Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs)

The role of PCSO is vital to Northamptonshire Police. In essence, they're the heartbeat of the role for the Neighbourhood Policing Teams and they keep victims concerns and community concerns at the front and centre.

PCSOs throughout the county are in every town and rural community, every sector of Northamptonshire has a Neighbourhood Policing Team, which will have PCs allocated to it, but also PCSOs allocated to it. And so, that means our towns are covered and our rural villages are covered as well which is just as important as our towns. PCSOs bridge the gap between the police as a force and the public. They're key in being that consistent visible presence for us.

They've got that time, the PCSOs, to build up the relationships with businesses, people in the community, community groups, and really trying to build that confidence, which is absolutely key for us in policing.

We then get information given to us so we can go out there and specifically target those issues in the community, which is then when our police officers come in and can do that enforcement.

The PCSOs are there to build that trust and confidence with communities as well as specific individuals. So you can have a PCSO deployed to a welfare check, and they might be the ideal person to do that above a police officer because they've been able to build up a specific relationship with that person. And so the trust is already there, so why would we not send that person to do that if it's safe for us to do so?

Best thing for me as a sergeant on neighbourhood policing and having a team of PCSOs is having those people that I can call upon in my team to be able to go out there and engage with the public, go out there and give the reassurance around when we have crimes like vehicle crime, burglary, going to do specific visits to conduct inquiries, house-to-house and CCTV, which supports our police officers who are investigating those crimes. And at the same time, make sure that those victims are being heard, away from the investigation and on a more sort of personal level. Having those people that are more readily available to deploy to do those specific taskings is a great help for our teams and supporting our police officers. 

People will often want to speak to PCSOs over a police constable and there's nothing wrong with that. And that might well be because they've built that trust up with that person, because they've had multiple conversations with them before, so they just know them on that more personal level. It allows us to have that extra element to our toolbox, if you like, where we can have those people who are freed up to be out more having the conversations, having the community events with people, speaking to the vulnerable people in society to make sure that they're not persistently targeted through ASB or crime, gathering that intelligence so we can deal with the enforcement side of policing, and providing that reassurance, that visible, open contact that people want from the police. They want us to be there, readily available to speak to and the role of the PCSO is vital to do that.