Westminster is all for them. Local police federations are, by and large, against them. Private security companies are breaking social bread with them. Whatever your take is on the subject of community wardens, they’re seemingly here to stay. What purpose are they really designed to serve, though?
Who are these people, and what’s their role going to be in a post-security regulation – not to mention police reform – landscape where accountability will be paramount?
In essence, community wardens are tasked to provide an additional set of ‘eyes and ears’ for the police service – supporting the Boys in Blue by acting as an intelligence source and tackling mundane, everyday problems within the local community. They’re nothing if not social engineers, then, and a neat addition to Mr Blunkett’s much-discussed ‘wider police family’.
Many of the 80-plus schemes already operational across the country have indeed proven their worth. None more so, perhaps, than those in Lancashire and the London Borough of Tower Hamlets (‘Partners on patrol’, pp20-23). Tackling all manner of issues, from retail theft and the fly-tipping of rubbish through to vandalism and drug abuse, the warden teams are playing their part in fighting the rising tide of petty crime in UK plc. Quite commendable.
A common theme runs through many of the schemes in that there are usually three partners involved: the police, the local authority and the ‘warden providers’ – the latter very often the preserve of private security companies.
As BSIA chief executive David Dickinson rightly states, though: “Security companies can work with the police, and work for the police, but they can never replace the police”. There has to be a mutual trust and respect between the police service and the contractors who recruit for – and manage – warden teams. That takes time to build, yet many of the warden schemes are being run on a short-term basis.
Making funds available from the public purse to pursue these experiments in social engineering is all well and good, but it masks a fundamental problem that must be tackled NOW – our dearth of full-time police personnel.
Whatever the Government might say, there’s no substitute for properly-trained police officers. Security professionals and the public at large should not be conned.
