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The case for Young Person’s Police Commissioners

September 9, 2012 5:22 pm

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What does a 16 year old know about crime and policing – that a 50-something experienced Police Commissioner doesn’t already know?  Quite a lot, I reckon.  Which is why I propose to have a Young Person’s Police Commissioner in Warwickshire.

Members of the Youth Parliament for Warwickshire have proved to be an effective voice in recent years – identifying issues and leading campaigns.  They may not have a vote – but they have a voice, and they can be very effective at making it heard.

If the elected Police Commissioners succeed in strengthening accountability for how our police forces work, then that needs to be applied to all who are policed, whatever their age.

We seem to have surveyed their opinions often enough.  A detailed analysis of young people’s views in Warwickshire gave us some interesting findings.  For instance, one in four said that they felt in need of more information about hard drugs.  One in five said they didn’t feel completely safe in their community.  Top worries about becoming a potential victim of crime included attack and cyber-bullying.

The Police Foundation and the National Centre for Social research last year published work on young people attitudes towards the police and the criminal justice system.  As well as calling for more training for police officers on working with young children, it made one other significant recommendation.  It wanted to see members of young people’s social networks acting as intermediaries with the police.

There’s the vital ink, to my mind.  However hard we try, we 50-somethings aren’t going to be as connected to young people as we might think or hope.  Younger police officers may manage it a lot better! So, for those who are potentially going to guide public services along in a way that understands their concerns and reflects their needs, young people need to be alongside us as we make those decisions.

A Youth Commissioner would have a vital input to our thinking about the right way to strengthen the link between schools, colleges and the local neighbourhood police, to building confidence between young people and the police, and to helping young people reduce the risk of becoming a victim, or of drifting towards criminal behaviour.

An Action for Children survey on knife crime, 2009, records one 14-year old speaking for many in saying, “I think politicians need to hear what we think and how we feel.”

Members of the Youth Parliament will soon be borrowing the Commons’ chamber to set the agenda they hope politicians will heed.  Young people and crime is on the agenda.  We can respond positively to that 14-year old’s plea – by supporting Youth Commissioners.

 James Plaskitt, Police Commissioner candidate, Warwickshire

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  • http://twitter.com/redrenie24 Renie Anjeh

    Brilliant idea! Every Labour Police and Crime Commissioner should be proposing that.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=564361715 Jeff Maughan

    but they wouldn’t be a police commissioner, because they wouldn’t have the power to  commission police services.  unless you were to take a VERY radical step, which I doubt would get past police unions!

  • John Reid

    You Miss the Point, Police commissioners don’t need to know about police procedure, other than where the Chief constable puts resources and how he/she decides that resources are both safe for the Officers and the Public, I took the comment, about accountability to Mean if Officers are behaving Properly, that’s Not the job of the Elected Commissioner to take on Board ,the elected Commissioners Job is to see If that force is accountable Financially, the elected commissioners will have no say in Operations and whether the Public feel that the police are concentrating too much on law rather than Public image

  • MonkeyBot5000

    Younger police officers may manage it a lot better!

    I wouldn’t put money on that. The younger officers are more likely to feel the need to assert their authority and throw their weight around. The 50yr old has nothing to prove and may well have kids of their own so is less likely to see everyone under 18 as a crime waiting to happen.

    • http://twitter.com/redrenie24 Renie Anjeh

      Tell that to a 15 year old or a 14 year old dealing with stop and search or knife crime in his local community.

      • MonkeyBot5000

        I’m saying that from my personal experience of being a teenager who was stopped and searched repeatedly whilst being less than 200 yards from my own home.

        I’ve been stopped for “matching a description” and a friend of mine was stopped the next day for matching the same description. Me: white with long hair. Him: black with a shaved head.

        In my experience, if you questioned why they were going through your pockets, older officers tended to be more polite and attempted to explain what they were doing but younger officers took it as a challenge to their authority and singled you out for further questioning.

  • John Reid

    You Miss the Point, Police commissioners don’t need to know about police procedure, other than where the Chief constable puts resources and how he/she decides that resources are both safe for the Officers and the Public, I took the comment, about accountability to Mean if Officers are behaving Properly, that’s Not the job of the Elected Commissioner to take on Board ,the elected Commissioners Job is to see If that force is accountable Financially, the elected commissioners will have no say in Operations and whether the Public feel that the police are concentrating too much on law rather than Public image

  • Daniel Speight

    So the problems young people have with the police and vice versa. Could be the same problems say the miners had with the police, or blacks or Asians have with them, or the working class has and so on and so on. Always been, and probably always will.

    We have two major stumbling blocks. I suspect the primary role of the police in any state  is protect that state. It’s hard to see it being different without removing political control of the police, and if that happened who knows what we would end up with.

     The second problem is that the last people you want in a police force are people who want to be policemen. It’s a bit like prison officers, the best are probably those who join the service because of a lack of alternatives or the desire for a better pension, retirement age or suchlike, not those that like wearing uniforms and ordering people about.

    The ideal answer is a citizens’ police force elected/designated from the communities they serve, but as I say that’s ideal and hard to see happening any time soon.

  • http://twitter.com/CllrJonSHarvey Cllr Jon Harvey

    Thanks for supporting this idea James – I am thoroughly behind it. Whilst I am backing Harriet 100% for Kent of course (cos she is best candidate), I think it was Anne Barmes (former PA Chair & now independent PCC candidate for Kent) who first came up with this idea.

    I agree with Renie – all Labour Candidates should be backing this idea. Young people in their teens & twenties suffer huge amounts of crime – and many of them do not have a vote. This is an excellent way of bringing in a little bit of balance.

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