The Sovereign Base Areas Police is the local civilian police force for the British controlled Sovereign Base Areas (SBA) of Akrotiri and Dhekelia in Cyprus.

Organisation

Established in August 1960, the force has responsibility for all 15,000 residents of the SBAs, including military personnel. The Cyprus Joint Police Unit (the Royal Navy Police, Royal Military Police and RAF Police), has concurrent jurisdiction over all offences committed by service personnel and UK dependents/employees within the SBAs, garrisons, and stations, and other retained military sites outside the SBAs. Both work in full cooperation with each other and any jurisdiction issues are managed through an agreed memorandum of understanding.

Numbers

The SBA Police consists of a total of 241 officers and 12 civilian employees. There are British senior officers, with the remainder recruited from the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities. In addition to its regular policing duties, the SBA Police has responsibility for the operation of HMP Dhekelia (the SBA Prison).

Affiliation

Although the SBA Police is administered by the Ministry of Defence, it is a separate force from the Ministry of Defence Police (MDP).