You cant picture this

[hencole]

PCSOs are simply the kind of people who like the idea of being policemen. Busybodies, the kind of people who become prefects at school, or who join the police when the Nazis get in power, or who tag along for the pogroms and lynchings without understanding whatever warped ideology informs them. In fact, they're just bullies. You can see it in their eyes as they walk along, glancing at people, waiting for someone to give them a 'funny look' so they can bluster over an intimidate. They need to be disbanded. The role of Special Constable already gives civilians the chance to act as policemen, and as it is unpaid it only really attracts the dedicated. We need more actual coppers, though preferably smarter ones than in that second film.

This is simply not true. i would guess most want to make a difference to their community, I know that's whay a friend of mine used to do it. To start comparing them to helping the Nazi's is just plain offensive.

I don't agree with how they are used at times to 'replace' police officers. My only personal dealings with them involved me and another member of the public trying to save a 5 foot female officer from a drunken mob of teenagers abusing her. Her presence not only got her in trouble, it got me into a siutation that put me at risk.

[its not cool to be weird]

This is simply not true. i would guess most want to make a difference to their community, I know that's whay a friend of mine used to do it. To start comparing them to helping the Nazi's is just plain offensive.

Meh, it depends on the person in question of course. I don't like to interrupt invective with conditionals. Indeed, some are perfectly decent people.

I don't agree with how they are used at times to 'replace' police officers. My only personal dealings with them involved me and another member of the public trying to save a 5 foot female officer from a drunken mob of teenagers abusing her. Her presence not only got her in trouble, it got me into a siutation that put me at risk.

But in fact they are worse than useless. Theoretically they have the same powers of arrest as you and I, that is to make a citizens arrest and detain someone whom they suspect has committed a crime. In practice they are encouraged not to make such arrests due to the paperwork involved and the danger of being sued for any problems arising from a wrongful arrest. They are, therefore, actually more useless than ordinary, and I suspect thugs have less respect for them than an ordinary vigilante trying to restore order anyway. Thus they are just enforcers of the nanny state. Benign in effect but irritating and indicative of a poor national attitude.

And yes they were only brought in to disguise an absence of actual police officers.

[rudi]

I go to university in Southampton, so I drive on the M3 a few times a year. There are no speed traps or anything (that I can see) on it so most people on the fast lane are usually doing at least a hundred.

Sorry about that.

I promise not to hit you if you're not in the fast lane when you don't need to be...