One of our friends is a PCSO and I really do struggle to understand the purpose of the position.
He says 'It's a Police presence'. When I ask him quite what he is allowed to do he gets all defensive, almost as if he also doesn't know what he is there for.

And he is a ginger!

Poor *******. Can you imagine this guy trying to sort out a group of rebellious kids? Once they realise that he cannot arrest them, he doesn't stand a chance.

Exactly and that is precisely what you see on thse fly on the wall programmes... the kids just take the p1ss

All joking aside it's not good and it isn't working!

He is right there are a police presence, and can call in the "proper coppers" if they cannot sort things out with words. They do help with neighbour disputes quite a lot, and if they have received the extra training they can issue parking tickets.

That seems to be about all they do, and in our local area in the last month the PCSOs have issued just over 300 tickets leading up to Christmas in a blitz on our local high street. Nice of them really, £9,000 for them....

You would have thought people would have wised up to this, but they haven't

Certainly does look like a nice slide into retirement being a Womble shame about the money

When they started, the vehicles quite clearly had orange lights and were easily distinguishable from the police at long range Then they changed to lights that look white until they are illuminated, so much more difficult to tell apart from cop cars. I wonder why that was done ??

I thought that anyone can carry out a "citizen's arrest" if it can be justified.

Les

I don't see why there's the hate... if you had an accident on the mway, or broke down in a live lane - I don't care who the **** turns up to help - at least they are there with a truck & flashing lights to help out & direct the traffic until the emergency services can get there...

I drive the M6 stretch through Spaghetti every day, you see these guys 10+ times every trip with broken down cars, accidents etc.... I'd have them over no-one any day...

Yes the police would be better - but that 'aint gonna happen - I reckon there are waaay more Traffic Officers than there were *ever* police cars anyhow IMHO.

Just to balance the argument

Next, you will be saying that real police cars have the word "Police" written in very small letters that can't be seen from more than a few yards away - er, wait a minute

mb

If I remember correctly from my studies at Uni, you can only carry out a citizen's arrest if it's an indictable offence (offences that can be trailed in a Crown Court). So these would include murder, rape, kidnaping, robbery, burglary, arson, and other major crimes, or if you catch someone in the act of committing these.

SOCAP 2005 Any Person Arrest.

Any person can arrest without warrant anyone who is in the act of committing an indictable offence or grounds for suspecting said offence has been comitted.

Arrest must be necessary and must not be practicable for a constable to make it instead.

OR

To prevent physical harm to himself or any other person.
Prevent damage to property.
And the golden catch all - making off before a constable can assume responsibility - i.e this is upto the police, so I will arrest you until the police arrive, at which time it will be their responsablility.

HTH!

Forgot to say, most PCSOs get a power to detain, which means they can hold you for a period of time (30 min) which is meant to allow time for a constable to arrive. Some forces now issue them with cuffs for this reason. They also get to use force to detain.

So I was right then