PCSOs and chocolate teapots..

[Osem]

The wife, kids and I were out for a walk this afternoon to feed the ducks and came across rather more PCSOs than normally grace these parts. Not sure what was going on, we carried on towards the park and came across a large mob of youths congregated around a bus stop outside a fast food joint. I have no idea what had kicked off but I was struck by the total lack of respect these kids had for the PCSOs. They were swearing and trying to intimidate them in front of passers by, including a fair number of younger school kids who'd just got off the bus for some of whom it all seemed a jolly good laugh.

For me the scene it summed up so much of what Bliar 'achieved' -presentation over substance. The PCSOs had clearly radioed for help but as several friends in the police service have pointed out to me over time, there are often no real police left in this area to deal with trouble. Of course little old ladies feel better when they see the uniform but that's cold comfort when they get robbed or mugged and have to wait for hours for the real thing to turn up.

I don't blame the PCSOs, I blame the Government for putting them in an impossible position in pursuit of yet another quick fix to a difficult problem.

[v0id]

The youth of today have learned that PCSO's have no real police powers, and can't do more than a citizens arrest, despite getting paid which is why usually they're accompanied by a PC.
The voluntary specials can do more than PCSOs

[frogstamper]

I cannot see the point of these PCSOs, they seem to have very little power or authority, there only purpose as I see it is to show a person of authority in a uniform. But as Osem says, the mouthy youths he came across were well ware of these poor sods lack of authority. There does seem to be an awful lot of these PCSOs about nowadays, on a visit to London from Brighton yesterday I saw at least half a dozen pairs of them, it seems to me it would be far better to have half as many real extra police on the streets with real authority.

[Osem]

I was unfortunate enough to be waiting just outslde a secondary school yeterday afternoon just before the kids came out. Suddenly 2 PCSOs appeared - good I thought, maybe they'll ask some of the people parking on the pavement and zig zag lines to move on. Sadly not, they made their way to the exit and waited for the children. A few minutes later another 2 appeared and did exactly the same thing. Ah well, at least the kids will probably be a bit less rowdy given the presence of 4 uniforms I thought.. Not a bit of it! In the next 20 minutes or so I watched numerous appalling examples of dangerous driving/parking as well as kids larking about in the middle of the busy road all observed but totally ignored by our uniformed "protectors" who stood there chatting amongst themselves.

What is the point of these people??...

[punky]

Originally Posted by Osem

What is the point of these people??...

The point is to allow the government to make the public believe it's investing in a strong police force, without having to provide the funding for it.

They are cheap and look like police officers. The government thinks that the public will see them, think they are coppers and think "OOh, the government have put more coppers on the street. Great".

The government should really be extending the Specials. They at least have the same powers as full-time coppers.

[MovedGoalPosts]

I read somewhere that the Government was trying to increase the number of Specials. But that isn't the answer. Specials may do 4 hours a week, if that, and that will be to fit the Specials own lifestyle. Thus the times Specials are available will be very limited. They can fulfil a worthwhile role, but are no substitute for regular officers.

One should however look at the role of the Police generally. Parking and traffic obstruction issued are now usually the local authority's problem to enforce, not the police. Indeed I'm not sure if Police in some areas can even issue a parking ticket these days. Thus the PCSOs would not have been there for the traffic chaos that ensues outside most schools, merely to show a "community presence".

It's interesting to not the comments regarding abuse of the PCSOs who are recognised as being toothless. The same thing used to happen in my area to Specials, until the uniform was made much closer to that of Regular Police by removing certain insignia, same colour shirts, etc. That confused the local yobs!

Maybe in time PCSOs will get more power - I'm not saying they should get more power - after all even local council wardens can issue tickets for litter and stuff these days

[haydnwalker]

PCSOs in my area are few and far between - and they are (90% of the time anyway) usually accompanied by a full-fledged Constable. I agree the government should scrap PCSOs and put the cash towards "proper" coppers.

Rob: Most police officers now will not issue parking tickets (though they still have the powers to do so) and say it's up to the local authority. Not long back we needed a Disabled space that someone was parked in who wasnt disabled, and there was a nice police lady stood not too far away. We asked if there was anything she could do about it - but she said that she couldn't get the car towed as it was the Council's job now. She was very polite about it and said if she saw a warden that she'd mention it.

Didn't help us at that point though.

PCSOs shouldn't get more powers (what powers do they have now?? Apart from fining litter-bugs and handing out ASBOs??) They can't make a difference as many of the worst offenders have gotten wise that they aren't allowed to do much so flaunt the misbehavious in their faces as they can only look at it happening.

Originally Posted by haydnwalker

<snip>We asked if there was anything she could do about it - but she said that she couldn't get the car towed as it was the Council's job now. She was very polite about it and said if she saw a warden that she'd mention it..

The thing is, if your local authority has passed bylaws decriminalising parking offences within their area, there genuinely is nothing any police officer can do about it. It is up to one of the council-employed wardens to deal with it.

The police (or a traffic warden, by which I mean a proper one, not some scruffy git in a council-issue uniform) can, and do, still issue parking tickets in places where the council has not changed the law to prevent them.

They issue reams and reams of them down the road from us, at a popular local beauty spot where the entire length of road is a Clearway but loads of people still park.

[demented]

Don't really see the fuss. PCSOs seem no better or worse to me than their "proper" counterparts and have several distinct advantages imho, one being some geographical knowledge of the locality and the other being on foot/bike rather than whizzing in a manic manner around in a panda car. They are of course probably organised badly in their workload and deployment but you could say the same of PCs. There seems to me to be some things/places more PCSOs should be sent to and the other way round.

In my area we had two female pcso's who also live locally and they joined because they wanted to make a difference and in fairness to them they did a lot of work with the local kids and were making an impact. Unfortunately the hardcore of bad youth knew they had no real powers and even taunted them about not being able to get a "real copper" if they needed one.

Speaking to the two of them that have now stopped being pcso's they said as well that the attitude from regular police officers towards them was lousy and that they couldn't get any help when they needed it. They both had their windows put through because of being pcso's and in the end decided they couldn't continue as they both had family's and it was impacting too much on that.

We either have to give them some sort of real power or make it one pcso to one police officer or scrap the whole idea. As it is now there is absolutely no reason for a good person to become a pcso and that message is getting through to more and more people so at some point it will be a pointless exercise anyway.

[fireman328]

Originally Posted by Osem

The wife, kids and I were out for a walk this afternoon to feed the ducks and came across rather more PCSOs than normally grace these parts. Not sure what was going on, we carried on towards the park and came across a large mob of youths congregated around a bus stop outside a fast food joint. I have no idea what had kicked off but I was struck by the total lack of respect these kids had for the PCSOs. They were swearing and trying to intimidate them in front of passers by, including a fair number of younger school kids who'd just got off the bus for some of whom it all seemed a jolly good laugh.

For me the scene it summed up so much of what Bliar 'achieved' -presentation over substance. The PCSOs had clearly radioed for help but as several friends in the police service have pointed out to me over time, there are often no real police left in this area to deal with trouble. Of course little old ladies feel better when they see the uniform but that's cold comfort when they get robbed or mugged and have to wait for hours for the real thing to turn up.

I don't blame the PCSOs, I blame the Government for putting them in an impossible position in pursuit of yet another quick fix to a difficult problem.

Pay peanuts, get monkeys as the old saying goes.

[TheDaddy]

Originally Posted by fireman328

Pay peanuts, get monkeys as the old saying goes.

They aren't paid peanuts far from it, the money saved is on training them, about right really

[Kymmy]

Yet everyone moans when a police officer is tied up doing a menial task PSCO's were brought in to free up the police to do more real police work instead of having a trained police officer doing it. Same with the highways agency patrols on the motorway.

[Osem]

PCSO pay rates depend on the force they serve with and vary quite a lot:

http://police.homeoffice.gov.uk/publ...re?view=Binary

See pages 26 and 70 for the numbers.

[Derek]

Originally Posted by Kymmy

Yet everyone moans when a police officer is tied up doing a menial task PSCO's were brought in to free up the police to do more real police work instead of having a trained police officer doing it. Same with the highways agency patrols on the motorway.

There are still plenty of menial tasks the Police get stuck with. My personal viewpoint is the money spent on them could be better spent on fully sworn in Constables and reigning in the amount of paperwork and non-crimes they get involved in.
Similarly swap the Highways agency wombles for 'proper' Traffic Officers able to deal with criminals on the road.

I'm suspicious of the motives of the Government, they seem to be trying to dilute the Police and have more and more pseudo-Police about doing bits and pieces and trying to persuade the public they are safe. I wouldn't be surprised if they tried to drop the number of actual Police in favour of more staff from other agencies to try and save money.