Oh great, policing on the cheap
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Dear Jacqui Smith,
Now that times are tough and government spending is being put under increasing pressure, I’m sure there are many discussions going on behind the scenes about how to manage departmental finances. There are some areas of centralised spending that I’m sure many people would be happy to see reductions in – pointless quangos, for example. However, there are other issues on which I don’t really want to see the government doing things on the cheap – and our police force is certainly one of them. Amazingly enough, you seem to disagree with me on this.
Like many other people, I detest Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs). It’s not that they are nasty people or that they don’t do their jobs well – it’s just that there is absolutely no need to have them in the first place. Real police officers can do everything a PCSO can do, and much more. To my mind, PCSOs have always and will always be a financial fudge to make it look like there is someone walking the streets and protecting the public, whereas in fact PCSOs can do sod all. Their powers are restricted to actions such as (and this is no joke) issuing penalty notices for littering, taking the name and address of someone who has committed a road traffic offence, confiscating alcohol and tobacco from those underage, stopping bicycles and placing traffic signs. I bet those criminals are crapping themselves at the prospect of a PCSO telling them they are being very naughty.
Your new line of attack is to give PCSO more powers which will include (wait for it) detaining a suspect until a police constable arrives, impose a fine for those caught writing graffiti and dispersing ‘troublemakers’. In your speech yesterday, you were keen to stress that PCSOs were not a replacement for police officers and said that they should not be allowed to make arrests, saying that arrests “must remain a power for constables alone”. Ok, so let’s just recap: you agree that PCSOs are no replacement for police officers, but you have ringfenced funding for PCSOs in the 2007 Comprehensive Spending Review (which last for four years) at the same time as squeezing the budgets of police authorites around the country, which will apparently force this country to shed 6,000 police officers over the next three years. In short, police chiefs have no choice but to employ these cheap police officer substitutes (and yes, they are substitutes) because their budgets have been cut, so paying a PCSO as little as £14,000 a year is probably their only option.
PCSOs, introduced in 2002 by David Blunkett, have been criticised for their lack of powers and have been disparagingly referred to as “plastic policemen” and “Blunkett’s bobbies”, and I can see why. For you to claim that you believe PCSOs “play a distinct and vital neighbourhood role providing high visibility patrol, community engagement and problem solving” is nothing short of hilarious. You added that ”PCSOs don’t damage police officers in the eye of the public. I do sense a move away from some of the denigration of the role of PCSOs that I know has gone on previously and I will continue to make the argument for the role of PCSOs.” Errr, what argument? I’ve never heard you argue in favour of PCSOs. In fact, I’ve never heard anyone argue in favour of them. You may have the trade unions kissing your butt for ‘professionalising’ PCSOs, who somehow got the impression that “the majority of the public say that PCSOs are doing a good or excellent job in their local area” (no evidence provided, naturally), but I would much rather you made your case to the public instead of hiding behind the unions and your cosy Westminster speech.
Allow me to finish this letter with a frank and honest appraisal of PCSO. I don’t want a PCSO doing a “high visibility patrol” – I want a police officer doing a patrol. I don’t want to see a PCSO getting involved in ‘community engagement’ – I want the police to talk to the local community. I don’t want a PCSO to detain a suspect until the police arrive – I want the police to detain and arrest the suspect in the first place. To cut a long story short, I don’t want PCSOs and I certainly don’t want ‘Special Constables’ (police volunteers) – I want the police to be on the streets, protecting me and everyone else.
Yours despairingly,
A.Tory
Witanagemot Blogs
A few weeks ago, my neighbour turned up on my doorstep, distressed and asking for help because two men had just kicked her door in and entered the house. She had done the sensible thing and run for it. Naturally, we called 999.
We didn’t want “community engagement and problem solving”. We wanted well-built police officers with big sticks, big hungry dogs, and access to two spare prison places. (We were very pleased to be provided with the first two, at least.)
So I find myself in complete agreement with your last paragraph.
What worries me is that the men also ran off, on hearing her screams. This meant that there were somewhere else by the time the officers arrived. Now, if they had had any sense, they would have known that virtually all the local constables were tied up at our neighbour’s house; if they had tried another house a few miles away, all that would have been left to respond would be a few PCSOs.
This is why 12 officers are better than 6 officers and 10 PCSOs; flexibility of response.
What’s your problem with Special Constables? They are free and don’t prevent the recruitment of full-time officers. Nobody is suggesting that they replace full-time officers.
BE, I totally disagree. You might not want them to replace the police, but they do. Did you ever wonder why you see so many PCSOs wondering around the streets instead of police officers? Did you ever wonder why so much money was being put into advertising, recruiting and training volunteers instead of fully trained police officers? Did you ever wonder why PCSO and Special Constables are dressed almost identically to real police officers instead of letting the public know that they are not trained?
It’s all part of the same game. Cheaper policing, fewer real police officers, budget cuts leading to more PCSOs, plsu volunteers being used as a ‘visible’ patrol instead of the actual police. It is a national disgrace.
I’m with BE. I think they need more powers. Police were taken from the streets, put into cars and then into administration. no one was walking the towns. Shoplifting,yob behaviour,graffiti,gang culture, parking in bus shelters, littering all increased enormously.
Town centres put in CCTV and Radio link “self policing” schemes that were expensive and only partially successful. In Towns and villages across the country people have been calling for
a uniformed presence.
The problem is Not enough power, not too little.
Yes, it is policing on the cheap. But that is the purpose. I think that the Home Sec, afraid of police anger at having their jobs pinched, cosy pensions put under threat by these ‘new’ police made such a fuss that they were made little more than park wardens.
People want police. These are community police. If they could arrest ASBO breakers, stop littering, bring in the drunks, help the mugged, prevent criminal damage and provide reassurance and assistance it would be worth the cost.
They should not be employed on armed raids, high speed pursuits stakeouts, dawn raids, picket lines. They should also not be evidence gatherers and statement takers..That should be an entirely separate administrative copper who could be trained in weeks. In both cases front line, trained police are returned to their proper duties and the lesser tasks are taken by others.
Why did shopping centres start hiring security guards in the 1990’s? because the police no longer came.
Give the Specials more powers, not less and we would have police back on the beat
Specials are not PCSOs! Specials are part time coppers!
BQ, I would much rather that the police I saw on the street were able to do EVERYTHING bearing in mind that the police have no idea when, where and how a situation is going to break out. I don’t want a PCSO wondering around who can tell you off for littering but can’t pursue and arrest a criminal because they haven’t been on the right course.
BE, I know Special Constables are not PCSOs but if they are police officers then we should be paying them, not getting free labour out of people who risk their lives – like I said, I don’t want policing on the cheap! I want properly trained and funded police officers!
PCSOs are little more than yellow-jacketed stasi-inspired jobsworths.
I hate the twats with a vengance.
I live in Newhaven and our local police station, veritable palace that it is, is open between the hours of 9 – 5:30, Monday to Friday. Out of hours service calls on the neighbouring coppers of Seaford, several miles away. Lucky villains only work bankers hours, eh? Oh.. bugger.
PCSOs are designed too look like police to make you *feel* safer without actually being safer. Their role, fundamentally, isn’t about crime or disorder, its to assuage the fear of crime and disorder.
Amen to all of that.
Q: How many PCSOs does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: Six. 1 to actually change the bulb, 2 to assess the healthy and safety procedures and 3 to stand around looking gormless.
Let’s take BQ’s idea to its logical conclusion, and give PCSOs all the powers that a person on the beat needs.
Then, make sure they have the training they need in order to exercise those powers properly.
Of course, they would then be entitled to ask for a salary that reflected their powers and their training.
Finally, we could then save money by not issuing those little blue flashes on their uniform. And we could call them “police officers”.
Specials aren’t “policing on the cheap”, they are people who want to do voluntary work in their spare time. What you are suggesting is that the people who already are Specials should either decide to do the job full time or volunteer somewhere else. I doubt that every Special wants to be a full-time copper, so you would actually find that there were fewer officers around rather than more.
They don’t have to be full-time, but not paying people (even though their public spirit is fantastic) is unacceptable and morally wrong, given the dangers that they might face.
The government should pay them the same rate as their full-time equivalent. Otherwise, the only possible conclusion is that the government is doing things on the cheap.
Patently.. But there is the inverse.
If you need to change a light socket in your wall. Do you need an electrician NVQ level 1..An electrician with 5 years experience..Or an electrical engineer with 30 years experience who is currently working on maintaining the National grid?
The prices charged would reflect the experience.
Local policing issues GENERALLY revolve around mild street crime, accidents, theft, lost kids, bad behaviour , drunks, neighbour disputes and keeping the 5% of hardcore trouble makers away from everyone else.
They don’t need the advanced skills..they will learn them over time. They need the training, equipment and communications to call for back-up in situations that they cannot deal with.
The argument is like the old doctors argument that nurses cannot give injections because they don’t have 7 years medical school behind them.
You all may as well vote for Nightjack to write about PCSOs. It would be well worth reading.
http://nightjack.wordpress.com/2008/10/16/b
ecause-its-there/
Not convinced, Bill. Sorry!
With an electrical socket, I can see what the problem is and choose the right person to mend it. I’m usually pretty accurate in my guess that the fault does not reach back to the Grid!
Policing issues are not the same. The ‘mild’ street crime doesn’t stop if the only person that turns up can’t do anything about it. And the major stuff can’t be spotted if the real officers are not around as a matter of routine. That is the harm of trying to do it cheaply.
Medicine is actually a better analogy than electrical work. Yes, doctors can be a bit precious. But if you keep being sent to a nurse when you have a tummy bug, you’ll be told it’s just a virus, get some rest, have some biscuits and plenty of water. 95% of the time, they’ll be right. The other 5% will continue wasting away until they collapse and are rushed to casualty…
Go to a good GP and they’ll see the ongoing history of tummy upsets, the thin arms, the disproportionate tummy, the pale complexion, the anaemia, then diagnose Coeliac disease and tell you never to eat a biscuit again. (for example!)
Or another analogy – 99.9% of transatlantic flights are wholly routine. So we don’t need a fully qualified pilot, surely?
Why is volunteering unacceptable and morally wrong? If Specials were paid there would then be all sorts of perverse incentives. If Specials want to do a demanding high-risk job for nothing then more fool them! Why do you want to stop them?
Remember Peel’s maxim that the Police are just doing full time what everyone ought to be doing anyway. Surely Specials are just formalising that?
Also think about paying Specials, then the government would put a limit on the number because of costs so again you would have fewer officers on the street not more. Or do you think the Police budget should be effectively unlimited?
“Why is volunteering unacceptable and morally wrong? “
It’s not the volunteering – it’s the fact the Government says ‘Whee! Copperin’ on the cheap!’…
“do you think the Police budget should be effectively unlimited?”
No. But get rid of all the ‘diversity officers’, ‘crime co-ordinators’, ‘citizen’s outreach officers’ and the other non-jobs, and you could pay for a hell of a lot more real coppers.
I agree with you, JuliaM.
I’ve always sort of had the suspicion that we use Specials to keep the regular Police aware that they shouldn’t get too bolshy over money as look! There are people who will do the job for free! Which is genius, but we should recognise what it is!
Patently..We will have to disagree. but the shopping centres I visit have between 6 and 50 security guards each. With in-house training and only a heavy radio and a sort of majorette uniform they manage to keep order and deal effectively with crime, accident, annoyance and illness. Evacuation,security,first aid, restrictions codes of conduct and parking.
The Private sector pays for them because the police stopped coming.
That is the danger trend. Private Police walking the streets.Private police in gated areas. Private Police in retail parks.
Who would want that?
“Libertarians”.
Did Labour invent the Special Constabulary? No. Could Specials ever replace the regular force? No. There are something like 30,000 regular officers in London and 3000 Specials doing on average two shifts a month. They add a little bit of extra coverage there is absolutely no way that they could cover London if the regular officers went on strike or whatever.
I doubt many Specials sign up because they want to help Ms Smith keep her stats happy. Why would any government discourage people from volunteering?
BE, of course they’re aren’t enough to cover the full-time force, and I would hate to see people not volunteer, but the point of this post was to point out that the government is placing an increasingly heavy reliance on people who either (a) don’t get paid very much – PCSOs, or (b) don’t get paid at all – Specials.
In my opinion, this is because the government is deliberately squeezing police authority budgets, which is forcing the police to use more PCSOs and Specials because they are cheaper. Nothing you have said has addressed this concern. What would you say if the government starting cutting the education or healthcare budget and forced local councils to employ volunteer teachers and doctors? I wouldn’t criticise those who wished to volunteer for public service, but that doesn’t make it acceptable for the government to take advantage of their goodwill to save themselves some cash.