This video is in regard to the two pcso's ripping down leaflets about Israel child hostage posters, in a Jewish neighbourhood in Greater Manchester.
According to this guy the pcso's are to dim to follow the official guidance.
The "official guidance" is probably changing on a regular basis and the pcso's are probably not exactly given much time to read everything and absorb it before going out (or the guidance might have changed after they went on shift).
IIRC PCSO's aren't given much if any training on the legal side of things so need the guidance to be both clear and in enough time for them to read and remember it.
I'm not sure if it happens now, but IIRC going back to when there were actually more police around I believe they used to have short briefings before shift starts, I suspect these days that doesn't happen as often because they need to get out on shift to cover the work that used to be done by officers that haven't been replaced when they left, or who are now doing the work that used to be done by the "back office" staff that were dumped in the cuts that "would not affect the number of police officers" (only because they kept the officers, but had them doing clerical jobs that needed to be done but now didn't have dedicated, cheaper staff to do).
I tend to think there are a lot of problems with policing in the UK, but most of them can basically be traced to management and government giving contradictory instructions and objectives*, whilst good officers tend to burn out/get driven out by the working conditions leaving more of the "less capable" or outright dodgy officers who are less likely to get dealt with because there are no replacements for them (and we see a lot more of the "bad" officers than ever before because we do have more accountability for the police, and camera phones and social media make it very easy to spread the information).
I suspect we've probably got in many ways a much more professional and better trained force than we had in say the 80's and 90's (let alone before), but the flaws are much more apparent (including things that are basically down to simple lack of staffing, especially experienced officers) and the bad officers actions are far more likely to be observed and talked about than at any time in the past, and officers are being asked to do so much more.
I know we've got a few members of the forum who are officers and from every indication they're the sort of officers we want and need, but policing isn't necessarily attractive as a job to people like them that the job needs, and burn out is a massive issue.
*I remember reading blogs of magistrates etc complaining that what the government was telling them to do was changing so often that they were not getting the training for the previous guidance done (and implementing it) before it was changed again, so there there was never a chance for the changes to take effect. Basically the government was changing things to keep the tabloids happy without any allowance for the lag that is needed to implement it in a legal and coherent manner.
