UK: Government to bolster CSOs and ASBOs
01 November 2004
The Serious Organised Crime and Police Bill, published in November 2004, includes significant legal changes to the government's two main strategies for dealing with low-level nuisance and anti-social behaviour: Community Support Officers (CSOs) and Anti-Social Behaviour Orders (ASBOs). CSOs are set to have the scope of their role and powers significantly increased, while legal safeguards protecting the anonymity of children involved in criminal proceedings for breaching the terms of their ASBO have been removed to facilitate their "naming and shaming". In addition the Bill provides for an extension of the "relevant authorities" able to apply for an order which the government says will encourage greater proactive public involvement.
CSOs are police authority employed civilian staff, designed to provide greater police visibility and presence within communities, performing non-specialist functions and thus freeing up resources. The Home Office has always emphasised their role as a supplement to police officers, not a replacement on the cheap. At the end of September there were 4,098 employed across the country, a figure projected to rise to 24,000, by the end of March 2008, in the Home Office strategic plan, Confident Communities in a Secure Britain, published in July. Until now, other than the piloting, in six areas, of the power to detain an individual for 30 minutes pending the arrival of a constable, their legal powers have remained very limited. This is reflected in the brevity of their training, taking as little as three weeks (See Statewatch, vol 14 no 1). Despite this the power of detention was extended to all police forces on 23 December following a positive evaluation report of the trial.
Furthermore, the Bill includes plans to grant CSOs powers to stop and search suspects for dangerous articles and concealed alcohol and tobacco, deter begging, direct traffic, enforce certain licensing offences and enter licensed premises, access the national police computer and issue fixed penalty notices for a greater range of offences. To facilitate this they could be equipped with pepper spray, batons and handcuffs.
This has evoked a hostile response from rank-and-file police leaders, many of who have expressed reservations about CSOs since their introduction. According to Jan Berry, head of the Police Federation, "by giving them more powers we are effectively taking them away from the community they are there to serve and [it] also now begs the question what is the difference between a CSO and a police officer." Arguably there has never been a straightforward answer to this given CSOs can only use those powers specifically conferred on them by the Chief Officer of their force. Indeed, a 29 September Home Office press release confirmed that "at least one force has" designate[d] CSOs without any powers". The reality is that with no uniform national training programme or selection process currently in place, and the scope of their powers left to discretion, referring to CSOs as a homogenous group is problematic. The potential inconsistency from one county to the next is striking.
For those CSOs conferred these new powers, should the Bill become law, the main concern would be that people with three weeks training are carrying pepper spray and instigating confrontational situations when they force people to undergo body searches. Already, in September, the Police Federation warned the Home Affairs Select Committee that CSOs are being misused and placing the public, themselves and police officers at risk when asked to work 5pm-3am shifts and handle people coming out of pubs and clubs. Hazel Blears, a Home Office minister, draws on these kind of conflicts in her justification of the proposed legal changes when she claims "there is nothing more frustrating to find that something happens and they haven't got the power to deal with it." This may be true but equally it can be argued that it instead indicates a need for a p