Do Police Community Support Officers make a real difference?

National World - LocalTV

We ask locals whether they think Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs) help prevent crime and improve safety, or if the focus should be on regular police officers with full powers instead.

Transcript

00:00Yes, I think they do. I think the visibility of community support officers on the street

00:04is really important to give people a sense of safety and police presence, and particularly

00:10where budgets are squeezed, I can see that that's got a sensible way for local authorities

00:17and police services to spend their money.

00:21I don't think the community officers really do anything, really. You don't see them around

00:25Birmingham at all. You don't see them in Wolverhampton at all. And I've been speaking to my parents,

00:29recently, actually, about the fact that there's loads of police that like to stand in the

00:34train station and get students for not paying their tickets. But if they actually stepped

00:40out of the train station, I'm sure they'd actually find some crime in Wolverhampton.

00:44I think it's natural that because of the cost of running and training paramedics, police,

00:51fire brigade, all these kind of services, you don't necessarily need to have the full

00:57trained person at every event.

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