pcso's are a complete waste of time. they have no repsect from the kids and no respect from the adults. they are glorified traffic wardens. why would a 40, 50 + adult be lectured by a teenager. put the money into proper policing not plastic plods

Agree with you localpcso. You find that those who dont like us don't know what we do and can achieve nor have they bothered to research or speak to a pcso. You find they usually read 'The Sun' or the Hate mail too.

I work in a city centre which is quite a different role to a residential CSO. My knowledge of the city is better than most of the pc's and I am putting in around 30 intelligence entries a week along with about 25 stops. We hammer areas where local drinking is commonplace and on saturdays we find underage drinkers, call their parents and have them picked up while giving them a good dressing down.

Most of the chavs and the criminals DO respect me. They know what I can or cant do [like you, I find asking them to search themselves works 99% of the time] but they still comply with my orders because they know the outcome will only be worse for them in the long-term.

If CSO's are in the job for the right reasons and have a good understanding of the limitations of the role so that they can stretch it as far as they can then we can be a valuable tool in the police force and an excellent idea by the Labour Government.

The reaction to myself by the general public, the PC's and even the criminals is suprisingly positive, Ive had suprisingly little criticism for the role which just makes you realise how narrow-minded people like the above are...

What have these comments got to do about uniform?

We are getting polo shirts next year, ours will be dark navy, PCs will get (some already have) black. It's about time we all got a standardized uniform.

PC & PCSO uniforms should be distinctly different. The reason is our roles are completely different and the public need to know the difference.

You are not police, you are not confrontational, you do not arrest. Public thinking you are police get upset when they see you not acting as police thus stirs up community tensions with us.

Do your job and we will do ours.

With all due respect to the PC above. We do as we’re told. We wear the uniform we are given. We go in plain clothes if we are told to.
We do our jobs just fine.

In reference to the comment earlier about older people not being able to take ‘teenage PCSOs’ seriously. In my experience most PCSOs are older than PCs. They tend to be middle aged people. The average age of the PCSO at my nick is about 30. and PC its about 25. Don’t believe everything you read in the Mial.

I have a lot of trust in the police, and i had a lot of trust in PCSOs, until I met one, he was rude, ignored criminal inteligence I supplied to him, and put me so on guard I forgot to tell him about evidence in a spate of local vandalisms. He failed in every respect, and if he was a police officer would have had a complaint made agisnt him, but because he was a PCSO, he was not reguired to give me a written record of my contact, and I was not told how to make a complaint. I still have a lot of respect for the police, I just share their opinion of PCSOs. I met 2 poluce officers in circumstances that actually looked a lot worse, although I was acting totally legally, and they gave me no cuase for complaint, but still they gave me, entirely un promted, a form with thier details, and hot to make a complaint. If PCSOs had to do that, they would not last 5 minutes. the PCSO I met is infamous. He is hated by all the local teenagers. He is a school PCSO, and is supposed to engage with teenagers. PCSO cars have also been sighted several times parked on double yellow lines.

Sorry but PCSOs are more of a hindrance than a help. Many in the MET can't even speak English with most not being able to communicate on a radio effectively. In fact many start to dribble on the radio blocking the airwaves for police when they need it.

Nice to see pc's talking so highly of us. On my division we (pc/pcso's) work as a TEAM. Quite righly we are not constables however we all come under the same banner 'POLICE', one big team, after all isn't that one of the core competencies we fill in on our application forms????
Oh and more to the point the new uniform looks spot on.