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Police Community Support Officers
by Anna Raccoon on September 27, 2010
If you define a police officer as someone who goes out in public wearing a uniform then a PCSO could be regarded as a police officer. However, it would also follow that bus drivers, nurses and dustmen are police officers if it's only what it does or doesn't say on the uniform that is different.
You get 3 PCSOs for the price of two fully qualified Police Officers, partly because they have 10 weeks training instead of six months. They are widely derided within the Police Force, seen as Sir Ian Blair's attempt to get visible policing on the cheap.
Perhaps there was another motive. Profit.
Whilst you would never get away with hiring out fully trained Police Officers to private organisations for months on end, the unloved PCSOs are turning out to be a profitable venture in some surprising places.
Oxford Brookes University has taken on two PCSOs at a cost of around £120,000 to patrol its campus. Given that they could have hired a pair of security guards directly from the job centre for around £16,000 a piece and kitted them out with a uniform themselves, I have to wonder why they were prepared to pay so much extra for a 'pretendy' policeman?
Oxford University recently spent another £120,000 on a similar pair of 'pretendy' policemen, but have not renewed their contract – perhaps their cast offs have been palmed onto Oxford Brookes?
Still, patrolling the dreaming spires must seem like the ace beat compared to the latest 'lend-lease' dreamt up by financially pressed Chief Constables.
Three PCSOs are being sent to patrol the grounds of the two local mental hospitals – in a never ending search for missing patients, funded by the Mental Health Trust.
Insp Andy Storey, said officers were called to the Littlemore hospital at least once a week following reports of missing or suicidal patients.
"They will get to know the patients and the staff and they will hopefully have some knowledge about an individual and where they might have gone, if they go missing."
– and when they do find one? They have no powers to arrest him, they have no nursing training to calm him, what exactly are they supposed to do that makes them so desirable in the grounds of a mental hospital?
View from the Solent September 27, 2010 at 16:46
I don't suppose that the private company known as ACPO gets a share of the 120 grand do they?
Anna Raccoon September 27, 2010 at 17:08
That thought had crossed my mind – hence the reference to profit – I was hoping one of you out there might know more?
faulksd September 27, 2010 at 16:49
PCSOs are certainly a cheaper option – a kind of para-police force. As the old saying goes – 'If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys' – but, as events have unfolded in recent times, the bona fide officers are being redefined the state's enforcement gorillas. The days of Old Bill are quickly passing; I believe that there's going to be a significant role for these petty enforcers in the Fabianesque nightmare to come – especially when they're given batons, tazers and pistols.. ugh.
Woman on a Raft September 27, 2010 at 17:00
There was a time when people got very annoyed at doctors having a nice little earner by signing their private patients in to the NHS and thereby queue jumping. There's no question that the patients were entitled to the treatment and care but that did not mean they could get it ahead of everyone else by greasing the doctor's palm.
Much the same is going on here in a new form. A Group Snore security guard would have to ask nicely for police assistance and take his turn…..but a PCSO is already connected in to the force and can jump the queue and swing public resources in to private policing.
How very astute of you WOAR.
There are surely similies to be drawn with Learning Support assistants, and Nursing Support assistants.
Joe Public September 27, 2010 at 17:06
I realise it's an offence to imitate a police officer.
But is it an offence to imitate a pretend-police officer?
Mental Hospitals are full of people who believe they are Tony Blair or the Pope or Napoleon – perhaps this will start a new craze of patients believing they are PCSOs.
I still can't understand how they are supposed to'know' a patient better than the nurses, or be more effective than a nurse that the patient knows and trusts in getting them back on the ward.
Saul September 27, 2010 at 17:29
I thought Tony Blair thinks he is The Pope and Napolean.
Gloria Smudd September 27, 2010 at 17:56
Newpolean perhaps?
Ian R Thorpe September 27, 2010 at 17:26
I've never had any confidence in our Police Community Support Officers since the local likely lad introduced himself. He is shorter than me, considerably shorter than me, and I'm five feet seven.
Lacking both an authoritative presence and powers of arrest he must really have put the wind up the local hardcases.
Dame Davina Pancake September 28, 2010 at 14:26
Some interseting comments. Why I dislike the whole concept of badly trained numpties being given a uniform? – watch the way the PCSOs act in the clip and tell me they're worth a penny. Oh, and don't get me started on the whole photography in a public case malarky!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nw8a_aUZt3g
Davina x