Smithsonian Police Smithsonian Police The Smithsonian Institution Office of Protection Services is the guard force of the Smithsonian Institution. It is a federal guard force consisting of 850 officers with very limited special police authority tasked with protecting visitors, staff, property, and grounds of the federally owned and managed Smithsonian Institution museums and research centers in Washington, D.C., New York City, at the 2,800 acre Smithsonian Environmental Research Center in Maryland as well as oversight of the security operations at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama. According to a 1978 report by the Comptroller General of the United States: In 1882
Independent Administrative Institution National Museum administrative efficiencies in the work of achieving the range of inter-related preservation, conservation, and education goals of each unique institution. In 2007, the perceived successes of the IAI National Museum experiment led to a further consolidation. The Independent Administrative Institution National Institutes for Cultural Heritage was established by merging two Independent Administrative Institutions—the National Museum, which comprised the Tokyo National Museum, the Kyoto National Museum, the Nara National Museum and the Kyushu National Museum—and the Independent Administrative Institution National Research Institute for Cultural Properties, which consisted of the National Research Institute for Cultural Properties, Tokyo and the National Research Institute