Police Community Support Officers (PCSO)
British Transport Police are the only special police force that employ Police Community Support Officers (PCSO). The BTP started recruiting PCSOs on 13 December 2004. They mostly work in the force's Neighbourhood Policing Teams (NPTs). Unlike most other forces, BTP is one of only two forces to issue their PCSOs handcuffs, the other being North Wales Police (Heddlu Gogledd Cymru). This is in addition to leg restraints. The issuing of handcuffs to PCSOs has been controversial. BTP PCSOs also enjoy generally more powers than their counterparts in other forces. As of May 2012 BTP had 326 PCSOs. Although BTP police's in Scotland it does not have any PCSOs in Scotland due to limitations of the Police Reform Act 2002, the law that empowers PCSOs which does not extend to Scotland. Although unlike police officers there is no formal transfer process BTP is known to often attract PCSOs already serving in other police forces.
Read more about this topic: British Transport Police
Famous quotes containing the words police, community, support and/or officers:
“Anarchism is a game at which the police can beat you.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“As in political revolutions, so in paradigm choice—there is no standard higher than the assent of the relevant community. To discover how scientific revolutions are effected, we shall therefore have to examine not only the impact of nature and of logic, but also the techniques of persuasive argumentation effective within the quite special groups that constitute the community of scientists.”
—Thomas S. Kuhn (b. 1922)
“What has been the effect of [religious] coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“Now for civil service reform. Legislation must be prepared and executive rules and maxims. We must limit and narrow the area of patronage. We must diminish the evils of office-seeking. We must stop interference of federal officers with elections. We must be relieved of congressional dictation as to appointments.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)