General Discussion
CSPO's
A police risk assessment document says support officers cannot be the first to respond to any incident, cannot attend an incident which involves confrontation on their own and must call for backup or withdraw if a situation involves confrontation.
They are also told they cannot issue fines, detain people or confiscate alcohol if any violence is threatened, cannot carry out searches at a crime scene and must not enter the water under any circumstances.
The above shows just how useless these people are, and not their fault.
PCSO's can only detain passive people who offer no resistance for 30 mins. They are not allowed to use any control or restraint.
I've always been anti these 'plastic police' as I just cannot see the point - other than to hoodwink the public into believing that there are more police officers around than there actually are. Be honest - can you tell the difference from a distance?
It's just a cheap alternative to addressing the real issue which is freeing up the time of PC's, most of them are so bogged down with the routine paperwork that they have to complete for even the most minor incidents that they just never get to patrol. Even a straightforward shoplifter stealing a packet of biscuits can tie them up for their whole shift.
What the government should have done is to look at ways of civilianising much of the paperwork, statement taking, diversity reports etc and that would have allowed more resources to be put back into response and prevention.
No disrespect to the PCSO's themselves, I'm sure they do the best they can but they have very limited powers and training. Even Special Constables (who are free by the way!) can arrest on suspicion (PCSO's can't), can detain using restraint (PCSO's can't), can issue fixed penalty tickets (PCSO's can't), have batons and cs spray for defence (PCSO's don't - anyone spot a theme here?).