Crime Reduction - Helping to Reduce Crime in Your Area

A new Bill was placed before Parliament on 25 January 2002 outlining the Government’s proposals for changing the police service. New proposals include the creation of new Community Support Officers (CSOs) and Accredited Community Safety Officers (ACSOs); new powers to combat some forms of anti-social behaviour and the introduction of a new Independent Police Complaints Commission

Under the Bill, the role of police support staff would be expanded to encompass new specific roles of

• Community Support Officers

• Investigating Officers

• Detention Officers

• Escort Officers

Each new role would have job-specific powers and appropriate training. CSOs will be able to give fixed penalty notices for disorder, litter, dog fouling and cycling offences. They will also have the power to request someone’s name and address in respect of their fixed penalty notice powers and where an individual is behaving in an anti-social manner i.e. causing harassment, alarm or distress. They will have the power to use reasonable force to detain for 30 minutes an individual who does not comply with a request to give their name and address, pending the arrival of a police constable. They will also have the power to seize a vehicle causing a nuisance in a public space, on the road or in a park.

Chief Police Officers would be able to harness local networks of street wardens, neighbourhood wardens and security staff to become Accredited Community Safety Officers. The powers of ACSOs would not be fixed, but would vary according to the agreements drawn up between the police and ACSOs. Powers available to be delegated by the Chief Officer are similar to those available to the new CSOs, but without the power to use reasonable force to detain an individual for up to 30 minutes.

The Bill would also introduce a new Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC). The IPCC would

• have its own powers of investigation and an independent body of investigators

• have the power to call in any case to either investigate or supervise

• decide what level of investigation is appropriate - ranging from a police investigation, to the Commission supervising the police investigation through to the Commission managing the investigation and at the highest level a full independent investigation by the Commissions’ staff

• see all serious cases whether or not a complaint has been made

• enable greater access to the complaints system by allowing a representative of the victim or an independent group to make the initial complaint on the victim’s behalf

The Commission would cover Community Support Officers as well as police officers.

Police powers would be extended in the Bill by:

• making the offences of assaulting a police officer, driving while disqualified, and making off without payment, arrestable offences

• introducing a specific power of arrest for failing to comply with a request to stop from a constable in uniform

• introducing a power for police officers and CSOs to seize vehicles causing a nuisance

• introducing a power to have blood samples taken from unconscious drivers. The driver would be asked for consent when consciousness is regained. If consent was withheld the sample could not be used, but this refusal would be an offence in the same way as it is for conscious drivers to refuse consent for a sample to be taken

More details of the Police Reform Bill, and the Government's police reform programme, can be found at the Police Reform website.