by powdermonkey » Sun Jul 20, 2014 7:33 pm
Gazing into my crystal ball, well, plastic as it was from the pound shop, I offer my vision of the future for PCSO's.
Because the cuts are continuing and because their effect will be felt for years to come, I can see us being deployed to a greater range of jobs, being the OIC in more offences and generally being used as much as possible to make up for the shortfall in police officers. Whether this will trigger a pay rose and/or an increase in powers or even more PPE remains to be seen.
I can quite easily see any recruitment of PCSO's being for fixed term contracts as forces see how the budgets are in future years.
As for SOCO, falkor, I'm a big supporter of forensic evidence as you can imagine (although there are caveats to my support). Unfortunately, due those pesky cuts (again) SOCO will not be used as widely as you or I might hope. SOCO dept heads will look to target their resources at scenes with the best potential for yielding evidence. I've seen that in West Yorks with low level crime such as Damage To, and Theft From, Vehicles.
If you woke up one morning to find some oik had walked over your car leaving footwear marks on bonnet, roof and boot, then a handsome & intelligent SOCO (such as myself) would attend and photograph and lift the footwear marks. Unfortunately, because they are comparative evidence, you need the footwear used to convict the oik, which means you need intel or other evidence to point you towards the oik. Attendance at such scenes was dropped because there were so few convictions compared to the number of scenes attended, cost of processing and soring the evidence etc etc
The same rationale was applied to TFMV. I could quite easily go to a dozen or more TFMV jobs in a day (scattering ali, powder hither and yonder - hence my username) but gather little or no evidence. Nowadays, SOCO only attend a TFMV if the door's been bent out, if there's visible DNA (e.g. blood, spit etc) or if there's visible fingerprints. Note the visible : most powdering is a search for latent fingerprints (ones not visible to the naked eye). One may use powder to enhance and then lift a fingerprint.
I once joked that the day would come that we would post to the complainant a small sachet of powder, a disposable brush, some sticky tape and instructions on how to lift fingerprints, much in the way that we currently send out kits for getting elimination fingerprints. You can already buy small pots of powder so my joke may yet turn out to be a premonition.
The biggest costs to a force are wages and premises. I expect more staff losses through reduced recruitment/replacements and more centralisation to reduce premises costs (and no care given to the effect on response times).
The public will not get the service it deserves but that is easily dealt with. Rather than having an undertaking to "meet public expectations" a force will "manage public expectations . . . .et voila! Meanwhile, every serving officer, PCSO & all other staff will do their best to keep the wheel on.
Gazing into my crystal ball, well, plastic as it was from the pound shop, I offer my vision of the future for PCSO's.
Because the cuts are continuing and because their effect will be felt for years to come, I can see us being deployed to a greater range of jobs, being the OIC in more offences and generally being used as much as possible to make up for the shortfall in police officers. Whether this will trigger a pay rose and/or an increase in powers or even more PPE remains to be seen.
I can quite easily see any recruitment of PCSO's being for fixed term contracts as forces see how the budgets are in future years.
As for SOCO, falkor, I'm a big supporter of forensic evidence as you can imagine (although there are caveats to my support). Unfortunately, due those pesky cuts (again) SOCO will not be used as widely as you or I might hope. SOCO dept heads will look to target their resources at scenes with the best potential for yielding evidence. I've seen that in West Yorks with low level crime such as Damage To, and Theft From, Vehicles.
If you woke up one morning to find some oik had walked over your car leaving footwear marks on bonnet, roof and boot, then a handsome & intelligent SOCO (such as myself) would attend and photograph and lift the footwear marks. Unfortunately, because they are comparative evidence, you need the footwear used to convict the oik, which means you need intel or other evidence to point you towards the oik. Attendance at such scenes was dropped because there were so few convictions compared to the number of scenes attended, cost of processing and soring the evidence etc etc
The same rationale was applied to TFMV. I could quite easily go to a dozen or more TFMV jobs in a day (scattering ali, powder hither and yonder - hence my username) but gather little or no evidence. Nowadays, SOCO only attend a TFMV if the door's been bent out, if there's visible DNA (e.g. blood, spit etc) or if there's visible fingerprints. Note the visible : most powdering is a search for latent fingerprints (ones not visible to the naked eye). One may use powder to enhance and then lift a fingerprint.
I once joked that the day would come that we would post to the complainant a small sachet of powder, a disposable brush, some sticky tape and instructions on how to lift fingerprints, much in the way that we currently send out kits for getting elimination fingerprints. You can already buy small pots of powder so my joke may yet turn out to be a premonition.
The biggest costs to a force are wages and premises. I expect more staff losses through reduced recruitment/replacements and more centralisation to reduce premises costs (and no care given to the effect on response times).
The public will not get the service it deserves but that is easily dealt with. Rather than having an undertaking to "meet public expectations" a force will "manage public expectations . . . .et voila! Meanwhile, every serving officer, PCSO & all other staff will do their best to keep the wheel on.