The public want more police officers – not volunteers

GOVERNMENT proposals to substitute fully trained and warranted police officers with volunteers will put these citizens at risk, Essex Police Federation has warned.

Mark Smith, Federation Chairman, said: “I don’t think the public want volunteers being given extra powers. The public want more police officers.” He added that untrained volunteers could be in danger from violent offenders.

“The first volunteer that tries to detain a drunk on the high-street and gets punched in the face. Where do we go from there?” said Mr Smith. “Is that person going to stay in the job, continue volunteering? We shouldn’t be putting public and volunteers in that sort of danger. It’s just crazy.”

The criticism by the Federation is in response to an announcement by Home Secretary Theresa May that police chiefs would get the power to give more responsibility to support staff and unpaid helpers, without them having to become a Special constable.

It will open the way for members of the public, who are experts in computing or accountancy, to be recruited to help tackle cyber or financial crime. But there are fears they could also patrol the streets.

Mr Smith added: “Will these people detain people until we can turn up – because we haven’t got enough resources to be able to detain them ourselves? How long before the first volunteer is stabbed and killed? It’s craziness.

“I can understand the Government wanting to try and get some expertise around cybercrime but are they actually going to get people to volunteer? These people that may be in the private sector charge an absolute fortune. Who’s going to want to do that for free for us?”

Steve White, Chairman of the Police Federation of England and Wales, said: “Having recently had the Government say ‘the police protect us and we are going to protect the police’, which clearly infers a need for greater resources, we appear to now be looking at a situation where they want to provide these resources on the cheap.”

Home Secretary Theresa May said: “We want to help forces to create a more flexible workforce, bring in new skills and free up officers’ time to focus on the jobs only they can carry out.”

National Police Chiefs’ Council Lead for Citizens in Policing, Chief Constable Dave Jones, said: “The new approach to designating police powers will help the police service be more flexible when it comes to attracting and deploying volunteers with valuable skills, especially in situations where the full powers of a constable are not necessary.”