In 1974 the Israeli Government transferred responsibility for the Nation's internal security from the army to the IP. Part of this transference of responsibility was the task of identifying the civilian casualties of national disasters. In fact, the IP's DVIU had already been helping the army identify its own war dead for a number of years. The DVIU is composed of 10 senior officers who are responsible for the various elements of its work, which includes disaster victims identification, equipment development, command and control, training, etc. The most visible component of the DVIU is its Field Assistance Unit, which is dispatched to each disaster site to reinforce the local force's technical identification officers. The Field Assistance Unit is composed of 20 senior officers, 180 technical identification officers, 5 mobile identification laboratories, and hundreds of Civil Guard volunteers. Recently, attention has been given to the health and safety, both physical and mental, of the technical identification officers, who regularly handle possibly infectious body parts and fragments. They have been issued personal safety kits. The mental risks for these officers are burn-out and the cumulative traumatization from being regularly surrounded by and managing mangled and mutilated bodies. The possibility of the victimization of Israeli citizens by non-conventional weapons is already worrying the IP's senior commanders, so measures are underway to make the DVIU ready for this eventuality. Because of the reputation of the DVIU, delegations from some of the world's leading police forces have come to Israel to be trained in its methods.