Plans to tackle Knowsley’s “endemic” youth crime issues by preventing children falling down the “wrong path” have been outlined.
At a meeting of Knowsley’s Children and Families board, an update was provided by Merseyside Police ’s Knowsley community policing superintendent Karl Baldwin on the work being carried out across the borough to deter Knowsley’s young people from getting involved in crime.
Superintendent Baldwin said prevention is at the core of a new strategy developed by chief constable Serena Kennedy – with a number of key initiatives being rolled out across Knowsley.
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He said: “At Merseyside Police we’re a little bit ahead of the curve with prevention, it’s certainly been on the chief constable’s radar in the past 18 months.”
According to recent research carried out by the Merseyside Violence Prevention partnership and Liverpool John Moores University, £180m is spent each year on dealing with serious violence across Merseyside.
Superintendent Baldwin continued: “In short it pays to prevent serious violence specifically as well as other forms of vulnerability.”
Work being carried out in Knowsley has included the development, alongside Knowsley Council, of the Shield team, where plain clothed officers go across the borough to identify and engage young people at risk of crime or child criminal exploitation.
Superintendent Baldwin said that as a result of this work, in the last six months alone there had been 98 young people identified for intervention, with 48 behavioural agreements and 49 warning letters dished out.
He said: “There were 49 young people identified as part of ongoing issues in Huyton town centre which has allowed us to engage with them and hopefully prevent them coming to our attention again in the future.”
He added Knowsley has “done really well” in terms of a range of funded programmes dealing with issues around youth violence, drugs and criminal exploitation in the borough, including as part of wider operations to tackle county lines operations.
Operation Toxic is one example of a Merseyside Police initiative that involves warrants from the control of phones.
Superintendent Baldwin said: “What happens is that someone in Merseyside will have a mobile phone and flood an area, for example Cumbria, with messages to say we have drugs at whatever price, buy from this location.
“At that location will be a young person who has been trafficked and set up in cuckooed address, that is a vulnerable adult’s address, where they are forced to sell drugs on behalf of that gang.
“Knowsley features sadly quite regularly as having some of the organised crime groups which export young people who are trafficked – for want of a better phrase – across the country.”
One of the approaches Merseyside Police is adopting is to use a trauma informed model said superintendent Baldwin.
With many of the young people involved in criminality and criminal exploitation coming from backgrounds where they have experienced trauma, whether through family breakdown, or substance misuse issues in the family or some other issue, he said: “The more trauma a child has the more likely they are to go on to cause trauma for other people, how we spot that and become involved is work that is ongoing.”
One of the approaches being adopted in Knowsley’s Stockbridge and Northwood areas as well as other ‘hotspots’ across Merseyside will involve sports diversion, a project due to be rolled out this year after a recent successful Sports England bid.
Superintendent Baldwin said: “Sports and other organisations will be funded to provide diversionary and other opportunities to young people in those areas to hopefully prevent serious violence and becoming involved in that life.”
Summing up he added: “This is a snapshot, there is far more work going on but I wanted to highlight those specific issues with a flavour of what’s happening in Knowsley.
“It’s generally all really good, but sadly it’s because many of the issues in Knowsley are endemic – but hopefully we can see a lot of that work is underway.”
Responding to the presentation, chief executive of Merseyside Youth Association, Gill Bainbridge said: “I met your chief constable just before Christmas and was really impressed about what she had to say about putting prevention at front and centre.
“It’s an absolute breath of fresh air, I’ve never heard a chief constable talking so passionately about putting people right and centre of policing strategy before.”
Asking for a meeting with the Violence Reduction Partnership, Ms Bainbridge said she hoped organisations in the borough could “work together strategically”.
Superintendent Baldwin said: “I’ll bite your hand off.”
He added: “It feels like at times a lot of hands in the same pot trying to do all the right things but if we joined it up the success we could have could be phenomenal.”
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