July 2006
Anne Robinson
Occasional paper
Police Community Support Officers: A literature and policy review
Police Community
Support Officers
A literature and policy review
Anne Robinson
Hallam Centre for Community Justice
Police Community Support Officers:
A Literature and Policy Review
Anne Robinson
ISBN - 1 84387 229 3
© 2006 Sheffield Hallam University
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Published by:
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Contents
Introduction
1
The Legal and Policy Framework
3
Public Confidence and Reassurance Policing
9
Civilianisation in the Police Service
15
International Perspectives
19
The Growing Body of Knowledge about PCSOs
25
References
33
Introduction
Police Community Support Officers: A Literature and Policy Review
Introduction
Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs) were introduced as a new civilian role
within the police service by the Police Reform Act 2002. ACPO in its revised
guidance for PCSOs described that role as being:
‘To reinforce, not replace, our other methods of policing. PCSOs are able to increase
our capacity to perform high level policing functions by increasing the ability of
community constables to tackle quality of life and community safety issues’.
(ACPO, 2005)
The first PCSOs were recruited to work in 27 police forces from April 2003 and have
been subject to a national evaluation (Cooper et al, 2006). In addition, independent,
and more in depth, evaluations have been carried out for several areas including the
West Yorkshire Police, who engaged the Centre for Criminal Justice Study at the
University of Leeds to undertake an evaluation of their use of PCSOs after 12 months
in post (Crawford et al, 2004).
This literature and policy review has been prepared to accompany the follow up
evaluation that Sheffield Hallam University prepared for West Yorkshire Police in
summer 2006. In the intervening period there have been a number of developments,
which this review intends to capture in terms of Home Office strategy to deal with
crime and, increasingly, anti-social behaviour, police reform and the growing
significance of the ‘extended policing family’, that is, the range of personnel from
statutory, voluntary and private bodies who contribute as part of their role to
community safety and the reduction of crime.
This review will be organised into five key sections:
1 The Legal and Policy Framework
2 Public Confidence and Reassurance Policing
3 Civilianisation in the Police Service
4 International Perspectives
5 The Growing Body of Knowledge about PCSOs
Whilst not exhaustive, the range of literature and policy examined here should
highlight the critical political and policy concerns that have influenced the
development of the PCSO role, and the growing body of knowledge that might give
guidance as to how they could most effectively be used to reduce crime in key
localities and to promote feelings of confidence and safety in members of the public.
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Police Community Support Officers: A Literature and Policy Review
The Legal and Policy Framework
The Legal and Policy Framework
We live in an age in which global insecurities and risks mix with and inform more
localised anxieties about incivilities and anti-social behaviour. Modern policing
must respond simultaneously to international threats to order in the form of
terrorism and organised crime as well as serious crime and the large volume of lower
level crime that blights local communities……reactive demands on police time have
relegated the provision of crime prevention and patrol officers working in dedicated
localities to a residual role. Despite the original Peelian vision of crime prevention
as a central element of police work, the history of the professional police has been one
in which, until recently, crime prevention has been defined in increasingly narrow
and specialist terms and has been pushed to the margins of police organisation.
(Crawford et al, 2005 p1)
These words are from the introduction of Crawford’s recent work on the extended
policing family or, in his preferred term, plural policing, and express the dilemmas
facing modern policing. It also hints at the change in the prevention role and
increased emphasis on reassurance policing that has taken place over the last decade.
This section aims to summarise the main legal and policy changes over the past 10
years and thereby to define the policing world that the new breed of PCSOs are
entering. It is a world that, after decades of activity focused on crime reduction and
tackling criminality, will require significant cultural change to grapple with the current
issues around promoting reassurance and public confidence (HMIC, 2001). This
partly reflects the concerns surrounding public disorder and anti-social behaviour,
which have come to the foreground since the early 1990s and arising from the ‘broken
windows’ thesis of Wilson and Kelling (1982). This suggest that disorder and antisocial behaviours are not only problematic in themselves but are harbingers of
community breakdown, urban decline and more serious crime, the solution being to
concentrate on maintaining order and intervening at an early stage in cases of
incivility and disorder so as to prevent the decline. There is little empirical evidence
for a causal link between anti-social behaviour and more serious crime (Crawford and
Lister, 2004), and a growing academic critique of the exclusionary policies associated
with the emphasis on zero tolerance of anti-social behaviours (Burney, 2005; Squires
and Stephen, 2005). Nevertheless, the spectre of ‘broken windows’ has formed a
powerful argument for promoting the types of visible patrol functions provided by
PCSOs and so popular with the public.
At the crux of the problem is the increase in demands on police constables with patrol
functions and the kind of ‘fire brigade’ reactive policing that characterised the forces
2
3
Police Community Support Officers: A Literature and Policy Review
examined in the seminal Audit Commission report, Streetwise (Audit Commission,
1996). The report points to the tension between the public’s demands for both
response and deterrence, noting the wish for increased foot patrol but its relative
inefficiency in being able to react promptly to incidents. There is, accordingly, a
mismatch between what the public wants and what the police can deliver in terms of
patrol, given competing requirements for a rapid emergency response and the
strategic management of crime (Audit Commission, 1996). This gap between public
expectation and actual service delivery - including a diversification into specialist
roles, such as child protection and domestic violence - is reflected in a more recent
report from HMIC for Scotland, Narrowing the Gap (2002), which discusses the
management of the public’s seemingly insatiable demand for more ‘bobbies on the
beat’. In the eight Scottish police divisions surveyed in that research 21% of policing
activity was devoted to patrol functions, but only 4% to foot patrol, roughly similar to
the 17% of time on patrol reported in the Diary of a Police Officer (PA Consulting
Group, 2001). A similar analysis had earlier been conducted for the Audit
Commission report, Streetwise (1996), which revealed that on average 5% of police
strength was deployed on patrol. All three studies highlight a range of concerns about
consistency, patrol officers being abstracted for other duties and the perceived low
status of patrol and community policing within police forces – in marked contrast to
the attitudes of the majority of the public.
Between 1993 and 2000 police officer numbers fell from 128,290 to 124,170 until
political pressures for an increase in police visibility resulted in the establishment of
the Crime Fighting Fund in 2000 and a Home Office commitment to recruit an
additional 9,000 police officers, mainly to work on the frontline, by 2003. An
important Home Office Strategy document, The Way Ahead (Home Office, 2001a)
urged police forces to increase public reassurance and a major HMIC report, Open
All Hours (2001) that same year considered the challenges facing the modern police
force in doing so, including the cultural shift inherent in such change referred to
above. At the same time, the White Paper, Policing a New Century: A Blueprint for
Reform (Home Office, 2001b) heralded impending structural change in the police
service ahead of the Police Reform Act 2002, which, amongst other innovations,
introduced the role of Police Community Support Officer.
The concept of auxiliary patrol officers had been debated as long ago as 1995,
mooted in a discussion paper issued by the Cassells Inquiry established by the Police
Foundation and the Policy Studies Institute to look into the roles and responsibilities
of the police (Audit Commission, 1996). At the time proposals for such officers were
rejected by ACPO as being unworkable. A report of the ACPO Patrol Project
Working Group cited in Streetwise summed up the disadvantages as:
• Appointing auxiliaries within existing budgets would reduce the number of regular
officers, with potential implications for operational flexibility
4
The Legal and Policy Framework
• The public may lose confidence in the police if auxiliaries are seen as ‘second class
PCs’
• Auxiliary officers may face situations they are not trained to deal with, which may
result in more rather than less pressure for sworn officers.
(Audit Commission 1996, p60)
By 2001, however, the climate had changed and the prospect of PCSOs in addition to
an increase in the numbers of regular police officers was welcomed at a strategic level
and, once in place, increasingly at an operational level (HMIC, 2004; Home Office,
2004c). Initially, the target in the first National Policing Plan 2003-6 was to increase
the original numbers in England and Wales to 4,000 by 2005, but in July 2004, the
government announced its intention to expand these numbers to 24,000 by March
2008 via the Neighbourhood Policing Fund (Crawford et al 2005). This pledge was
reiterated in the Labour Party manifesto in the 2005 general election, along with a
commitment to provide a neighbourhood policing team for every community (Labour
Party, 2005). The total numbers of PCSOs in post on 31 March 2005 stood at 6,214
(Home Office, 2005b).
The Police Reform Act 2002, which introduced PCSOs, is an empowering part of a
broader police reform agenda arising from not only Open All Hours (HMIC, 2001),
but also the Policing Bureaucracy Task Force chaired by Sir David O’Dowd which
reported in 2002 (Home Office, 2002b) and the establishment of the Police Standards
Unit, as well as a tighter performance framework for police services. A subsequent
enquiry into civilianisation in the police service resulted in a further HMIC report,
Modernising the Police Service (HMIC, 2004), outlining key staffing considerations
in pushing the modernisation agenda forward and comparing with other occupational
areas where para-professionals have been introduced (such as probation service
officers in the probation service).
Together these have provided significant momentum for the development of PCSOs,
in the context of the push for increased efficiency and improved levels of public
satisfaction and feelings of safety, as measured by the British Crime Survey. The
PCSO role is intended to contribute to public reassurance which, in Sir Keith Povey’s
formulation in Open All Hours (HMIC, 2001), has visibility, accessibility and
familiarity as essential components. PCSO’s deliver a high degree of visibility, and
initial evaluations indicated that these new staff spend on average over 70% of their
time on patrol (although this does vary from one force to another (Home Office,
2004c)).
The first tranche of PCSOs were rapidly joined by additional posts in those police
areas involved in the Street Crime Initiative. However, the focus of the developing
role has been firmly on public reassurance and anti-social behaviour, rather than an
intelligence and enforcement role relating to robberies and other street crime. PCSOs
are explicitly described in the Home Office’s Interim Evaluation report (Home Office
2004c) as complementing the work of police officers by concentrating on low level
5
The Legal and Policy Framework
Police Community Support Officers: A Literature and Policy Review
crime, disorder and anti-social behaviour. In this sense, they are a logical
development in statutory policing to mirror the developments elsewhere in the
policing functions of other members of the extended policing family and, according to
the ACPO guidance on PCSOs, should always remain within the framework of
neighbourhood policing with an emphasis on engagement as opposed to enforcement
(ACPO, 2005a). This is reflected in the Home Office response to their consultation
on PCSO powers and the recognition of concerns expressed by some contributors
about finding the appropriate balance between enforcement and community
engagement (Home Office, 2006b).
• linked policing teams – plural policing teams work alongside each other in
geographical areas, liaising and sharing information but managed and tasked
separately
As PCSOs have joined the police service, there has been parallel growth in workers
from other sectors with patrol or community safety functions and policy initiatives
from other government departments designed to increase public reassurance. The
neighbourhood wardens’ programme was launched in 2000 jointly by the Home
Office and Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (DETR),
making available £18.8 million for 84 schemes on a competitive and match-funded
basis, with the policy lead later transferring to the Office of the Deputy Prime
Minister (ODPM). Street wardens followed a year later, extending the warden
initiative beyond residential areas and, again, offering a uniformed, semi-official
presence and patrol function (Crawford and Lister, 2004). By the end of 2002, there
were 419 neighbourhood wardens, 655 street wardens and 380 street crime wardens
funded by central government (Crawford and Lister, 2004), in addition to a
proliferation of similar staff employed by Registered Social Landlords and private
sector security firms.
Having now achieved a critical mass in all police services, the question is how to gain
maximum benefit from PCSOs and, strategically, other members of the extended
policing family. The issue of effective patrol was raised in Open All Hours (HMIC,
2001) and further considered by the Policing Bureaucracy Taskforce (Home Office,
2002b), who highlighted the importance of good supervision and management
direction, intelligence-based briefings and use of single crewing to increase visibility.
A series of procedures has been produced to improve efficiency, consistency and
clarity in working practices and patrol officers’ streetcraft. These have been further
enhanced by work by the Police Standards Unit to prepare a Visibility and
Accessibility Manual (2002b).
As a result of this mixed economy of security services, there is a correspondingly
greater need for partnership working and co-ordination between the various types of
reassurance patrol, which may have different goals and priorities depending on role,
for instance, promoting community cohesion, environmental improvement or
economic regeneration. One of the lessons from research carried out by Crawford
and Lister (2004) is the importance of clarifying objectives and appropriate balance
of functions and activities at the outset - very significant when working in an
environment with other partners from the extended policing family. Crawford and
Lister (2004) also note the crucial linking function of frontline patrol personnel,
connecting the diverse range of organisations that impact on community safety, both
with each other and with members of the local community – in effect, ensuring what
the public see is a series of coherent and inter-related actions from different bodies.
In reality, what Crawford and colleagues found in their later (2005) study, was uneven
co-ordination, weak accountability and segmented regulation of this wider policing
family and they call for direction from a governmental level to join up the various
forms of governance. At an operational level also, they suggest there are four ways
that co-ordination could be achieved:
• police integrated teams – police officers and PCSOs
• police-organised extended policing teams – including neighbourhood or street
wardens and other policing personnel under the direction of a police manager
• local authority-organised extended policing teams – as above but under the
direction of a local authority manager
The adoption of the National Intelligence Model by all police forces in April 2004
(Home Office, 2003a) should inform deployment of patrol officers and their activities,
and is a further tool to improve effectiveness. However, use of such data should
influence not only basic operational decisions, but also strategic partnership actions
based on a pooling of information at Basic Command Unit level and joint decisions
about appropriate actions in response to Crime and Disorder audits and other
analysis of data. The vehicle for this should be the Crime and Disorder Partnerships
(CDRPs) established under the Crime And Disorder Act 1998, although they do vary
in their effectiveness and engagement of partners, a particular weakness being
relationships with the private sector (Crawford et al 2005). Nevertheless, CDRPs are
a vital mechanism for delivery of the community safety agenda, as spelt out in the first
National Community Safety Plan 2006-9 (Home Office, 2005), and link into wider
partnership bodies such as Local Strategic Partnerships.
The publication of the National Community Safety Plan is of significance in relation
to PCSOs, their partnership activity and their role in tackling anti-social behaviour.
The Plan sets five priority areas:
• making communities stronger and more effective
• further reducing crime and anti-social behaviour
• creating safer environments
• protecting the public and building confidence
• improving people’s lives so they are less likely to commit offences or re-offend
6
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Police Community Support Officers: A Literature and Policy Review
Public Confidence and Reassurance Policing
Under the second of these, it states that:
It is not only crimes like burglary, robbery, domestic violence and assault that we
need to tackle. As CDRPs have discovered when they consult their local residents,
the public feel threatened by joy-riders, alcohol-fuelled disorder and noisy neighbours
too. So it is as important to us to deal with anti-social behaviour as with the
traditional forms of neighbourhood crime. We must provide high quality and
responsive services to the public, resting on the bedrock of neighbourhood policing.
(Home Office, 2005. p6)
PCSOs have a key role in relation to this as part of the neighbourhood policing teams
envisaged in the Home Office strategy document, Confident Communities in a Secure
Britain (Home Office, 2004b) and outlined in more detail in the Building
Communities, Beating Crime White Paper (Home Office, 2004a). The National
Policing Plan 2005-8 further identifies a core requirement for PCSOs to be equipped
with the tools, know-how and determination to tackle anti-social behaviour, and to be
trained in the powers available to them (Home Office, 2004d), including additional
powers to issue fixed penalty notices and to disperse groups of young people under
the Anti-Social Behaviour Act 2003. In this way they contribute to initiatives under
the Together: Tackling Anti-Social Behaviour Campaign (Home Office, 2003b) and
general reassurance of the public. However, academic critiques are increasingly
pointing to the potentially negative effects of giving increased surveillance and more
overt attention to young people already possibly facing social exclusion (Squires and
Stephen, 2005) and those less positive implications need to be balanced by the more
constructive relationships that PCSOs can build with these individuals.
Significantly the PCSO Guidance issued by ACPO already mentioned, locates PCSOs
at the ‘softer’ end of policing, using engagement and communication skills rather than
enforcement powers (ACPO, 2005).
Admittedly, they do have a function in relation to intelligence gathering and feed into
the information sharing involved in the Prolific and Other Priority Offender strategy
and formal action against anti-social behaviour. There are examples of PCSOs being
used in creative ways, on local transport networks with Mersey Travel, for instance, or
alongside the emergency services in Lancashire (HMIC, 2004). There is also the
potential for PCSOs to be treated as ‘junior police officers’, delegated a range of
administrative and other tasks (Crawford et al, 2004) and for their roles to diverge in
a form of ‘mission creep’, particularly as their numbers rise (Crawford et al, 2005).
Nevertheless, their primary role should continue to be public reassurance, through
building up relationships of trust, being a visible presence in localities and acting as a
representative of their agency. As yet, there are only preliminary evaluations of the
impacts PCSOs may have on public confidence and on levels of crime and anti-social
behaviour (Home Office, 2004c; Cooper et al, 2006)) but emerging findings, as
discussed later in this review, seem to give positive indications, particularly as PCSOs
gain greater public recognition.
8
Public Confidence and
Reassurance Policing
Whilst both the British Crime Survey (BCS) and recorded police figures indicate that
crime has fallen since a historic high in 1995, successive surveys have shown that
public perceptions are that crime is still rising and that victimisation risks are
increasing: what Crawford et al (2005) refer to as a ‘reassurance paradox’ that is
stubbornly enduring despite high police officer numbers and more police staff than
ever before. Importantly, also, members of the public are concerned about more than
just the conventional types of crime, and their focus is increasingly turning to low level
incivilities and anti-social behaviour.
Several important points arise from the most recent British Crime Survey in England
and Wales for 2004/5. Whilst confidence in the criminal justice system has continued
to increase, West Yorkshire was amongst those areas where confidence was lower than
the national average (which was 43% of respondents being very or fairly confident
that the CJS was effective in bringing people who commit crime to justice). The most
highly rated agency was the police, with 48% saying that they were generally doing a
good or excellent job, and a slightly higher proportion (49%) when asked about police
performance in their local area. This latter figure represents a 2% increase on the same
question about local policing in the previous year’s survey. Significantly, and in line
with previous years, attitudes towards the police are negatively related to personal
experience of the police, and victims, in particular, were kept well informed by the
police in only 32% of cases. PCSOs are well placed to make a difference in terms of
good quality interaction with members of the public and with victims, specifically.
Also, they may be able to encompass work with schools, youth services and bodies
such as Neighbourhood Watch schemes, within their role, and these are key
organisations identified by BCS respondents as being most effective for the police to
work with (Home Office, 2006b).
In slightly older research conducted as part of the Narrowing the Gap inquiry
(HMIC for Scotland, 2002), 30 focus groups were consulted and 53 in depth
interviews were conducted across the eight Scottish police force areas, balanced in
terms of gender, location, socio-economic group and age. What emerged from the
qualitative data, were a variety of perceptions about crime but general agreement that
it was on the increase. On a more day to day level, young people and groups of youths
repeatedly emerged as prime generators of fear and anxiety. In the quantitative
surveys of 1170 individuals, ‘gangs of youth’ and burglary were the most frequently
9
Public Confidence and Reassurance Policing
Police Community Support Officers: A Literature and Policy Review
quoted factors contributing to fear (32% of respondents each, compared to 29% citing
presence of drug users).
The surveys further found that fears were more acute and immediate for groups from
areas that were less affluent (socio-economic categories C2DE). Research quoted in
Open All Hours (HMIC 2001) indicated lower levels of confidence in the police, for
members of minority ethnic groups, particularly in the light of the Stephen Lawrence
Inquiry. However, that was not reflected so strongly in this Scottish research, which
found few differences in views expressed by minority ethnic groups except in terms of
crime directly related to their minority status. Whilst views of the police were roughly
similar, some additional fears of assault were noted by gay and lesbian respondents
(HMIC for Scotland, 2002).
A particularly interesting aspect of this research is the attempt to capture the views of
young people, which do not feature in the BCS, whose sample group is 16 or over: a
booster group of 100 school age respondents was added to the basic sample for the
quantitative survey in the Scottish study. The frame of historical reference was,
perhaps understandably, different for the adults surveyed than for these young people,
who have no memory of previous styles of community policing and the familiarity of
‘the bobby on the beat’. The report comments that:
Police were considered neither common nor accessible in these young people’s lives
and, although they accepted the need for police, young people did not view them
positively. Indeed, police were associated with negative personal experience. Greater
police visibility was not important to young people and, whilst the most common
response to improving visibility was to have more officers on the street, there was the
counter concern that this might lead to more harassment for young people.
Reassurance and reduction of tensions between police and young people were believed
to be more dependent on positive interaction than visibility.
(HMIC for Scotland, 2001 p12)
This highlights some important issues regarding confidence and reassurance: whilst
increased patrol, particularly foot patrol, is frequently identified by the public as
offering most reassurance (Audit Commission, 1996; Home Office, 2005c), this will
have a differential impact on various members of the community and particularly on
young people inhabiting public spaces. It also raises questions about the quality and
characteristics of policing that can most offer reassurance.
Reassurance is not new as a object and a concern of policing and the concept of
reassurance policing was first coined by Charles Bahn in the United States as long ago
as 1974 (Bahn, 1974), although it did not receive significant attention in Britain until
the early 1990s (Singer, 2004b). However, by the latter part of decade, it had been
adopted by policy makers and in 2000 Public Service Agreements included related
performance requirements relating to levels of public confidence, the proportion of
police officer time spent on front-line duties and reducing fear of crime.
10
Bahn defined reassurance as:
The feelings of safety and security that a citizen experiences when he sees a police
officer or a patrol car nearby (Bahn, 1974 p341).
He further identified accessibility and visibility as key factors increasing public
feelings of safety, which was later expanded by Sir Keith Povey, in Open All Hours
(HMIC, 2001), to include familiarity. The linked concepts of accessibility, visibility
and familiarity are widely cited in the literature and in Home Office documents, as is
Sir Keith Povey’s definition of reassurance as:
The extent to which individuals perceive that order and security exist within their
local environment.
Open All Hours sets a vision for what it hopes will be achieved within a 5 year period,
one aspect of which is expressed as follows:
Enhancing public reassurance is central to what the police service and partners are
trying to achieve and all police officers and staff appreciate the role of visibility,
accessibility and familiarity in an overall strategy for achieving this. Forces will
therefore be pursuing the core objectives of reducing crime and disorder in a way that
maximises these three elements (HMIC, 2001 p17).
The importance of reassurance, as defined by Open All Hours, has been subsequently
underlined in National Policing Plans (Home Office, 2002a and 2003a) and in the
Police Performance Assessment Framework (PPAF). However, in the academic field
there have been further attempts to broaden the concept of reassurance and to
identify its characteristics. David Dalgleish and Andy Myhill, in a study considered
later in this paper, have derived the following definition from their review of
international literature and research studies:
The intended outcomes of actions taken by the police and other agencies to improve
police effectiveness (mainly confidence in, and satisfaction with, the police) and to
increase feelings and perceptions of safety (including reducing fear of crime).
(Dalgleish and Myhill, 2004 p9)
Looking at a range of studies, Dalgleish and Myhill found that the authors concerned
had varying ideas of what was meant by reassurance and how it would be addressed.
In order to identify the common elements in the authors’ conceptualisations, Dalgleish
and Myhill examined the main ideas and topics mentioned: public perceptions,
confidence and visibility were most frequently highlighted (Dalgleish and Myhill,
2004). Their definition encompasses those ideas and also the sense of purposeful
activity aimed at promoting reassurance that should underpin reassurance policing in
localities.
Whilst the former two definitions from Bahn (1974) and Sir Keith Povey (HMIC,
2001) have formed the primary influence on developments in reassurance policing,
one further concept has been more recently gaining attention – the notion of ‘signal
11
Police Community Support Officers: A Literature and Policy Review
crimes’ (Innes et al, 2002). ‘Signal crimes’ are criminal incidents or social or physical
disorders that are interpreted by individuals or communities as warning signs.
Research quoted in Crawford and Lister (2004) has sought to show how these
‘signals’ impact on how individuals experience and construct their beliefs about crime
and disorder. These may include problems related to alcohol or visible drug-dealing,
graffiti and vandalism. Conversely, ‘control signals’ refer to ways in which actions
performed by the police, local authorities or others may influence individual’s
judgement about the risks to which they believe themselves to be exposed (Crawford
and Lister, 2004). Failure to deal with ‘signals’ that cause public anxiety but may well
not be seen as a crime, may be interpreted as a failure of ‘control’, with consequent
loss of confidence in relevant authorities.
The sight of a patrol officer as mentioned by Bahn (1974) above would seem to be a
powerful signal for control, although it is certain types of patrol that have most effect
on reassurance. As noted by one ACC quoted in Open All Hours:
A police officer in uniform on an unhurried foot patrol suggests,‘all is well with the
world’. However, a marked police vehicle with flashing blue light and siren activated
sends a different message.This is currently visible policing, but I would suggest it is
far from reassuring. (HMIC, 2001 p23)
So what is it about foot patrol that is so reassuring? Visibility in itself is not sufficient,
and the research conducted by Crawford et al (2004) in Leeds and Bradford
highlighted some of the interpersonal skills necessary to perform the job well and be
more than the ‘mobile scarecrow’ referred to by some less confident PCSO
interviewees. In addition, focus groups indicated that they invest a significant degree
of both instrumental and symbolic authority in police personnel, making assumptions
of the power of the organisation they are linked to and their professionalism. This
indicates the importance of PCSOs living up to these expectations in their daily work
and interactions with the public, so as to maintain that authority (Crawford et al,
2005).
Public Confidence and Reassurance Policing
engagement and a modest rise in social efficacy/social capital, which was one of the
areas for improvement targeted by the partnership steering group (Singer, 2004b).
As shown by this Milton Keynes example, patrol as one of a range of strategies can
contribute to reassurance. A contrasting case study is provided by Crawford et al
(2003) in a three year evaluation of a partnership project between the Joseph
Rowntree Foundation and North Yorkshire Police in New Earswick, in which
additional policing time was purchased for patrol duties. The project was terminated
early because of critical implementation failures that undermined its effectiveness,
namely inadequately defining the respective role of partners, lack of clarity over the
nature of community policing and inconsistency in the beat officers' role, due to
officers being abstracted for other duties and staff turnover. The net effect was to
increase feelings of insecurity in the community and Crawford and colleagues suggest
that this was because public expectations had not been well managed and the
presence of this initiative had, in fact, increased the desire for security solutions. They
conclude that a balance needs to be struck between the duties of the officer in reacting
to incidents and the proactive roles of reassurance and crime prevention. They further
comment that a policy of responding to public demands for greater security by
providing extra policing or security hardware may fail to deal with the issues
underlying these demands (Crawford et al, 2003).
In terms of the increasing significance of partnership work in a mixed economy of
security, the New Earswick experiment was unsuccessful (Crawford et al, 2003),
whilst elements of the Milton Keynes programme worked well. From this Singer
(2004) was able to identify four key components of effective partnership working
within a community safety context:
• comprehension - understanding each other's needs and perspectives
• commitment - including a degree of passion and perseverance
• co-ordination - planning and harmonising implementation
• capacity - the right staff and skills embedded within a structure that is sustainable
An evaluation of a reassurance policing initiative in Milton Keynes (Singer, 2004b)
gives further indications of what may provide reassurance. There were two strands to
this activity, including the adoption of Area Beat Officers (ABOs) and a role that
within the initiative was called a Parish Crime and Community Safety Officer
(PCCSO), several of whom were employed to focus on environmental and
community concerns, working closely with local councillors and members of the
public. A number of issues emerge from this work about the role of patrol – there
were significant levels of abstractions (25%) for these ABOs, which undermined their
effectiveness, and status issues for the individuals in those posts. Nevertheless, over
the period of the project the regular patrol officers improved recognition and
familiarity, as well as visibility. Because this policing action was linked to other work
that the PCCSOs and elected officers (mainly members of the parish council) were
conducting with the community, the net effect was an increase in community
12
This seems a useful way of thinking about approaching partnership in relation to
PCSOs within neighbourhood policing teams, frequently working alongside other
members of the extended policing family or contributing to wider partnership
activities around community safety.
Both of the case examples cited above involve patrol by sworn police officers, and
both suffered some impact from having officers directed to other duties according to
operational demands. This is consistent with findings from other literature (Audit
Commission, 1996; Home Office, 2001; PA Consulting Group, 2001), but it is not the
case for PCSOs who, in the words of one interviewee in the Bradford and Leeds
research, are free from the ‘tyranny of the radio’ (Crawford et al, 2005; Crawford and
Lister, 2004). PCSOs spend a greater proportion of their time on visible patrol, in
13
Police Community Support Officers: A Literature and Policy Review
Civilianisation in the Police Service
preliminary evaluations up to 90% but more typically around 70% (Home Office,
2004c).
Much of the existing literature on patrol relates to police officer patrol. However, in
discussing the contribution of the extended policing family, Crawford et al (2005)
helpfully identify the main functions of other visible security personnel as being:
• patrol and visibility
• crime prevention and problem-solving
• environmental management and improvement
• community engagement
• linking and referral
• information and intelligence-gathering
• law enforcement
The balance of these functions will differ from one role to another and it seems likely
that PCSOs will have a greater element of intelligence-gathering and law enforcement
than colleagues from non-police agencies. Whilst at present the powers available to a
PCSO are defined within the local policing area and are at the Chief Constable’s
discretion, the Home Office has now responded to a recent consultation on PCSO
powers and reacted to the recent positive evaluation of limited detention powers for
PCSOs (Singer, 2004a). A standard set of powers may have implications for the
development of the PCSO role and its reassurance potential, which in any case is at
an early stage in terms of evaluation and research findings. However, the more
coercive powers and those where deployment may result in confrontation will still
remain at the discretion of the local areas (Home Office, 2006b).
Similarly too recent to be subject to extensive evaluation, the National Reassurance
Policing Programme was launched in the autumn of 2003. This intends to promote
community engagement in finding solutions to crime and reducing fear (Crawford et
al, 2005). The Police Standards Unit has funded pilot work in 16 sites across 8 police
forces for a 2 year period, which is subject to evaluation, the results of which have
been recently published (Tuffin et al, 2006; Morris et al, 2006). In the six site
evaluation prepared by Tuffin and colleagues, each of the areas surveyed had been
patrolled by PCSOs and they had contributed to the positive impact on crime,
perceptions of crime and anti-social behaviour, feelings of safety and public
confidence in the police found in those areas compared to control sites. It is also
worth noting that the evaluation concludes that visibility and familiarity are not
sufficient in themselves to shift public perceptions, but that the best results were
found in sites which had adopted a targeted problem-solving approach involving the
community.
14
Civilianisation in the Police Service
Civilians in the police force are not a new phenomenon. Their history within the
service and all the associated issues are thoroughly explored in a major HMIC
Report, Modernising the Police Service: a thematic inspection of workforce
modernisation – the role, management and deployment of police staff in the police
service of England and Wales (HMIC, 2004).
In the foreword to this report, Sir Ronnie Flanagan commented that:
The hugely complex nature of modern policing means that the service needs an
increasingly broad range of specialist skills and expertise to meet these challenges.
This raises key questions about just what the nature of policing should be in the
future and the role that police officers and police staff might play in such a future,
including the contribution of the wider policing family (HMIC, 2004 p9).
He goes on to refer to the absence of strategic direction in the use of all personnel
who contribute to policing previously highlighted by both Sir Keith Povey in Open All
Hours (HMIC, 2001) and Sir David O’Dowd in the Report of the Policing
Bureaucracy Taskforce (Home Office, 2002b), as well as the relative lack of Home
Office interest in the development of civilian staff until recent years.
The first use of civilians working alongside police officers was in the Metropolitan
Police in 1829, to help administer what was then a new organisation. Outside London,
however, the use of civilian staff remained minimal, with only 2% of all police
employees prior to the Second World War being in civilian roles. After the war there
was a need to re-establish police numbers and as part of this, the numbers of civilians
employed rose from 4,000 in 1949 to 8,500 in 1966, when the Report of the Taverns
Inquiry recommended that clear criteria should be used for further civilianisation and
identified functions that could be performed by civilians. These included Scenes of
Crime Officers, fingerprinting and photography. Thereafter, expansion was largely in
two areas, technical or administrative roles, which still failed to offer a clear civilian
career structure (Loveday, 2004).
During the 1980s, police forces did not experience the pressure on budgets
experienced by other public services, but a Government commitment to efficiency
and economy brought civilianisation back to the police agenda by linking future
increases in police establishment to the civilianisation of posts that did not require
police powers or police training (Loveday, 2004). It was also significant that at this
time a rise in police officer numbers had not resulted in more officers available for
uniformed patrol duties, due to a growth in the range of specialist tasks and roles that
15
Police Community Support Officers: A Literature and Policy Review
was absorbing personnel. Despite some opposition, there was therefore a political
pressure to increase the use of civilians, and their employment began to escalate
(Loveday, 2004). This appears to have had positive and negative consequences: whilst
the HMIC report links their use to increased efficiency (HMIC, 2004), Loveday
refers to the unfortunate assumption often made that civilianisation is motivated by
the need to save money (Loveday, 2004), which to some extent was apparent in the
early reception of PCSOs into the service. The HMIC report also found evidence to
support this view, saying that:
The traditional perception of civilianisation as a cost-cutting measure, and thus
seeing police staff as cheap labour, is pernicious but still persists in parts of the
service. It is reinforced both across the service and within forces by a number of
unintentional, but highly symbolic, signals regarding the relative worth of officers
and police staff to the organisation (HMIC, 2004 p54).
These symbolic signals have included the political preoccupation with police officer
numbers, the ad hoc nature of development in civilianisation and the very different
levels of resources for police staff training, for instance, compared to police officers
(HMIC, 2004).
The expansion in police staff has been characterised by the lack of coherence and
central direction identified in the reports referred to earlier. However, Modernising the
Police Force also strongly identifies the late 1980s and early 1990s as a period in
which a significant debate arose about alternative ways to deliver core police services,
including patrol functions, particularly in the light of the Audit Commission report,
Streetwise (Audit Commission, 1996). One of the key themes identified in the HMIC
report is the way that the push for civilianisation has raised important – and still
unresolved - questions about what is ‘proper police work’ and the core responsibilities
of a public police service (HMIC, 2004).
These debates about the nature of professional tasks and the introduction of wider
variety of personnel has been a feature of other occupational sectors during this same
period and Loveday (2004) gives a comparative analysis of developments in the use
of paralegals, teaching assistants and probation service officers, amongst others, as
well as an account of parallel modernisation processes in the Fire and Rescue Service
and elsewhere. This contextualises the reform agenda in the police service as part of a
wider series of changes within public services which Loveday suggests could be
interpreted on the one hand as deprofessionalisation, but on the other as a means of
empowering ancillary and junior staff within these key public services (Loveday,
2004).
The history of civilians within the police service does suggest that civilians have not
previously felt empowered and valued by the organisation, which may be a product of
both cultural and structural factors. One of these was the anomaly that civilians were
employed by local authorities but were under the direction of chief constables, until
the Police and Magistrates Courts Act 1994, which clarified the position and gave
16
Civilianisation in the Police Service
chief constables formal responsibility for these staff (HMIC, 2004). There are still
concerns about lack of integration and Modernising the Police Service tellingly quoted
one senior member of police staff who, despite his seniority, described himself as
belonging to 'the largest minority group in the service' (HMIC, 2004 p56).
Although the HMIC reported examples of police staff working positively with police
officer colleagues (HMIC, 2004), the over-riding conclusion of research by Parrett
(1998 cited in Loveday, 2004) is that two distinct workforces exist within the police.
This is compounded by different arrangements for setting terms and conditions,
which for police officers are defined in statute, whereas for police staff these are set
locally and depend upon the willingness of individual forces to apply the voluntary
framework agreed with the Police Staff Council. As an example of the variations that
exist, in the 33 forces responding to a 2005 survey regarding PCSOs, it was found
that lowest basic pay scale offered was £14,094 - £19,626 whilst the highest was
£15,408 - £25,356 (Cooper et al, 2006). Interestingly, this is a key feature in the
ACPO Vision for Workforce Modernisation (currently in draft form) which envisages
a modernised and integrated employment framework, with performance and expertise
being rewarded rather than longevity in the organisation (ACPO, 2005b).
Linked to the above, is the question of career development for police staff, which is
raised as a central concern in Modernising the Police Service. The lack of appropriate
routes for career progression is cited by 71% of over 5,000 PCSOs surveyed in the
National Evaluation of PCSOs (Cooper et al, 2006), indicating that a real opportunity
is potentially being missed in the way that this non-traditional police staff role is being
introduced.
The absence of a leadership strategy for developing skilled and capable police staff
members is also highlighted in Modernising the Police Service. Two of the report’s
recommendations relate to achieving a greater consistency in appointments of police
officers and staff to chief officer roles and to making it easier for police staff in senior
roles to join ACPO (HMIC, 2004). Whilst these changes will affect only a minority of
police staff in management roles, a more visible presence of police staff in senior
positions will undoubtedly send important messages throughout the force about the
value of civilian roles.
These are significant issues because the 2002 survey of their police staff members by
Unison found that:
• over half of respondents did not feel valued by their forces
• the principal reason for staff wishing to leave the service was that they felt
undervalued
• 63% perceived there was a status divide between police staff and officers
• there was a high level of abuse and harassment, with 41% of respondents either
experiencing themselves or witnessing verbal abuse. The figure was 32% in respect
of racial harassment, homophobia or bullying.
(Cited in HMIC, 2004 p60)
17
International Perspectives
Police Community Support Officers: A Literature and Policy Review
Police staff, as relatively low status and low paid employees, do appear to indicate that
they are more vulnerable to harassment and discrimination. Sadly, in its investigation,
Modernising the Police Force found little evidence at that time of police forces
proactively seeking to take a wider approach to diversity and trying to shift the
predominant culture of the service (HMIC, 2004). Loveday refers to research on the
role of crime analysts, positions mainly held by women, and comments that:
The action-orientated nature of policing and the traditional male hegemony within
the organisation led, it was believed, to the perception of the analyst’s role as being
one that was administrative, office-based and in support of ‘real’ policing, which
influenced officers’ attitudes to analysts ‘and how they exercised their power in
relation to accepting or rejecting any analytical products.
(Loveday, 2004 p79; citing Cope, 2004)
However, the introduction of PCSOs does seem to offer a potential lever for change
in the organisation. They are more ethnically diverse than either police officers or
other police staff. According to the Annual Data Returns for 2004/5, 15% of PCSOs
were from minority ethnic backgrounds, compared to 4% and 6% respectively for the
other two groups. Similarly, 41% of the PCSO workforce were women, which is
greater than for existing police officers (21%) or new recruits (35%), but lower than
other police staff (62%). Given that two-fifths of PCSOs surveyed for the national
evaluation indicated that they saw the job as a stepping stone to becoming a police
officer (Cooper et al, 2006), the introduction of PCSOs seems likely to have the
unintentional benefit of speeding up the rate of change in the composition of sworn
police officers.
Research by Parrett (1991 and 1998 cited in HMIC, 2004) explored the issues of
attitudes towards police staff and their integration: the questionnaire that he used
within Norfolk Police Service was adopted and circulated to forces by the HMIC
team in 2004. The responses chart some significant differences in perspectives
between those two periods. For instance, in 2004, 22% of police officers agreed with
the statement ‘Only police staff should supervise other police staff’ with only 64%
disagreeing, whilst in 1991 89% had disagreed. In 1991, 90% of officers had disagreed
with the proposition that ‘Police staff should be able to supervise police officers’, but
by 2004, this had reduced to 60%. There were significant increases also in police
officers agreeing that ‘The police service is more effective in terms of service delivery
as a direct result of employing police staff’ and ‘Police staff are an essential part of
modern policing’ (HMIC, 2004). These latter are possibly not surprising given the
degree of civilianisation that has taken place in the intervening period. Whilst there is
still some resistance indicated, there is now a wider acceptance of civilian roles and
recognition by sworn officers of the contribution of police staff (HMIC, 2004) and,
particularly in relation to PCSOs, evidence suggests that the negativity felt by officers
before their arrival, has been overturned once they have worked more closely with
PCSOs and understand their role (Cooper et al, 2006).
18
International Perspectives
Developments in policing in the United Kingdom do not happen in isolation; they are
influenced by innovations and changes in work practices in other countries, most
notably in the western democracies, but also from elsewhere in Europe. This section
will briefly examine the comparative issues around civilianisation and initiatives in
community policing and patrol.
It would appear that, in general, the use of civilians in European police forces has
been relatively limited, according to the data (albeit not comprehensive) collected for
an HMIC survey on workforce modernisation in Europe (HMIC, 2004). Indeed, with
proportions of non-police personnel varying considerably and even as low as 3% in
Greece and 4% in Poland (HMIC, 2004), the UK seems to be leading rather than
following in terms of developing civilian roles (Loveday, 2004). However, two
examples stand out from the literature as particularly relevant to the PCSO role. The
first of these is the adoption in the UK of two models from the Netherlands: initially,
the Dutch stadswachten, or city wardens, who inspired the neighbourhood warden
initiative, and subsequently the civilian police auxiliary, whose British equivalent is the
PCSO (Burney, 2005). In France, civilians have encroached relatively little upon the
National Police or the Gendarmerie, but municipal authorities – under a power
available to them since 1891 – have recently recruited personnel to perform uniform
patrol functions. These roles are not dissimilar to the PCSO role, but are accountable
to the local Mayor, rather than the chief of police (Loveday, 2004).
The use of civilian personnel, however, has a longer history in North America than it
has in Europe (Loveday, 2004). A study of innovations in six American cities in 1986,
highlighted variations in the use of civilians but identified their potential benefits in
enhancing community orientated policing. Their analysis further identified
community mobilisation as a key variable intervening between civilianisation and
success in crime prevention (Skolnick and Bayley, 1986 cited in Loveday, 2004):
civilianisation per se will not guarantee greater effectiveness, but it may provide a
means by which members of the police service can involve and engage communities,
working with them to solve problems. A more recent survey of seven police
departments, found no significant pattern in the recent development of civilian roles
and only two departments (San Diego and Los Angeles) using civilian officers with
‘police-type powers’, to deal with community policing, traffic and criminal
investigation (HMIC, 2004).
19
Police Community Support Officers: A Literature and Policy Review
Whilst the police services in the USA have recognised the potential benefits and have
encouraged the use of civilians in managerial positions – in areas such as audit and
inspection, jail management and training - it is noticeable that their functions have not
extended to operational policing (Colletti, 1996 cited in Loveday, 2004). There has
also been opposition to increasing civilian employment from police unions, the net
result of which has tended to be clear demarcations of roles for sworn and non-sworn
police personnel (Loveday, 2004; HMIC, 2004a) and it is evident that the US police
culture mirrors some of the issues about acceptance and the differential status of
civilian staff present in the UK. The police departments surveyed for the Modernising
the Police Service research highlighted a range of issues affecting integration of police
staff, including the implications of differences in pay and conditions; career structures;
the ‘them and us’ divide; resistance from some first line police officer supervisors
(HMIC, 2004).
Further work within the Canadian police service suggests that they have also been
facing some of the questions about the essential nature of policing being debated in
Britain. Drennan (2003) identifies six core functions of policing as being:
• response to public calls
• referral to other agencies
• prevention of offences
• public education
• crime solving
• law enforcement
Within the current climate of cost effectiveness and efficiency, police services are
questioning which parts of these functions could be performed by non-sworn
personnel and which require the traditional police training, status and authority. Police
commentators such as Drennan (2003) regard developments in civilisation as being
an inevitable compromise for services, preferable to the more controversial alternative
of potential delegation of services to private security companies that may happen if
police services do not open themselves up to change. More optimistically, Loveday
(2004) points to the impact than an increase in civilian staff has had upon the gender
make up of the police force in Canada, with 68% of civilian staff being female in 1994
(Seagrave, 1997 cited in Loveday, 2004).
A more proactive approach to the use of non-sworn officers has been adopted with
some success in both New Zealand and Australia. In the former case, the New
Zealand Police Commissioner was empowered by the Police Amendment Act 1989 to
authorise non-sworn members of staff to exercise police powers, excepting the powers
of arrest and search by warrant. Individuals can therefore be appointed to a job
depending on experience and qualification, not police officer status, and this has been
backed up by rigorous job evaluation and rationalisation of pay structures, ensuring
20
International Perspectives
that police officers and staff receive the same pay for the same job (HMIC, 2004).
However, further increases in the proportion of civilian staff – which have stabilised at
slightly over 20% - are affected by the need for individuals able to exercise police
powers and the benefits of full operational training and experience, as well as public
perceptions and political acceptability (HMIC, 2004).
Australia has proceeded even further in attempting to establish a unified police
service, most particularly in the Australian Federal Police. Based on the Australian
Federal Police Act 1979 and the Australian Federal Police Legislation Amendment Act
(No 2) 1989, one workforce has been created, with police and non-police officers
subject to the same code of conduct and salary scale. Vacant positions are filled
according to a guiding principle about who is best suited to the position, irrespective
of police or non-police status (Loveday, 2004). This allows for maximum flexibility
and, as the determining factor for promotion under the 1979 Act is a mix of
‘efficiency and merit’, there has been an improvement in the calibre of both senior
police managers and recruits, whilst also increasing the number of female officers
achieving senior rank (Loveday, 2004). Commentators have identified, nevertheless,
that the top-down imposition of these reforms has created disadvantages, chiefly an
increase in the tension between central headquarters and field operations, and the
resentment of a number of first line managers whose advancement opportunities have
been reduced by the promotion on merit approach (Loveday, 2004).
The theme of how best to generate organisational change is relevant also to the
literature on international experiments in reassurance or community policing.
Dalgleish and Myhill (2004) in their review of international policing initiatives found
that very few explicitly used the concept of reassurance policing, perhaps because
many of the 22 studies they examined pre-dated regular usage of the term. These
studies were generally small scale and were limited in the impact they had upon the
culture and operational practices of their services:
Funding is not necessarily the most important issue in relation to
sustainability…..some reassurance interventions, particularly those incorporating
some form of community policing, required sustained change in the work practices
and general ethos of the whole organisation. Achieving sustained change on this scale
is not easy, and perhaps explains why some of these interventions have been
restricted to smaller parts of organisations. In Chicago, the CAPS (Chicago
Alternative Policing Strategy) achieved organisational change more so than some
projects because it had the political backing of an influential politician.
(Dalgleish and Myhill, 2004 p49)
CAPS is a particularly interesting example to focus upon, being based partly around a
series of small community beats (279 in total), partly upon the involvement of
residents to set policing priorities and partly monitoring by staff in the Mayor’s office
21
International Perspectives
Police Community Support Officers: A Literature and Policy Review
as well as co-ordinating the actions of other service departments with the police. In
discussing CAPS, Open All Hours identifies its critical success factors as being:
Using this framework, Dalgleish and Myhill identified the following:
• political engagement and support
Improving
police
• leadership
effectiveness
• publicity and marketing
Intervention or
method
• training and IT support
• community engagement
What works
What is
promising
Improving
police
visibility and
familiarity
Community
engagement
Community
policing
Foot patrol
Beat policing
• mechanisms of accountability
• the influence of the Mayor over other agencies with a part to play (eg housing and
cleansing departments).
(HMIC, 2001 p76)
Further successful examples that Dalgleish and Myhill examine include an Australian
experiment in beat policing in the small town of Toowoomba and the Houston and
Newark Fear Reduction Strategies in the US. This latter involved a victim contact
initiative and Community Organising Response Teams in Houston (volunteers
working with the police to identify and solve problems), as well as work on reducing
the ‘signs of crime’ and co-ordinated community policing in Newark. Both areas also
introduced proactive patrol officers, small local contact points known as Police
Community Stations and newsletters aimed at local communities (Pate et al, 1986
cited in Dalgleish and Myhill, 2004). Whilst successful in terms of most of its
measures, both this and the earlier Newark Foot Patrol Experiment (Police
Foundation, 2001, cited in Dalgleish and Myhill, 2004) were not sustained.
In Toowoomba, officers were designated to a defined beat area that became their
responsibility, using the mechanisms of accessibility, familiarity and visibility.
Measures of confidence rose in the experimental areas by 10-15%, whilst remaining
static in control areas, and a high level of public satisfaction was recorded (Criminal
Justice Commission, 1995 cited in Dalgleish and Myhill, 2004). The experiment was
later extended to a further 28 areas of Queensland and again achieved successful
evaluation (Mazarolle et al, 2003 cited in Dalgleish and Myhill, 2004).
Dalgleish and Myhill classify the rigour of the evaluations they analyse according to
the Maryland Scientific Methods Scale and identify various factors according to a
typology borrowed from Farrington et al (cited in Dalgleish and Myhill, 2004). An
abbreviated version of this is as follows:
• what works – two or more rigorous evaluations showing positive results
• what doesn’t work – as above with negative results
• what is promising – one evaluation with positive results
• what is unknown – methods or interventions that do not fit into the above
22
What does
not work
What is unknown
Neighbourhood Watch
Table 1
Improving
perceptions
What works What is
promising
What does
not work
What is unknown
and feelings
of safety
Intervention or
method
Increased
foot patrol
Improving
police
visibility,
accessibility
and familiarity
Community
policing
Increased
residential
security
Street lighting
CCTV
Street drinking restrictions
Neighbourhood Watch
Crime prevention
Beat policing
Community engagement
Table 2
(Dalgleish and Myhill, 2004 p28 and p44)
Whilst this synthesis of evidence is useful, the authors do add some caveats, pointing
out that the majority of evaluations on foot patrol come from the US and may not be
transferable to the UK context, most also relate to urban rather than rural areas, and
most initiatives were experimental. It is therefore unclear whether these projects would
have sustained their successes over time (Dalgleish and Myhill, 2004). They go on to
comment that:
There is a distinction to be drawn between interventions that involved relatively
simple changes to the environment or an area, or to specific aspects of operational
23
Police Community Support Officers: A Literature and Policy Review
The Growing Body of Knowledge About PCSOs
policing, and those that involved fundamental changes in the working practices of the
police as an organisation.
Far rarer are interventions that have achieved a fundamental change in the way a
city, or larger area, is policed, with the principles of community involvement in
policing, and the citizen focus of individual police officers and police services,
embedded within a force.This type of intervention is clearly much harder to
implement and sustain (Dalgleish and Myhill, 2004 p48).
The Growing Body of Knowledge
About PCSOs
When Patrolling with a Purpose (Crawford et al, 2004) was published, there was little
available comparative data on PCSOs. However, two further studies of the first year of
PCSO deployment have been completed looking at PCSOs in the Northumbria Police
Force (Dolman et al, unpublished) and in Surrey (Hearnden et al, 2004). These have
been supplemented by the National Evaluation of PCSOs (Cooper et al, 2006), which
became available in January of this year and a further report of PCSO terms and
conditions (Accenture, 2006). The Home Office has also published the results of its
consultation on PCSO powers and its responses (Home Office, 2006c). Together,
these contribute to a growing body of knowledge from which key themes are starting
to emerge.
The National Evaluation focused upon three case study areas in Sussex, Merseyside
and Northumbria, as well as using data from a force survey, to which 33 out of 43
forces responded, and 2,647 completed questionnaires from PCSOs who had been in
post for at least 3 months. Quantitative data was backed up by qualitative information
collection in the case study areas, in four locations, two where PCSOs had been
deployed and two control areas (Cooper et al, 2006).
PCSOs were primarily introduced to provide reassurance patrol, and the activity
analysis in the case study areas indicated that this is what occupied the majority of
PCSO time, although the proportions of time spent on patrol varied from one police
beat to another (rather than from one force to another). PCSOs spent between 50%
and 57% of time on patrol and in addition spent between 14% and 3% of time dealing
with incidents, mostly within their beat area (Cooper et al, 2006). Patrol encompasses
a variety of tasks, but these frequently involve communicating with members of the
public, as evidenced by PCSOs in two of the case study areas who filled in diaries
over the course of a week, and PCSOs responding to the postal questionnaire. 75% of
PCSOs in the survey indicated that they interacted with local residents on a daily
basis, whilst 88% said that they did so at least once a week (Cooper et al, 2006).
Effectiveness of patrol, however, depends not just on inter-personal skills, but upon
successful targeting. Despite this, Dolman et al (unpublished) noted significant
variation in the use of NIM for prioritising and directing tasks. Similarly, indications
from Cooper et al’s (2006) PCSO survey suggest that PCSOs are tasked through the
NIM process in only a minority of cases (14%, although there may be some effect
from some PCSOs not recognising when their tasking is informed by NIM). Cooper
24
25
Police Community Support Officers: A Literature and Policy Review
et al point to the need to gain a balance between deployment to hotspots and more
proactive community involvement (Cooper et al, 2006), and it would appear that local
areas are still in a process of finding that most effective balance.
In the case study forces, 5% to 8% of PCSO time was devoted to community
activities, the nature of which varied considerably between areas. PCSOs filling in the
weekly diary visited youth centres and engaged in public events, such as drug
awareness and personal safety presentations. Some PCSOs went further and initiated
diversionary and other activities for young people. From the PCSO survey, 40% of
respondents indicated that they regularly (at least weekly) visited community centres,
elderly people, victims and witnesses of crimes, and schools (Cooper et al, 2006). This
is certainly a development in terms of skills and geographical penetration into
residential areas from the PCSO activity evaluated by Crawford and colleagues in the
cities of Leeds and Bradford. In that research, PCSOs coming out of their training
were uncertain about the nature of community in a city centre dominated by business,
retail and leisure outlets, and how best to work with it (Crawford et al, 2004).
Community involvement is not the only way that PCSO roles have developed; Cooper
et al (2006) identify the growing importance of intelligence-gathering by PCSOs and
also a range of non-standard tasks undertaken in their case study areas, which include
crime prevention advice, collecting evidence for ABCs and ASBOs, minor house to
house enquiries and witness support. More explicit innovation has taken place in
some forces with designated specialist roles for PCSOs, which include:
• emergency services PCSOs in Lancashire
• youth PCSOs in Surrey
• transport PCSOs in Merseyside and West Midlands
• specialist PCSOs in Lancashire working on links with the gay, lesbian and bisexual
community, and with responsibility for physical disability and sensory impairment.
In addition, partnership funding has brought new areas of activity, with 16 PCSOs
being funded by Gatwick Airport and a smaller number by Metro, a bus company in
West Yorkshire (Accenture, 2006). Developing these opportunities for specialisms may
be significant in future in terms of offering experienced PCSOs interest and potential
for growth, particularly in the light of restricted vertical career development
opportunities. Accenture (2006) indicates that, from its research, few forces are in
favour of creating a rank structure for PCSOs, with a number of their interviewees
citing the previous experience with traffic wardens when such a structure was created.
To date, it reports that only one force has instituted a role of PCSO supervisor.
Concern about progression and retention has been highlighted in a number of
documents (Crawford et al, 2004; HMIC, 2004; Dolman et al, unpublished; Cooper
et al, 2006), and this is reflected in the Accenture (2006) report, which points in
addition to the cultural disadvantage of the PCSO role being too heavily marketed as
a stepping stone to becoming a sworn police officer, rather than having intrinsic value
26
The Growing Body of Knowledge About PCSOs
and its own potential for professional development. The report goes on to refer to a
perception that there are two distinct groupings within PCSOs – those who want a
career as a police officer and those who primarily wish to have a career as a PCSO
and to be developed within that role. In the PCSO surveys conducted by Cooper et al
(2006), 42% of respondents said that they had applied to become a PCSO with a
view to becoming a police officer and these respondents tended to be younger and
male. Older joiners and women were more likely to have joined because they were
attracted to the PCSO role specifically. Significantly, 71% cited the variety of the role
as an attractive feature and 67% had been motivated to join because of the prospect of
community engagement (Cooper et al, 2006). These seem important factors to
consider in the future development of the PCSO role, although at the same time
Accenture (2006) warns of the negative possibilities of horizontal ‘mission creep’ if
the role diverges too far from its initial purpose.
Similarly, Accenture (2006) refers to vertical ‘mission creep’, where PCSOs are
empowered to an extent that means that there is a blurring of the distinction between
the PCSO role and that of police officers. This is pertinent to the recent consultation
on PCSO powers, to which the government has now responded (Home Office,
2006c). Contributors to that consultation expressed concerns about the more punitive
and coercive powers that could be given to PCSOs, particularly around Fixed Penalty
Notices and anti-social behaviour, fearing that their use might undermine the positive
relationships that PCSOs can build with communities and young people, in particular.
Whilst over 70% of respondents to the consultation were in favour of a standard set of
powers, there were a variety of opinions about which should be included in the
standard set. ACPO expressed a view that the standard set should be minimal,
allowing discretion to confer additional powers to local areas, and this seems broadly
in line with the majority of police forces, who felt that PCSOs should not be given
powers that may give rise to confrontation, as standard (Home Office, 2006c). As a
result the Home Office will press ahead on establishing a set of 39 powers that it feels
will enable PCSOs to operate effectively in three key areas, these being tackling antisocial behaviour, dealing with alcohol abuse and playing a full role in neighbourhood
policing. Further powers will remain discretionary, but the conditional power to detain
individuals for up to 30 minutes pending the arrival of a constable, will be included as
standard. This follows a positive evaluation of the sites piloting detention powers
(Singer, 2004a), although it should be noted that the conclusions about the early use
of such powers in the Leeds and Bradford research did raise concerns about the
PCSOs resorting to detention too readily and not feeling confident to exercise
appropriate discretion (Crawford et al, 2004).
A number of enforcement powers proposed by the Home Office relate to young
people, including those believed to be absent from school without lawful authority.
Because of the focus of their efforts around anti-social behaviour, relationships with
young people are particularly important for PCSOs to establish, and certain of these
27
Police Community Support Officers: A Literature and Policy Review
powers, enabling the dispersal of groups of young people, for instance, have the
potential to cause friction. Fears about groups of young people are a significant
concern for many adult members of the public (Dolman et al, unpublished; Cooper et
al, 2006; HMIC for Scotland, 2002). From the National Evaluation, it emerges that
responding to youth nuisance and anti-social behaviour was one of the tasks that
PCSOs most frequently carried out, with 54% of survey respondents reporting that
they dealt with young people daily and 81% at least weekly (Cooper et al, 2006).
There appears to be little information available about young people’s experience of
PCSOs and this is clearly an area for future research, including the benefits of PCSOs
engaging in activities with young people, liaison with schools and the Youth PCSO
role developed by Surrey police force.
Some data is available, however, regarding public perceptions of PCSOs. In the early
stages of deployment there was understandably confusion about their role and how
they differ from both sworn police officers and local authority employed wardens. For
some members of the public, an assumption that PCSOs were invested with more
police powers than they have in reality, led to an increase in the reassurance effect
(Crawford et al, 2004). Elsewhere, eight months into implementation, public
awareness of PCSOs in Surrey was reported to be low (Hearnden, 2004), whilst in
target areas of Gateshead, awareness rates had risen to 85% in a public survey after
one year in operation, and 92% of residents surveyed in Wallsend were positive about
PCSOs at the end of one year (Dolman et al, unpublished). In Leeds and Bradford
the additional visibility of these police staff was evident to the public quite quickly,
and street surveys indicated that PCSOs did contribute to a reassurance effect,
particularly where there was an absence of other ‘capable guardians’ (Crawford et al,
2004).
The National Evaluation sought to establish the extent of public awareness after a
rather longer period of PCSO operation, but still found considerable confusion about
the role and remit of PCSOs. From the focus groups in this research, it emerged that
few participants had had direct contact with PCSOs, although there was evidence that
business owners and managers had more written information and had received more
informal visits than had residents (Cooper et al, 2006). Interestingly, those people who
had little contact or knowledge about PCSOs viewed them more negatively,
comparing them unfavourably to sworn police officers. Amongst those who were
positive about PCSOs, the main benefit was seen as being the ability to tackle antisocial behaviour, and the expectation of receiving a response from a PCSO appears to
have increased the likelihood of ASB being reported (Cooper et al, 2006). Two quotes
from police commanders are particularly apt:
The beauty of PCSOs is that they can talk to the community…..the people will tell
PCSOs things they won’t tell cops…..on a daily basis they are talking to the
community and can provide the cops with a lot of intelligence.
28
The Growing Body of Knowledge About PCSOs
PCSOs are dealing with the issues that communities are most concerned about eg
kids on street corners – areas of concern are not big crimes eg car crime and the like
– they are things like ASB and the lack of visibility of police officers so if a PCSO
can deal with issues like that, then the public are happy with that.
(Cooper et al, 2006 p35)
There are also indications from evaluations that there was initial confusion within the
police forces in terms of what areas of work PCSOs were suited for. This extends to
control room staff allocating incidents to PCSOs (Dolman et al, unpublished),
supervisory staff on divisions (Hearden, 2004) and police officers, who at first did not
fully appreciate the core function of PCSOs to patrol (Crawford et al, 2004). These
confusions may have diminished with time and greater familiarity with PCSOs on the
ground, but both the PCSO survey and fieldwork for the National Evaluation show
that lack of knowledge and familiarity is still an issue: only 56% of PCSOs in the
survey felt that police officer colleagues understood their role, and this percentage was
even lower for control room staff (Cooper et al, 2006).
More positively, PCSOs responding to the survey, felt they had been accepted by
police officers and supervisors. Fieldwork also suggested that initial negativity tended
to change as police officers and others worked more closely with PCSOs and
understood their role, although some suspicions may remain in those sections of
police forces that do not have contact with PCSOs (Cooper et al, 2006). Nevertheless,
the positive reception of PCSOs is to some extent dependent on their being extra to
police officer numbers, and a sense arises from the National Evaluation that this
would change if there were a threat to the maintenance of police officer strength:
Happy to have more PCSOs as long as they don’t pose a threat to police officer
numbers.
Human Resources
…..but I don’t think there’s an antipathy towards PCSOs. However, if you freeze
officer numbers and continue to recruit PCSOs, this will change.
Police Commander
(Cooper et al, 2006 p64)
The National Evaluation highlights understanding and communication of the PCSO
role as being central in their integration into the police forces. It was found that
integration was further promoted by co-location and sharing facilities with officers,
aligning shifts and working as part of the same team (Cooper et al, 2006).
Communication and training issues were significant in terms of the initial support
available to PCSOs from their line managers as they first arrived on divisions. In
Surrey, clearly articulated rationales for the PCSO roles in policy documents at force
level were not routinely made available to key police and local authority personnel
who would be working with PCSOs. Supervisors were not trained in the management
of civilian staff, which was a new responsibility, and did not receive guidance in their
29
The Growing Body of Knowledge About PCSOs
Police Community Support Officers: A Literature and Policy Review
appraisal system (Hearnden, 2004). Similarly, in Northumbria, it was noted that some
confusion existed for supervisors with regard to linking appropriate roles and tasks to
the role and competencies of PCSOs, and that there was considerable differences
between areas in their mix of reactive and proactive policing, focused on reassurance
and visibility (Dolman et al, unpublished). Both areas noted the need to establish
greater corporate direction in order to achieve more consistency.
The National Evaluation discusses in more depth the management and direction of
PCSOs, and reflects these same issues. 87% of PCSOs surveyed were supervised
directly by Sergeants, 5% by Inspectors and 4% by CSO supervisors. In the main,
Sergeants supervised PCSOs in addition to sworn officers, and the numbers of
PCSOs has clearly added to their responsibilities and workload, which will need
seriously to be considered in the light of projected PCSO growth (Cooper et al,
2006). Some concerning data came from the PCSO survey to the effect that 34% of
PCSOs agreed with the statement that their manager was always overstretched, only
52% felt that their manager had sufficient time to monitor their work and only 46%
received regular feedback from their supervisor. There was little organised training for
supervisors and some - albeit a minority - were unaware of the terms and conditions
relating to their PCSO interviewees (Cooper et al, 2006).
• not being given tasks that detract from the primary reassurance role
• publicity about their role to enhance public understanding
(Cooper et al, 2006)
Clearly there is a great deal more to learn about PCSOs and their potential
effectiveness both in neighbourhood policing teams, in specialist roles and in terms of
their partnership work with community organisations and local authority staff. Whilst
there is an apparent growth in confidence and belief in what PCSOs can offer, ‘harder
evidence’ of their effectiveness has been more difficult to capture, even to the extent
of determining what should be measured. Hearnden (2004) found a variety of ways
that police divisions were assessing the effect of their new PCSOs in Surrey, and with
little corporate direction as to the most appropriate measures that would allow for
comparison between areas. It remains to be seen whether this pattern is replicated
elsewhere and what quantifiable data, as well as qualitative analysis, emerges over the
coming period.
PCSOs work in an increasing variety of organisational structures, some in their own
teams and, at the other extreme, some embedded in neighbourhood policing teams, as
in Merseyside. Cooper et al (2006) found support for the expansion of PCSOs to
take place within neighbourhood policing teams, where it was felt that their unique
role and contributions could be used to best effect.
But what of the effectiveness of PCSOs? Some preliminary indications from the
studies in the first year of operation suggest an impact upon public confidence and
reassurance, as well as low level crime and nuisance. However, these were very early
studies and for some indicators, such as crime figures, there was difficulty in
separating out the effect of PCSOs compared to other factors, and indeed,
displacement crime. The following factors were identified by Cooper and colleagues in
the more recent evaluation as contributing to the effectiveness of locally based PCSOs
in more general, rather than specialist, roles:
• a clear definition of PCSO roles as distinct from sworn officers
• appropriate powers and deployment which is based on NIM
• being part of a team with police officers and other members of the policing family
• supervision from within their team and regular contact with their supervisor
• working in a defined local area to build up familiarity and trust
• patrolling on foot, but also engaging with the community through meetings and
visits
• being accessible to the public
30
31
References
Police Community Support Officers: A Literature and Policy Review
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Police Community Support Officers: A Literature and Policy Review
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Police Community Support Officers: A Literature and Policy Review
About the Author
Anne Robinson qualified as a probation officer in 1993 and was employed in that
capacity until 2001, mainly with juvenile and young adult offenders. From 2000 until
joining Sheffield Hallam University in 2005, she worked in a Youth Offending Team
setting, moving from a practitioner into an operational and then a strategic
management role, by virtue of which she was involved in significant partnership work
with the police.
Anne now works as a Senior Lecturer with the Hallam Centre for Community Justice,
and is currently engaged in an evaluation of Police Community Support Officers in
West Yorkshire Police.
About the Publisher
Under the direction of Professor Paul Senior, the Hallam Centre for Community
Justice is part of the Faculty of Development and Society at Sheffield Hallam
University.
The Centre is committed to working alongside community justice organisations in the
local, regional and national context in pursuance of high quality outcomes in the field
of community justice research, policy and practice. In particular:
• evaluation studies
• scoping and mapping surveys
• full-scale research projects
• continuous professional development
• conference organisation
• Information exchange through the Community Justice Portal (www.cjp.org.uk)
For further information contact:
Telephone 0114 225 5725
Fax 0114 225 5800
E-mail hccj@shu.ac.uk
Web www.shu.ac.uk/hccj
36
July 2006
Anne Robinson
Occasional paper
Police Community Support Officers: A literature and policy review
Police Community
Support Officers
A literature and policy review
Anne Robinson
Hallam Centre for Community Justice