which special equipment may be required to mitigate the risk.

Qualifications and training for forensic divers are additional to departmental physical and psychological requirements.

There are advantages to having a regional underwater investigation team available, but doing it well requires planning, administration, an adequate budget and due consideration of occupational health and safety issues.

Public safety divers (PSDs) can be paid by the agencies employing them, or be non-paid volunteers.

All the principles of land-based law enforcement work preserving and collecting evidence apply underwater.

[11] It has helped provide public safety diver training[clarification needed] for police officers, fire departments, military divers, and environmental investigators in the following locations: North America, Central America, Russia, Australia, and the Caribbean.

[13] Some items of diving equipment have been designed or modified specifically for public safety diving, such as buoyancy compensator harnesses modified for helicopter lifts and swift water work, and for chemical resistance and HAZMAT conditions.