Organization
The organization of special police forces varies from state to state. Whilst most states have created one SEK in their capital city, others have taken regional crime focuses into account and established SEK units in major cities known as hotspots for violent crime, such as the North Rhine-Westphalia Police or Rheinland-Pfalz State Police. The Bavarian State Police and Hessen State Police have two SEKs each, one covering the north and one covering the south of the state.

A SEK unit can be attached to the (barracked) Rapid Reaction Police or to big regional police headquarters. However, the common trend is to put the SEK units under control of the State Investigation Bureau, whenever possible in a unit also consisting of the Mobiles Einsatzkommando (MEK, mobile special response unit) or other specialized forces like crisis negotiation teams.

The internal organisation of SEKs rests with the units and therefore differs as well.

The SEK of South Bavaria has an alpine component and the SEK units of Bremen and Hamburg have elements trained for maritime tasks. Some SEKs also have specialized negotiation groups (Verhandlungsgruppen, commonly abbreviated as VGs) for cases like hostage situations or suicide attempts.

Missions

Mainly unrecognized by the media and public, the main missions of SEK units are to serve arrest warrants and to deal with barricaded suspects. Hostage sieges, kidnappings and raids also belong to their missions as well as other scenarios like personal security detail for VIPs or witnesses.

Since the 1970s, each SEK has handled several thousand deployments. The front-runner is the SEK of the Berlin Police with up to 500 deployments a year, an average of 1.4 deployments a day.

Equipment
The basic gear for every SEK officer is a standard sidearm and a submachine gun. SEK would gain other weaponry including rifles, sniper rifles and even machine guns (in some units) depend on the situation encountered.

Unlike other police institutions, members are not bound to normal procurement policies and can order the equipment they feel the best for their mission.

The following list are the common weapons used by SEK：

Heckler & Koch P8 - Standard issue weapon
Glock 17
SIG P228
Heckler & Koch MP5 - Standard issue weapon
Heckler & Koch MP7 - Standard issue weapon in some units
Heckler & Koch UMP
Heckler & Koch G36
M4 carbine
Steyr AUG
Shotguns of different manufacturers
Heckler & Koch PSG1
Bolt action rifles manufactured by Blaser, Unique Alpine and Accuracy International
G8 (in some units)
PGM Hecate II in .50-caliber (in some units)

Uniforms

SEK members do not always operate in uniform and wear masks to protect their identities. If cited in a trial they are only referred to as numbers.

When off-duty SEK officers are called to a crime scene, they may appear plain-clothed, only wearing their special protective gear and carrying their weapons.