Tuesday 3 August 2010

Remind Me Again…

…how NuLabour’s whacky schemes always ended in failure?

Community support officers ho are supposed to help police catch criminals and patrol the streets are being diverted to pick up litter.

The civilian staff in Staffordshire Police have taken to local playing fields and neighbourhoods armed with litter pickers and bin liners rather than combating anti-social behaviour or rowdy youths.

/facepalm

Mind you, I suppose at least they were actually doing something useful, rather than harassing photographers or watching kids drown…
Mark Judson, chairman of the Staffordshire Police Federation, said: "One could possible(sic) employed them in a more suitable way than litter picking.

"I would imagine a number of people would think it is rather a strange thing for PCSOs to be doing when one would think they might be better employed supporting police officers."
Quite…

But this isn’t the first time:
Last year, senior officers in Kent Police were accused of having "lost the plot" after it emerged they had diverted two PCSOs to clear sweet wrappers and crisp packets from streets in an area where car crime has increased by 11 per cent.
Won’t someone please make it stop?

More of this please, though:
In a bid to keep children occupied and out of trouble this summer holiday, police community support officers covering the Pitsea south-east beat are hosting rounders and cricket games.
It would be a mistake to blow this off as another waste of their time. This is actually a pretty good idea.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I had three of the useless things standing on the corner of road near me today. There for 20 mins at least. Doing nothing, hands inside protective vests. No 'real' police nearby. That's nearly £70K doing diddly squat. They need to be disbanded, so what if the McPherson quotas go to pot. Complete load of nonsense.

Anonymous said...

Ours is a nice chap who should be a cop. He'd do a good job if he was let loose. I'd organise cricket - given I can put in a couple of overs at 80 m.p.h plus - to reduce our persistent petty offenders quota.

Litter picking could be a good idea - but they should get people out of their homes doing it.
Since they started I have never seen any out talking to groups of kids and the rest. They are too busy helping with homework apparently.

English Viking said...

No, it's not a good idea.

Dredd, Judge Joseph said...

I fear that they will, largely, go the way of all things, when the 'savage' cuts to the police budget start to bite deep. It is not all their fault you know, they are not all uniformly gormless - as each of the 43 or so forces across the country have complete autonomy as to what additional powers beyond their basic statutory powers they will acquire. So, for example, British Transport PCSO's carry and can use handcuffs. Ours cannot. Other forces cannot detain anyone and are forced to endure ridicule and insult heaped upon them. No... they were a bad idea, some of them could 'make the grade' given a chance but a lot of them are merely 'uniform carriers' - a phrase that, if levelled at an officer by a colleague would, at one time, have demanded an enormous punch up there and then - a deadly insult, 'back in the day'. Nowadays, however, it seems to be almost institutionalised amongst the young.

JuliaM said...

"There for 20 mins at least. Doing nothing, hands inside protective vests. No 'real' police nearby."

Perhaps they were being that 'visible deterrent' that the authorities are always claiming doesn't really work?

"Ours is a nice chap who should be a cop."

I wonder, then, why he isn't?

"No, it's not a good idea."

Why not? I'f we really want a local police force serving the community, it behooves them to get to know that community, doesn't it? And note who doesn't turn up to this sort of thing, as well as get to know those that do...

"It is not all their fault you know, they are not all uniformly gormless..."

No, no-one is. But they were a bad idea, and the fact that some make the best of it doesn't mean that we should, necessarily, continue with that bad idea.

English Viking said...

Julia,

The Police are for criminals, not for Cricket.

Not one single child will avoid a criminal record because of this 'venture', but I dare say the local crims will be having a field day on the nearest estate whilst PC Plod is perfecting his Googly at Long Leg.

I don't subscribe to this nonsense of 'Community Policing'.

Thief-takers. That's all they should be, not kindergaten cops.