Proper Police Needed, Please

Labour is replacing full time Police Officers with the cheaper 'Pretend Bobbies' official figures have revealed last weekend.

The biggest police forces are taking on significantly more Police Community Support Officers, or PCSO's, whilst employing fewer fully trained Police Officers to patrol our streets.
The PCSO's each cost more than £10,000 less annually than their Police counterparts; their training lasts just three weeks as oppose to 6 months training, followed by a 2 year probation for Police Officers.

Shadow Home Secretary, David Davis, said 'PCSO's have their role, but that role is not to replace "proper" Police Officers with full police powers. Yet again the Government is cheating the public by stealth cuts in police funding.'

Brian Stockholm, chairman of the Sussex Police Federation, said: 'What is needed is an increase in Police Officers, not a decrease - because Police Officers will observe and engage with what they see is necessary, but PCSO's can only observe and report.

Jan Berry, Chairman of the Police Federation for England and Wales, said: ' PCSO's are increasingly replacing Police Officers and that visible police presence. Police Officers will get deskilled and, as time goes by, there will be no alternative but to give PCSO's increased powers.'

PCSO's presently have no statute power and have no lawful right, other than by means of a citizens arrest, to intervene in detaining suspects involved in crime. They are purely normal citizens who patrol our streets in a uniform