The UK Home Secretary today, as part of the countrys response has "ordered that all special constables should be mobilised"
Speaking afterwards, the Home Secretary said: ''This morning I convened and chaired a conference call with chief officers from forces across the whole country in which I ordered that all special constables should be mobilised, all police leave should be cancelled and the robust tactics used on Tuesday by the Metropolitan Police adopted by all forces dealing with public disorder.''
Martin Ashburn, Retired Chief Officer of Suffolk Special Constabulary, stated that "because of the "riots" in various cities and towns in UK, as many Specials - the UK volunteer police officers - as possible will be mobilised. Almost no Specials in UK are trained in PSU (Police Support Unit) Disorder Control operations, and the extensive protective equipment used by "Regular" (professional paid Officers) is not issued to Specials. I believe there is no realistic possibility that Specials would be deployed onto the "front line" to control the huge disorder problems, but they will be doing a vital role back in their own areas. As so many Regular Officers are seconded from various Forces across the UK, to go assist colleagues in the badly affected towns and cities, then Specials would "back fill" in their own towns to deal with the routine policing demands." This is a classic role for reserves: taking on local routine law enforcement operations to free up full-time officers for special duty, critical incident response, or even deployment.
In watching the ongoing TV commentaries, one common thread is that budget constraints are forcing downsizing in the UK police at a time when probably more officers are needed on the streets. A larger and more operationally integrated reserve program would relieve some of the pressure, especially during such critical incidents that become prolonged. Full time LEOs can burn out if events continue on for days or weeks, and the resulting overtime may simply be unaffordable. Mobilizing the army to back up police inserts a differently trained force that will not effectively integrate into law enforcement agency operations -- never as quickly as an agency's own reserve program.
