Overview
When it comes to the needs of your local community, where do your priorities lie? Are you indifferent, or concerned?
If you fall into the latter category, then you should consider spending some of your free time as a special constable. Because that's all you need to get started – the desire to give something back to the community, along with a willingness to dedicate 16 hours a month to helping and supporting regular police officers.
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Special constables can and do come from all walks of life. But once they're in uniform, they're simply one part of a professional team providing a vital service to the community, just like any other constable.
For many, that's precisely the appeal. For others, there's also the fact that the experience of being a special constable can be useful preparation for applying to become a regular officer.
What's more, we've listened to the needs of the community and recently launched a trial initiative for officers who want to specialise – using their specific expertise to benefit the community. It means that instead of joining our Officers out on the beat, if you prefer, you can opt to specialise instead.
We first recruited rural officers – volunteers who could draw on their knowledge of farming and the countryside to look after residents and businesses there. Now we're introducing opportunities for individuals with IT skills, financial management expertise and a working knowledge of the most vulnerable people in our communities. It adds an extra dimension to an already inspiring role. Visit our Specialist Special Constables section to find out more.
This section of the site aims to give you a clear first-hand picture of what it means to be a special constable, as well as show the training that we offer, and give some insight into our
application process. You can also find
all the answers to some of the popular questions we hear about becoming a special constable.
For further details about where you can work and what to expect, you can download the
"Joining the Specials" booklet (MS Word doc, 50k).
If you don't have Microsoft Word installed, you can
download Microsoft's free Word Document Viewer here.
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