According to Devon and Cornwall Constabulary, Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs) in Cornwall provide “a vital role in local neighbourhoods in Cornwall, as part of the wider police family.” Part of this role is to provide advice, fixed penalty notices and detain suspects for up to 30 minutes.
Truro-based Inspector Dave Scott says that:
“Many of our PCSOs have lived most of their lives in the communities they serve and understand the issues that are important to local people.”
There are three immediate questions that need to be answered here:
1. Why not give traffic wardens a different hat and save money on PCSOs, who are just supped up traffic wardens after all?
2. If PCSOs can serve in the communities where they have lived for most of their lives and play a vital role, then why can’t the real police officers?
3. Is Cornwall being blagged off with PCSOs while Devon gets the real police officers?
The police in Cornwall have become part of a faceless society where you are as unlikely to see a police officer you know in your community as you are the closed circuit television cameras that line our streets.
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