Dear Resident,

Did you know that when you see Police Officers on the street, they might not all do the same job role?

Your local frontline Police Officers are mostly made up of two teams: a response team and a beat team.

The response team are made up of Police Officers who respond to emergency calls to 999 or other non-emergency incidents as they occur 24/7. They are dispatched to incident scenes to handle specific situations, such as serious assaults, road traffic incidents, burglaries in progress or other urgent matters. Response Police Officers also carry out investigations allocated to them to progress. This means gathering evidence, interviewing suspects, and getting matters to court. 

The local beat teams are made up of Police Officers and Police Community Support Officers. They are assigned to specific areas or neighbourhoods, known as beats. They proactively patrol their designated areas to prevent crime, build relationships with the communities and address ongoing policing issues such as anti-social behaviour. This means working with partner agencies like the local council, NHS, and RSCPA to problem solve.

Beat Police Officers are first and foremost warranted front line Police Officers and as such will also respond to emergency calls on their beat and carry out investigations, but their primary focus is on proactive policing and community engagement. 

Police Community Support Officers’ role is to support Police Officers in various community focused tasks, such as patrolling neighbourhoods, engaging with the public, gathering intelligence, providing crime prevention advice, and assisting with non-emergency situations. PCSOs play a crucial role in community policing efforts, helping improve public safety and building trust between the public and the Police. 

Even though there are two different teams, they still work very closely together.

We hope this helps your understanding on what your local Police Officers do on a day-to-day basis. 

You can keep up to date with what your local beat team gets up to by following us on social media: Oadby and Wigston Police | Facebook and Oadby and Wigston Police (@LPOadbyWigston) / Twitter

Many thanks

Your Wigston Beat Team

PC 1913 Gareth, PC 1165 Simon and PCSO 6158 Cara

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