On a warm Saturday night in September last year, a man calls 999 to report that somebody has hit him in the face with a glass bottle outside a pub in west London. Special inspector Anthony Kay speeds to the scene in a police van, sirens blaring. As he and several other officers arrive at the pub, the injured man begins swearing at them, threatening to throw his alleged attacker into a nearby canal.
To most observers, the team of six constables in attendance would look completely ordinary, with batons, handcuffs and incapacitant spray attached to their belts. But, despite having the same uniform and powers as regular police, none of them are employed as officers. Kay, 40, is a full-time computer programmer working for a City law firm; Jamie is a recent university graduate; Silvia is a cost analyst; and Tusalan an airport security manager. The team of volunteers also includes a makeup artist and a construction worker who dont want to be named.
For their eight-hour shift, which lasts until 4am on Sunday, the volunteers hurry to reported home invasions, hunt for drug dealers and escort assault victims to hospital. One minute they caution a man they find smoking weed who is in possession of a suspected uninsured Mercedes (the smell of his confiscated drugs fills the police van for the rest of the shift); the next they drive to a street brawl. Be aware, if there are a lot of them, they will fight us, says Jamie, who began volunteering in 2016 and will soon become a full-time officer. Earlier in the evening, he had told colleagues that he was hoping for a foot chase: I want a burglar tonight.
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Kay and his team are among around 10,000 special constables the official name for Britains volunteer police spread across frontline policing, taking on vital duties to an extent that would surprise most members of the public. (Volunteer police are not to be confused with community support officers; the latter are employed police assistants who, unlike volunteers, arent fully sworn constables and cant arrest people.) Special constables havent been this needed for decades: last year the number of full-time officers dropped by 12% in England and Wales, to 128,149. Meanwhile, knife crime in England and Wales rose by 7% last year to the highest levels since records began in 2011.
The commitment made last summer by the prime minister, Boris Johnson, to begin replacing the 20,000 regular officers lost in Britain over the past decade is likely to have a limited longterm impact on the need for volunteers. Full-time police take time to train, while Britains population has grown by 4 million since 2010, and officers work has increased phenomenally, according to chief officer John Conway of the Metropolitan polices volunteer service (the countrys largest). I cant see a reduction in policing demand any time soon, he says, citing rises in violent crime, terrorism threats and fraud. Sometimes, if there is not a special constable there, crime is not going to get policed, one long-serving London special, who did not want to be named, told me.
As coronavirus has swept across Britain, special constables have played a central role in enforcing the nationwide lockdown and social distancing rules, as well as responding to emergencies. This spring they have been out in droves patrolling parks and cities, confiscating alcohol and sending rule-breakers home. Theyve also made arrests for serious crimes, including domestic abuse, violent burglaries and kidnappings. Four hundred specials were part of a recent operation to seize knives across London during lockdown. Meanwhile, police chiefs are asking businesses to give paid leave to employees who volunteer as specials, amid fears the virus will affect swathes of frontline officers; they also worry that demand will surge as the lockdown eases.
In normal times, specials police prominent events, including the state opening of parliament, and protests by groups such as Extinction Rebellion. They are called to the same crimes as regular officers, and patrol our streets, rivers, royal palaces and airports, either by themselves or alongside full-timers. Nowadays, we are putting them into [999] response cars on their first shift, one volunteer in Kays district tells me, calling the initiation a baptism of fire, after 23 days of training. Specials must commit to a minimum of 16 hours a month, but many give significantly more time, volunteering on nights, weekends and days off. In return, they get travel and refreshments expenses, as well as free use of public transport. Although many stay for two years or less, some specials volunteer for decades.
Kay hadnt even heard of specials until he was violently assaulted 18 years ago and a volunteer took his statement. The father of two has since policed large demonstrations, gone to the aid of a stabbing victim and subdued a violent bodybuilder. He recently began working alongside the criminal investigation department as part of his roughly 40 hours monthly volunteering. When you compare policing with what I do in my day job, sitting in front of a computer watching a cursor flashing, it is just on a different planet, he tells me, as other specials on his team speak to a man with face wounds lying in an alleyway. You are dealing with real problems, not corporate bean-counting. (Kay has since moved on from his role as a omputer programmer to a new role, consulting for a legal intelligence firm.)
The volunteer police service is now facing a major challenge: its own numbers are plummeting, by more than 30% nationally in the past four years, which senior officers attribute to reduced budgets for advertising and training, and departures to the regular police who havent been replaced. In a 2016 national survey, specials also cited being mismanaged and feeling undervalued as reasons for leaving. Conway, the Metropolitan special constabulary chief (and Transport for London manager by day), is determined to reverse this and grow his force by nearly 90% over two years. Like police chiefs across the country, he is also working to give them ever more skilled roles. But is it right that volunteers should have quietly assumed some of Britains most critical policing work? And as forces seek to hire more special constables, how much further could their duties extend?
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For much of modern history, specials were treated as a hobby-bobby joke, according to Iain Britton, a senior criminal justice researcher at the University of Northampton. Aside from helping out during major disturbances, many specials spent significant time doing humdrum tasks such as guiding traffic and patrolling local fetes or open days. Little more than a decade ago, they were routinely seen by full-time officers as liabilities and overtime stealers who lacked experience. When I meet special inspector David Lane at the Metropolitan police marine headquarters in east London, he quotes the old music hall song, My Old Man Said Follow the Van, which implies volunteers couldnt even navigate: You cant trust these specials like the old-time coppers / When you cant find your way home.
For years they were treated as a hobby bobby joke and by full-time officers as liabilities and overtime stealers
When Lane, 58, joined Londons marine policing unit in 1991, his fellow specials had little to do. He recalls colleagues in this small squad, which patrols the River Thames, spending their time relaxing over picnics and barbecues on quiet islands. Since then, he has found three floating bodies and arrested pickpockets on the riverbank, who werent expecting officers to approach from the water. Lane uses policing to wind down from his work as an international cybersecurity consultant. I always found doing something totally alien to your day job is a form of relaxation. He recently started in a new role, interviewing and training other specials.
Special inspector Wong (a commercial barrister by day), has also seen big changes. When he started policing in 2007, regular officers who had good relationships with specials invited them to join 999 shifts, but this wasnt widespread. Wong has since watched police stations close and emergency responders in his London district drop to around a third of their numbers a decade ago. In the past, we were always there to provide support, Wong tells me. Now we are becoming more of a fixture.
He loves swapping his barristers gown for a police stab vest. The immediacy of breaking up fights and calming angry members of the public contrasts with the indoor meetings and intellectual analysis of his legal work. Plus, as a former magic-circle City lawyer, he says hes financially comfortable and can afford to take paid time off for policing; he volunteers for around 48 hours monthly.
Sergeant Anna Kennedy became a special eight years ago. After a quiet first shift drinking tea, the 50-year-old British Airways flight attendant made her first arrest during a drugs raid on a loft filled with cannabis plants. She was then assigned to secure the Ecuadorian embassy, where WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange had recently taken refuge. Standing on the fire escape, watching Assange cook his dinner, Kennedy mused on the bizarre situation in which she found herself. Passing WikiLeaks supporters would heckle her for obstructing a freedom fighter. [Other officers] were saying to me, If he tries to get out through the back, youve got to stop him, she tells me, as planes descend on the runway behind her at Heathrow. And Im thinking, Oh my God, Ive been policing for seven months, I cant stop Julian Assange.
Kennedy recalls being told when she started that her duties would consist of house-to-house inquiries, and patrolling fairs and parades. But a fortnight before we meet, she was among the first uniformed officers on the scene after colleagues found two men with a gun near a pub. She was tasked with securing the area and searching the suspects homes for other weapons.
Last spring, a team of 55 specials replaced full-time emergency responders for an entire nine-hour shift in London
Kennedy has even turned to writing crime thrillers based on her experiences. Her first novel tells the story of a special sergeant who becomes embroiled in a murder, kidnapping and money-laundering investigation.
Over the past few years, some parts of London and Kent have experimented with specials completely taking over emergency policing. Last spring, special chief inspector Baljit Badesha, 31, led 55 specials who replaced full-time emergency responders for an entire nine-hour shift in north London, partly to allow overstretched police time to catch up on paperwork. The team made a string of arrests, including for serious assaults, sexual offences and robberies.
Badesha never planned to join the police. As a brown-skinned teenager, he often felt stigmatised by officers, particularly following terrorist attacks in the 2000s. As a medical student, he was once grabbed, handcuffed and searched in the street. But, in 2009, he saw an advertisement for specials and decided to represent his community. (Specials are notably more diverse than regulars: 11.1% are from BAME backgrounds, compared with 6.9% of full-timers.) Badesha has since helped arrest two armed robbers, one of whom drew a handgun. In 2014, he was asked to join an investigation into the theft of around 70,000 from an elderly woman by her care worker. Last year, he became a chief inspector, the third most senior rank in the Mets specials.
Badesha finds the up-to-40 hours a month he spends policing alongside his day job working for the council addictive, and likens it to any other hobby. Some people go and watch movies, he says, echoing the sentiment I hear from several specials; that the work can be more concrete and meaningful than other jobs, and provides a sense of comradeship often lacking in modern life.
Back on the west London night shift, that sense of togetherness is clear, especially when the police pull over for a late dinner at a petrol station. This is one of our staples. The other is McDonalds, says Jamie, the graduate, who last year spent a monthly average of 111 hours volunteering alongside his studies. There is a lot of banter, and a debate over the merits of deep-fried Mars bars and pizzas (Mate, they are the shiz, says the construction worker). In the background, the police radio announces that a prisoner is being dropped off at the nearby custody cells. After wolfing down sandwiches and chocolates, the officers are soon back on shift.
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On a Sunday afternoon last autumn, I head to Wakefield, West Yorkshire, to see where volunteers are trained. West Yorkshire polices modern base includes a firearms range, police dog kennels and a helicopter station. Boris Johnson came here last summer to launch his drive for more full-time police, although he was criticised for turning the appearance into an election-style pitch (an officer behind him fainted in the heat).
Specials train in a large hangar with mock streets, shops, pubs and custody cells. In a sports hall, aspiring officers are handcuffing each other and learning how to escape headlocks, part of their 13 weekends of basic training. (Although specials do the same core safety work as full-timers, their overall training tends to be significantly shorter.) We will run them up and down, get them tired and out of breath, says the trainer, describing how volunteers must be puffing and panting to simulate a foot chase.
Next door, the newest specials form a military-style parade, before swearing the police oath, promising to serve the Queen, and to uphold human rights and the law. They collect their warrant cards, surrounded by applauding family. Please understand that you are police officers, Mark Ridley, a local police chief, tells the graduates from the stage, emphasising that they will have the same responsibilities as full-time constables, and that citizens see no difference between them (the uniforms are virtually identical).
The cohort of 12 includes an entrepreneur, a nurse and a 21-year-old criminology graduate who works for McDonalds. Jane, 49, an assistant manager for an electronics shop, wells up as she accepts an award for the most outstanding in her class. She says she had dreamed of becoming a policewoman when she first finished school, but had been ineligible because she is two inches below the old minimum height requirement (abolished in 1990). I am 5ft 2in and a smidge on a good day, she says at the coffee reception after the ceremony, adding that she hopes one day to police in the off-road bike squad, fighting motorbike crime. The new volunteers are a committed group: when I check in with them three weeks later, they have already policed for, on average, 44 hours each. Like many specials, several are interested in becoming full-time officers and want to test the job first.
One special, aged 75, last year pursued a 29-year-old in a high-speed car chase
Apart from some professions with a potential conflict of interest, such as parking wardens and soldiers, there are few limits on who can become a special. (Offensive tattoos and drugs are banned, and a criminal record may be a disqualification.) There are volunteers who work as undertakers and university professors, priests and pilots. Some just cant get enough of policing: after more than 20 years of volunteering, Essex special constable Keith Smith, 75, is still subduing suspects; last year he pursued a 29-year-old man in a high-speed car chase, then ran after the suspect into a garden and arrested him.
In London, Conway hopes to achieve his ambitious expansion of specials in part through a national scheme encouraging businesses to give employees time off to do police work. He has also sought to make the work more varied; this may be one reason why more elite units, such as royalty and diplomatic protection teams, have opened up to specials in recent years. Some forces now plan to take specials powers further; Kent police is among those seeking government approval for some volunteers to carry Tasers.
Ian Acheson, a former volunteer with Devon and Cornwall police, who stepped down in 2012, is among those who are concerned about specials expanding roles. The security consultant and former prison governor describes volunteer policing as the best fun you can possibly have with your clothes on, but points out that specials work fewer and more inconsistent hours than regular police, so leaning on them for critical duties is risky. Acheson believes specials should instead focus on neighbourhood work, which has historically been the bread and butter of policing. Thats what the public wants to see, he says. Neighbourhood policing has been absolutely decimated and in hard-pressed communities, plagued by low-level crime, people are crying out for it.
One of the last specials I speak to, Constable Nor (she doesnt want her full name used), agrees that volunteers have a vital community role. When we meet at her familys restaurant, the 38-year-old Lebanese-born PhD student and part-time law teacher tells me she sees specials as a link between regular citizens and law enforcers. Its all based on understanding peoples needs and culture, she says, between smoking shisha and grilling halloumi cheese. Since joining in 2016, Nor has done numerous early-morning drugs raids and 999 response shifts. She has also worked with S015, the Metropolitan polices counterterrorism command, engaging with Muslim communities and leaders.
Having interviewed and watched dozens of volunteers at work, it is clear that many are talented, with, in some cases, better people skills than those of regular constables. But as mostly occasional officers, their reflexes and policing knowledge are likely to be less fine-tuned; by their own admission, it is easy for a volunteers confidence to drop. If you are not doing it all the time, your skills attrition can be quite high, says one Metropolitan special. You forget things.
But without specials, Britain would undoubtedly be less safe. For now, at least, they will keep fighting emergencies, sometimes the only people available to respond immediately.
Back in west London, the 999 calls continue to stream through police radios. Somebody is assaulting their partner with metal corn-on-the-cob sticks. A supermarket worker is being attacked. A man is wandering the streets wielding a machete. Outside the pub, special constables Silvia and Tusalan try to pacify the drunk man, whose alleged attacker has left the area. Dont look [at me] like Im stupid, the man shouts at them, stumbling about as his words grow increasingly incomprehensible. Im clever. Youre not a solicitor, youre not a judge, youre police officers. Theyre not, exactly, but they may be the next best thing.
Read more:
I was told to stop Julian Assange if he tried to flee: on the beat with the UKs volunteer police - The Guardian
