Policing priorities for children revealed

When Jacqui Cheer took up the role of children and young people lead at the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) last November, her in-tray must have been bulging. Not only had the post been vacant since the retirement of Ian McPherson in October 2011, but one of her first tasks was to begin drawing up a new three-year Acpo children and young people’s strategy to take effect in July.

When you add to the mix the recent introduction of police and crime commissioners (PCCs), cuts to policing budgets and continuing concerns over gangs and antisocial behaviour, the task facing Cheer, chief constable of Cleveland police, is not insignificant.

Cheer recognises that money to improve services is scarce, but tells CYP Now she is determined to provide fresh leadership. Consequently, the new strategy, currently being drafted, concentrates on areas that can make a difference for relatively little cost. Whereas Acpo’s 2010-13 strategy focused on issues such as crime reduction and child safety, the new plan will focus on improving information sharing, spreading best practice, increasing the use of alternatives to custody and developing the role of PCCs.

Information sharing
Foremost among these is information sharing. Cheer says that too often, police are dealing with cases without knowing the full circumstances. She wants police officers to have the ability to better understand the children and young people they encounter so they can better direct them to suitable services. To do this, she wants to explore how police can access information about relevant issues that children are experiencing.

“We want to get local agencies and private sector companies involved in that,” she says. “We need to get over concerns that information sharing is about doing something to the individual we are sharing information about – concerns that the police want to know about the family or young person and put them into a mysterious system.

“We have to get all the partners and commentators to see that you best protect young people by understanding the circumstances in which they grow up.”

Latest youth justice statistics show a significant drop in first-time entrants to the system. There were 36,677 first-time offences committed by 10- to 17-year-olds in 2011/12, compared with 110,826 in 2006/07. Cheer puts this down to the range of options available to deal with young offenders.

“The whole point is to work with the young person so they see the consequences of their actions,” she says. “Therefore they don’t reoffend. That is why crime is dropping.”

To cement this, the new strategy will highlight best practice in the use of restorative justice and the new youth conditional caution – the highest level of out-of-court disposal available to police, introduced last month. Training will be developed to help officers use the tools in the right situations.

“Officers are now able to use their own discretion to a much greater degree, but that can be quite a scary thing to do,” she says.

Best practice directory
Work will also go into creating a directory of best practice for police work and projects with children and young people, ranging from police involvement with the National Citizen Service, through to work in schools or youth clubs.

“Police forces are all withdrawing resources and doing far less work with schools, which makes it important that we know what the best use of resources is,” she says.

“Do you get better outcomes if you send a couple of police community support officers to go camping with young people or are they better deployed answering questions on policing at an event? We want to look at the evidence around that.”

Cheer is also keen to use her influence to promote the case for investment in youth justice work by PCCs.

“We have never had an individual before who has the ability to work across the criminal justice sector and with responsibility for funding charities and agencies working on prevention, victims and young offenders coming out of custody,” she says. “They can be a real lever to get things done.”


A call for parental responsibility

The chief inspector of constabulary Tom Winsor made the headlines last month when he called for society to have a greater role in crime prevention, stating that parents and families, as well as schools and other educational institutions, must “instil in children a strong appreciation of right and wrong”, and not see this as just a police issue.

Cheer says that relationships between police and young people could be improved dramatically if parents set clearer parameters. 

“The reason you get into conflict with young people is sometimes because you are the first to say ‘no’ to their behaviour by placing boundaries on spitting, cycling on pavements or bad language,” Cheer says.

“If you have been doing something for a while and someone says ‘stop it’, the first thing you are going to do is react and get into a confrontational conversation.

“We shouldn’t be the first people to be saying that to them.

“Parents, schools and grandparents need to be a bit surer about what the parameters of behaviour are.”