The session was opened by acting Detective Chief Inspector Shelley Hudson from Northumbria Police, who has a plethora of experience where engaging with young people is concerned and is currently part of the Child Abuse Investigation Unit (CAIU).
DCI Hudson introduced the session by reminding the audience of the role of the police, as stated in the Association of Chief Police Officer’s “Statement of Common Purpose and Values” set out in 1990:
“The purpose of the police service is to uphold the law fairly and firmly; to prevent crime; to pursue and bring to justice those who break the law; to keep the Queen’s peace; to protect, help and reassure the community; and to be seen to do this with integrity, common sense and sound judgement.”
In achieving this purpose as far as young people are concerned, DCI Hudson identified 3 main areas that present challenges to the police: protection, prevention and prosecution.
i) Protection
Protection for children and young people is afforded by s.105 of the Children Act 1989 which states that a child is a person under 18. There is no distinction between ‘children’ and ‘young people’ beyond that, although they clearly have very different needs. Some elements of the law do reflect a gradient, for example in certain sexual offences there is a distinction made where the child is under 13, under 16 and under 18 years old.
One aspect of providing protection involves information sharing both between the agencies involved with the young person and with the young person themself. DCI Hudson agreed that historically the police had not been good at sharing information but certainly in the Northumbria force steps had been taken to remedy this and information is shared more freely under the auspices of the Children Act. Linked to this is decision making; at what point should the young person’s opinion be sought and acted upon? This throws up many areas of concern, including whether the young person understands the implications of the decision, whether they agree that they are at risk of harm and whether they agree they are being exploited or feel they are acting of their own volition. There is a huge issue around young people taking and sharing sexual photographs of themselves, which is not understood as ‘risky’ behaviour by young people. DCI Hudson confirmed that in her experience no young person had been prosecuted for such activity, however in other jurisdictions they have fallen foul of grooming and pornography laws and found themselves with a criminal record.
In terms of raising awareness of risk and affecting young people’s decision making process, DCI Hudson felt the key was to start early and ensure the young people learn they are valued and that they should expect to be respected; that mutual respect is normal whereas jealousy is not a sign of love. There is also an issue in that many parents have not grown up in a supportive environment and do not know how to provide this to their children.
ii) Prevention
Providing information can protect young people from harm, be it information about how to keep themselves safe or information about changes to the law, for example when the minimum age for victims of domestic violence was reduced to 16. Information must be accessible and technology and social media must be utilised – posters campaigns alone no longer do the trick!
Education of the whole community in terms of how adults prevent and report harm, what a young person should find acceptable and what amounts to consent is vital however DCI Hudson has found that sadly some schools are simply not interested in engaging with the police on this issue. Consent is a murky area especially when dealing with sex between two young people – it was agreed that generally two 15 year olds should not be criminalised for mutually consenting to have sex, but not all 13 to 15 year olds operate at the same level of capacity. Should a 15 year old be expected to be able to analyse whether their partner’s freely given consent is in fact informed consent made with capacity? Should they be criminalised if they do not? The key is to deal with young people as individuals on a case-by-case basis and take all circumstances into account. It was acknowledged that the police have sometimes driven inappropriate prosecutions but more so now they recognise that a blanket approach may not work, however they must work within the law and the parameters of the offences.
Engagement is a key area of prevention, but is an area that causes difficulty. To protect young people, the police need to know what concerns them and what threatens them but they acknowledge that the police in general are not approachable. Rarely do young people wish to speak to an officer about their experience of running away, meaning it is difficult to assess the risk of exploitation. There are moves to try to show young people that the law empowers them, however most do not see the police as empowering, quite the opposite. There is a culture clash between the police and young people – the police are trying to change young people’s view of the service however this is not helped by some elements of police culture such as inexperienced officers resorting to flexing their authority when challenged by a young person. Police culture is however evolving and they are working to improve engagement and approachability.
iii) Prosecution
When a young person is a victim of crime there are rules about how they should be treated when giving evidence and they may do so by video link or from behind a screen, for example. If they are the offender, who may also be vulnerable and a victim as well, no such special treatment is afforded.
There is also a discrepancy for young people who are 17 in terms of medical examination – a person aged 16 or under will be examined at the RVI’s Paediatric unit, but if they are 17 or over they will be seen by the adult service, which is of course designed for and used by adults.
There are special provisions made for young offenders at the police station, but only up to 16. An offender who is under 17 must have a parent or appropriate adult contacted and present at interview and they are held in a detention room, not a cell. The parent must always be notified but depending on the circumstances they may not be present for the interview, however another appropriate adult would be. A 17 year old, who is a child under the Children Act 1989, is treated as an adult in custody and can refuse to have a parent or appropriate adult contacted. Northumbria Police however routinely contact a parent/appropriate adult when a 17 year old is brought in, and the young person cannot refuse this. In the near future a change in the law means a parent/appropriate adult will be contacted for all 17 years olds across the country and as the intention seems to be to put them on an equal footing with under 17s, it is envisaged that they will not be able to refuse to have one or the other informed and present at interview.
Summary
In some instances in the justice system young people are recognised as distinct from children and adults, but on the whole they are not. It is accepted that adolescents have different needs and abilities to children and adults, and different to each other, but this is not reflected in how they are treated by the law, which can lead to unhelpful and inappropriate treatment by the police. The police in Northumbria are taking steps to remedy this and implement young person-appropriate policies however they must still uphold the law and there is a balance to be struck between protecting the interests of the young person and protecting others from harm. The police currently view their greatest challenge to be engaging young people in decision making and in a dialogue about how to help better protect them from becoming victims of crime and prevent them from becoming perpetrators of crime. Police culture, the attitudes of young people to the police, and attitudes of adults towards young people all have a role to play in this.
On the Edge of Adulthood 