Police Partnership - New Community Policing

Posted on Monday, November 10, 2008 by Josh
Tags: Community, Policing

Chief Superintendent Jan Turner recently visited St Paul’s in relation to the Trust’s efforts to get a police attachment to the Extended Schools’ cluster. Under the Safer Schools Partnership programme 2002 onwards, a new policing method for schools became mainstream policy. It was initially intended to tackle high rates of crime and anti-social behaviour in and around schools in some neighbourhoods. More recently, wider benefits have been recognised, including improvements in community cohesion, citizenship values and quality of life in communities.

The Role of Police Based in Schools.

There may be many variations to the work of officers based in schools, but the core of their work is generally:

• to reduce victimisation, crime and antisocial behaviour in school and its community
• to work with schools on whole school approaches to behaviour and discipline
• to identify and work with children and young people at risk of becoming victims or offenders
• to create a safer environment for learning.

There is an additional aim now supported by Government (cf Children Plan 2007), which is to promote a restorative justice approach, encouraging young people to take responsibility for their school and community. Also called for is liaison with all agencies involved in the delivery of programmes for young people.

Among the detailed types of work entailed for the officers, securing full attendance at school by potential or actual offenders is seen as vital to crime prevention. Supporting children at points of transition is also important. The various reports produced by Youth Justice Board, and by Partnerships in areas where schemes have been running, are encouraging in terms of outputs and cost-effectiveness.

The Youth Justice Board has analysed evidence to discover cost effectiveness as well as perceived benefits of basing police officers in schools. Their report shows clearly that there are both educational gains and positive outcomes in terms of offending and safety, over time. These results can be illustrated as follows:

• truancy rates were significantly reduced in SSP schools
• exclusions were eliminated
• GCSE results improved significantly
• bullying and victimisation were reduced
• the number of young offenders (and offences) was reduced.

Youth Justice Board ‘Safer Schools Partnerships’.

The results were used to estimate the cost effectiveness of the initiative. The average cost of a recorded crime, for example, was (in 2004) £1,949. Furthermore it is estimated, that crime prevention leads to future crime prevention (i.e. the potential offender is diverted from future as well as present offending – doubling the ‘value’ of the intervention). Thus, if a police officer working within school prevents just 8 crimes, this will offset salary costs of £30,000 or so.

Community Policing with Children and Young People.

The examples of work by police in schools which have been reported usually relate to large (up to 2,000 pupils) secondary schools, often with perceived problems in terms of offending behaviour. St. Paul’s is interested in the broader strategy of police based with the neighbourhood Extended Schools cluster. The aims of the project would be to impact on the Performance Indicators which are summarised by the headings ‘Feeling the Difference’ and ‘Making Contact Count’ in next year’s Policing Plan. While the previous Safer Schools approach undoubtedly could have impact in dealing with difficulties within schools, as shown above, the impact over a wider area might well be limited. It is argued here that a neighbourhood approach is both more general in impact and more replicable across large areas. (In other words, the former method would have to address issues on a school by school basis – with its coverage being restricted to pupils at the chosen school, and dispersed rather than focused because pupils will live in a very broad catchment area, typically.)

A further drawback to the original scheme is that it concentrated on the police/school element of partnership. The neighbourhood approach will draw in other partners.

Birmingham’s LAA and its Strategic Plan recognise the challenge of under-performing areas. The Plan says ‘ We will be working with West Midlands Police to make our neighbourhoods safer and reduce the fear of crime, and the impact of issues people perceive as threatening.’ This proposal recommends partnership with schools to: improve feelings of safety and security among children and young people from all ethnic groups; to increase understanding of and appreciation for the work of the police; to foster community spirit and responsibility; to enable children and young people to communicate more effectively with police and other adults.

If the proposal is to go forward, information would be needed on the present attitudes of children and young people. This would have to be collected by a customised survey which it is suggested could be carried out through the Extended Schools network. This survey would provide benchmark data from which to measure progress.

By working in partnership with the Police we aim to make St Paul’s Trust and the surrounding neighbourhood a safer place.