About the role

Ensuring public safety

• Assisting at the scene of accidents, fires or incidents, helping to control situations and ensuring that people are safe.
• Providing security and crowd control at major public events – preventing injuries and disorder.

Preventing crime

• Carrying out high-visibility foot patrols to deter and detect criminals.
• Educating businesses and the community about crime and how to avoid it.
• Talking to school children about crime reduction and community safety to help them stay safe and make the right choices.

Tackling crime

• Confronting anti-social behaviour on the streets such as gangs or intimidating behaviour.
• Managing alcohol-related incidents such as public drunkenness or violence.
• Enforcing road safety laws in local communities.

Investigating crime

• Conducting house-to-house enquiries to gather information and support larger enquiries.
• Involvement in police operations to disrupt and arrest offenders.
• Visiting victims of crime to gather evidence to progress an investigation.

Securing convictions

• Write your own statements, use police systems and present evidence in court to support the justice system in prosecuting offenders.

See a different world

Out on patrol, you will deal with situations and people you would probably never encounter in your day-to-day life. Most of all, you will get to see the real impact of crime on people’s lives and the extraordinary power you have as an individual to make a real difference. Being a special constable is both exciting and rewarding and for many it is a life changing decision. Whatever your plans, you will find working as a member of the police service, alongside regular officers of all ranks, police staff and other volunteers, an exciting and rewarding experience.

• Above all, the feeling that you really are making a difference – making a positive contribution in the fight against crime
• Sense of personal fulfilment
• Develop personal and professional skills
• Learn and develop many transferable skills that often support paid employment or other roles/personal life: e.g. managing confrontational situations, leadership and personal safety
• Personal satisfaction of learning new skills and gaining confidence
• Learn more about policing
• Show your community that you care
• Meet new people
• Work as part of a team
• Enjoy new experiences
• Discover new things about yourself and just how much you are capable of
• Leadership skills

To apply to become a special constable, you must:

• be 17 or older when applying to be a special constable, but you will not be able to take up appointment as a special constable until reaching the age of 18

• be a British Citizen, a European Union/European Economic Area national or commonwealth citizen, or a foreign national with no restrictions on your stay in the UK
• have a minimum of three years continuous residency in the UK, with less than 12 months spend abroad in the last three years (with some exceptions for those living on a UK military base)
• be able to pass our fitness test, reaching level 5.4 on a 15 metre shuttle run (bleep test)
• not currently undertaking a restricted occupation

No specific qualifications are required to enable you to become a special constable.

A conviction or caution is not an automatic eliminator. You must ensure that you disclose all details of any offences however minor, failure to declare any offences may mean that your application is rejected. Checks will be made, each will be reviewed on a case by case basis.

Driving convictions

Depending on the severity of the conviction this may affect your application, for example if you have been convicted of drink driving in the last 10 years then it is likely your application will be refused.

Criminal record of a family member

If your family member has been convicted of a serious offence - eg burglary - then it is likely that your application will be refused.

Financial troubles

Applicants must have not been declared bankrupt with outstanding debts, have outstanding County Court Judgements against them or be subject to a current Individual Voluntary Arrangement (IVA). If you have any of these then it is likely that your application will be refused.

An individual who has spent a significant period of time overseas without returning to the UK, but with the intention of doing so in the future, such as an individual who takes a gap year prior to or following university or an individual who goes travelling for a year, is considered to have taken an extended holiday. As such, they will maintain residency in the UK and therefore be eligible for consideration under the residency criteria.

South Yorkshire Police apply a maximum time spent out of the UK as 12 months and must be for the reasons stated above (working outside the UK for an extended period is not covered in the above), however, we will discuss any potential issues on a case-by-case basis.

We will try to accommodate your preference. However, we would usually look to post you to a location near to your home address unless there are specific circumstances to preclude this.

If you don’t live within the force area

You can still apply if you live outside the South Yorkshire area. However please consider how far you may have to travel as South Yorkshire Police will not pay for travel expenses outside the force area. If you feel that the distance is too far to travel, then you may wish to consider applying to the force within your local area if they are recruiting.

To be ‘sworn in’, means that you will be in front of a magistrate, possibly at court, and will be required to recite the oath of allegiance to the King.

Special constables are voluntary – they are not paid. You will however be reimbursed for travel expenses and issued with a uniform and appropriate protective equipment.

A special constable is issued with the following: body armour, asp, handcuffs, PAVA incapacitant spray and high-visibility clothing.

Ideally we would like you to commit a minimum of sixteen hours a month. 

During your initial training the dates and times you are required to volunteer will be fixed. However, after your initial training the majority of duties you undertake will be flexible and dependent on your availability—with ongoing training the only exception.

Weekend work

After your initial training, attendance is welcome when you are available to attend. Often special constables choose to work weekends because it suits them, but this is not compulsory. Special constables can't be made to report for duty if they don’t want to or can’t make it.

Special constables volunteer their time when they choose to. Nobody will try and force you to work at times that are not suitable. All we ask is that following training, you commit to a minimum of four hours per week – that’s an average of 16 hours per month. However, there are occasions such as a major incident when you maybe contacted at short notice to ask if you can assist with the policing operation.

All special constables are advised to inform their employers of their appointment and the hours they are likely to perform each week so as to satisfy certain requirements under the Working Time Regulations (WTR).