The Special Support Unit (SSU) acquired its current appellation in 1986. However, its existence can be traced as far as 1937 when a “Police Reserve” was constituted by Inspector General Godfrey. This detachment was based in Line Barracks and was trained, equipped and prepared to deal with any eventuality.
In 1957 the “Police Reserve” had a strength of one Assistant Superintendent, Six Sergeants and thirty Constables and by 1961 it was reinforce with one Inspector and twenty Constables.
In 1964 the “Police Reserve” was transferred to Vacoas under the new name of Police Riot Unit (PRU) and in 1966 a new unit with the appellation Riot Unit No 2 was formed and they occupied the barracks at Beau Bassin.
Today the SSU, which in the mean time, had moved back to Line Barracks consists of five operational units and a training wing under the command of an Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP).
The primary objective of the SSU is to assist the Regular Police in controlling civil unrest whenever the situation escalates beyond its control. However the SSU also supports the regular Police in a variety of functions such as providing security to sensitive and vulnerable points, crowd control, searching for missing persons, tracking criminals and escorting dangerous prisoners.
The deployment of the SSU, provides the required back up to the regular Police to deal effectively with problems relating to Law and Order.