Toy Cops On The Streets Of London

Posted by admin in Life In London on October 29th, 2009 | one response

A rare sight on the streets of London or for that matter from what I can gather it is a similar problem all over the UK, is seeing police officers pounding the beat. Where did it all start to go wrong, why did the powers to be the think that cops walking the beat were a waste of police time and resources. They really wanted to save money without giving a shit about the consequences.

I will tell you what is real waste of time, money and resources and that is British soldiers fighting wars in Iraqi and Afghanistan that are never going to end. It truly amazes me that the Government has got billions to spend on wars but the chances of seeing a police officer walking the beat in London, is as likely as Mayor Boris Johnson speaking any sense.

I must admit however that I do occasionally come across those toy cops, sorry I meant to say Police Community Support Officers. But even those clowns are a rare breed.

PCSO are not quite police officers, they are not quite security guards, I’m not quite sure what they are meant to be. They are in fact seemingly meant to support proper police officers in our neighbourhoods. They are supposedly meant to do the job that police officers use to do in the old days and that was providing a visible presence on the streets and making the public feel safer and such like.

The bottom line is that PCSO haven’t got anywhere near the same levels of power as regular police officers. I don’t know why they didn’t just give them their own special uniform, instead of making them almost look like normal cops. Maybe a pink boiler suit with PCSO in big letters on the back and a nice matching beanie hat would have been better.

I haven’t got a problem with the concept of Police Community Support Officers, but I question how effective they are. I sometimes get the feeling that some of them are wanna be soldiers but too scared to really join up or know they will never make the grade as real cops, so they settled for second best. You see the state of some of those PCSO they walk around with some sort of swagger thinking they are fucking Starskey and Hutch.

My understanding of PCSO is that they are meant to deal with the shit that the real cops haven’t got time to deal with. I get the impression that they think the job only entails providing a visual presence on the streets and nothing else.

Why is it that you very rarely see a PCSO when you need one, much like normal cops I suppose. Why when some clown is cycling down the pavement like a lunatic or when some fucker is letting his Pit Bull crap all over the pavement they are never around, (I thought Pits were illegal in the Uk, they aint in London!). What about when some dirty bastard is peeing in the street in broad daylight, why is there never a PCSO going around or do they just rush in the opposite direction at the first sniff of action.

From a quick glance at the job specifications of PCSO I know what they are busy doing, reporting vandalism or damaged street furniture, reporting suspicious activity; providing crime prevention advice, deterring juvenile nuisance and visiting victims of crime. I feel safer already.

I also get the feeling that nowadays too many police officers don’t really have a passion for the job, they just see it as being a good career that offers good promotion prospects and money. Most of them couldn’t help a granny across the road properly let alone catch a scum bag.

Mayor Boris was on his recent jolly in New York, which was once upon a time a real cesspool. It isn’t seemingly quite so bad nowadays. I wonder if the Mayor stopped for a few minutes and did some real work on his trip.

Did Boris get some insights as to how a notorious cesspool of a city managed to clean itself up a few notches. Way back in the mid 1990’s was when the then Mayor of New York Rudy Giuliani’s, visionary law and order programme got the ball rolling. London is a stinking cesspool at times and it isn’t going to get any better unless some serious action is taken.

I recently read an interesting article regarding a so called Supercop nicknamed the “arrest machine”. In 18 months he arrested 1000 suspects, which is 100 times more than the average officer. His secret, was believe it or not, was simply pounding the beat. Why is it that one cop can manage so much but the average cop can manage so little. That’s because Supercop actively seeks out the scum and vermin that plague society, he doesn’t turn a blind eye to crime or run away from it.

I reckon if London had about 20 Supercops this city would be on the mend, but what’s the chances of that happening in the near future. I’m aloud to dream aint I.