A critical evaluation of current and future roles of police community support officers and neighbourhood wardens within the Metropolitan Police Service and London boroughs
| Author | Barry Loveday,Richard Smith |
| Date | 01 June 2015 |
| Published date | 01 June 2015 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1461355715580913 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
A critical evaluation of current and
future roles of police community support
officers and neighbourhood wardens
within the Metropolitan Police Service
and London boroughs: Utilising ‘low-cost
high-value’ support services in a period of
financial austerity
Barry Loveday
Institute of Criminal Justice Studies, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, UK
Richard Smith
Metropolitan Police Service, London, UK
Abstract
The article considers problems surrounding the delivery of visible policing in London, particularly in relation to the
continuing challenge for police managers of delivering neighbourhood policing in the capital. It assesses the value of
police community support officers (PCSOs) in terms of delivery of neighbourhood policing against a background of
high abstraction rates. It also considers the changing role and purpose of the community support officer function
within many police forces. It evaluates the potential benefits of an expansion of community wardens who might
provide a ‘high-value low-cost’ option to what can be, aside from the enforcement role, a ‘high-cost low-value’
policing alternative.
Keywords
Anti-social behaviour, neighbourhood policing, PCSOs, police spending cuts, neighbourhood wardens, comparative costs
of wardens and police officers/PCSOs
Submitted 11 Nov 2014, resubmitted 09 Feb 2015, accepted 10 Feb 2015
Introduction
There has been a growing debate about the future role of
police community support officers (PCSOs), which has
been driven by both significant spending cuts required of
police forces in the next financial cycle and the continuing
problem of anti-social behaviour (ASB) that afflicts so
many local and most deprived communities. This was iden-
tified most forcefully by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of
Constabulary (HMIC, 2010) in an important thematic
report ‘Anti-Social Behaviour: Stop the Rot’, which argued
that ASB represented the most significant challenge to both
communities and police forces. The report also drew atten-
tion to the evident failure of the police in relation to this
problem, where HMIC noted that ASB consistently repre-
sented a ‘second order’ problem to most operational police
officers and did not receive the attention or enjoy the same
Corresponding author:
Barry Loveday, Institute of Criminal Justice Studies, University of Portsmouth,
St George’s Building, 141 High Street, Portsmouth, PO1 2HY, UK.
Email: barry.loveday@port.ac.uk
International Journalof
Police Science & Management
2015, Vol. 17(2) 74–80
ªThe Author(s) 2015
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DOI: 10.1177/1461355715580913
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