Met commissioner promises more police in London schools
Fiona Simpson
Monday, January 6, 2020
More police officers will be placed in schools across London to help stem knife crime among young people, the Metropolitan Police commissioner has said.
Dame Cressida Dick said the Met would do more to “divert young people away from crime wherever we can” while outlining plans to stop children and teenagers getting caught up in violent crime and county lines drugs gangs.
Writing in the Evening Standard, the commissioner also said she would reduce the number of vulnerable young people affected by knife crime and sexual exploitation.
Scotland Yard will “increase the number of dedicated police officers in schools and pupil referral units across London to 600, to reassure and support young people” during 2020, the commissioner said.
She added: “We are now much more sophisticated in the way we protect these children, and are leading the way in tackling county lines – London gangs running drug lines around the country.”
Twenty-five teenagers were among 149 homicide victims in the capital in 2019.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan has already announced a £3.2m investment in the city’s Violence Reduction Units for 2020.
In November, he ploughed another £4.7m aimed at reducing school exclusions and violence in schools into the fund.
A report by the all-party parliamentary group on knife crime, published in October, raised concerns about the risks that excluded children face from criminal gangs.
They called for a government review to find out why excluded children do not get the full-time education they are entitled to. Schools should also be more accountable for pupils they exclude, said MPs.
In September, Anne Longfield, the children's commissioner for England, recommended that police officers and youth workers should be based in schools to protect children from violence.
Longfield said of the latest move: "I welcome this move by the commissioner. Before the general election I released a manifesto for children and one of the five points was exactly this, having police officers attached to schools.
"This is not about policing school, but building relationships for the future between children and the police - and the police learning more about the children they serve as well as adults. I’d like to see more of the 20,000 new officers being promised having links to schools in England, and ideally working alongside a dedicated youth worker linked to schools too. “
