Campaign to get police commissioners to consult with young people launched

From November this year, elected police and crime commissioners will take responsibility for local policing, taking charge of pots of public money, including a proportion of the cash currently going to youth offending teams (YOTs).

The Howard League is asking candidates to pledge that, if elected, they will consult with young people, including those in contact with the criminal justice system, when they develop their plans and decide how to spend budgets.

After the elections, the charity wants to work with new commissioners to develop ways of consulting young people, using experience from its participation project U R Boss, which supports young people in custody and serving community sentences to communicate their experiences to professionals.

The Howard League says U R Boss has highlighted a number of “serious concerns” around young people’s relationships with police, with some young people “experiencing racism or serious bad practice”. 

Young people also report concerns about over “inappropriate and intrusive stop and search practices”.

Frances Crook, chief executive of the Howard League, said: “The Howard League’s U R Boss project has spent three years working with young people in contact with the criminal justice system and the overarching issue raised time and time again was their perceptions and experiences of the police. 

“Much of what young people told us was negative and the poor relationships they report are in nobody’s interest. More positive models of policing will create less tension and result in more effective responses when young people are in trouble. 

“Where police forces have moved away from target-driven policing, officers have been encouraged to use their professional discretion and resolve matters informally in the community through the use of restorative disposals as a more proportionate approach to deal with low level offending.

"We hope to work with police and crime commissioners to protect this direction of travel and further improve relationships between young people and the police.”

Lucy Russell, senior campaigns co-ordinator for U R Boss, added: “It is important the voice of young people, especially those who are in contact with the criminal justice system, is not lost in these major changes and that police and crime commissioners represent the concerns of whole communities rather than those sections that can shout the loudest.”