Police Officers - Our New PCSOs
My disapproval of Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs) stems both from operational experience and the misguided belief in them as a support for police officers. The most effective support for sworn officers is more sworn officers. Any copper run ragged as forces struggle to resource an endless succession of crimes in progress would concur. At scene, a cursory attendance results in time enough to take a crime report and perhaps a statement from the aggrieved before the next incident in progress beckons (if one half of the attending unit hasn’t already been redeployed to another incident). A return to the station to begin processing paperwork picked up that day is crucial before the self-perpetuating cycle begins again. Not for nothing is the modern method referred to as fire brigade policing. Amid such inefficiency and disorganisation is the sight of usually paired PCSOs walking the streets. As their limited powers and their constitutions allow, PCSOs will decide either to get involved or call up for a uniformed officer to attend. Exactly who is supporting who becomes more and more apparent as does the extent to which the support has become the substitute.
Introduced by the Police Reform Act in 2002, PCSOs are intended to provide hi-visibility reassurance patrols, resolve certain low-level crime and gather intelligence. Their role reflects those aspects of policing formerly tasked to a beat bobby for which many rank and file officers joined. PCSOs cost approximately £10,000 less per year to employ than a sworn officer and require just three weeks to train. Currently, there are an estimated 16,000 PCSOs among the 43 police forces in England & Wales. The Chief Constable of each individual force decides which powers among those designated by the Home Office will be conferred upon their PCSO. As a result, PCSOs are defined less by what they can do and more by what they can’t. Their restricted powers and training compounds the burden on the front-line each time a sworn officer is called upon to resolve a situation in which a PCSO has quickly found themselves out of their depth. Once resolved, the sworn officer returns to the station to process the mountainous paperwork the incident has generated whilst the PCSO remains free to roam. It is understandable why being crewed with a PCSO is considered every uniformed officer’s worst nightmare.
Essentially, the station bound sworn officer has become the supportive pillar to the street bound PCSO. A reversal of roles has occurred whereby the police officer becomes the PCSO and the PCSO the police officer. To reduce the burden on the front-line the obvious solution would be to extend the powers of a PCSO. Ironically, this would serve to enshrine support officers as a police substitute, undermine the status and powers of sworn officers, reinforce their confinement in police stations and reduce their role to that of administrators. Indeed, we are already well on our way towards achieving such undesirable low-grade policing as 8 of the 43 forces in England & Wales predict they will recruit more support officers than police by 2008. Other forces expect to record a reduction in the number of sworn officers.
Moreover, PCSOs themselves require far more support than they in turn are able to provide. Consequently, they can be regarded as little more than a quick-fix, a short-term measure or a cosmetic expedient. The burgeoning number of PCSOs also reflects the general malaise of a Government who remain ignorant of what’s going on on the ground. The Government’s poor understanding of the problem has given rise to yet another ill-fitting solution. PCSOs are no more of an effective method of augmenting police numbers, creating reassurance and deterring crime, than downgrading cannabis was effective in freeing time for police officers to deal with harder drugs or changing the licencing laws was effective in reducing binge-drinking and alcohol fuelled anti-social behaviour. In each case the lack of a sustained police presence to prevent crime before it takes place, or at least to be in the vicinity to deal with it when it happens, provides both the problem and the solution.
Furthermore, making PCSOs more effective and less of a burden on the front-line entails increasing their powers. However, expanding the powers of PCSOs will surely sound the death knell for sworn officers supporting those who have effectively become their street bound substitute. Considering their inherent limitations, it is impossible for PCSOs to be more than the ‘eyes and the ears of the police’ the Government regards them as. With many response sections countrywide operating below minimum staffing levels, mere ’eyes and ears’ who are more of a hindrance than a help is considerably worse than no help at all. The seemingly inexorable march of PCSOs towards substitute policing must be halted. Nothing less than widespread public disapproval is required to prevent sworn police officers from becoming our new PCSOs.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=473229&in_page_id=1770
