Examination of Witnesses (Question Numbers
360-379)
WITNESS 6, WITNESS
7 AND WITNESS
8
10 MARCH 2009
Q360 Martin Salter: You said "take
them off of on residentials" and day's out and the rest of
it, and that is great if young people get a day out but has it
led to people taking up new hobbies, new interests? What sort
of stuff that has been organised has been inspiring?
Witness 8: It does because it
allows you to mix with new people. You are able to witness or
take part in new adventures or new activities which you have never
even heard of or seen before.
Q361 Martin Salter: Such as?
Witness 8: Such as water ski-ing,
dry ski-ing was it you went on?
Witness 7: Yes, a dry ski slope,
I had never done that in my life before. The first time I have
ever done it was with the YIP and I thought it was an excellent
thing to do. I thought it was amazing.
Witness 8: I had never been to
Rotten River. They took me to Rotten River, I had heard of it
but I had never been to Rotten River. They take you to places
such as the IMAX, I cannot remember where that is. A lot of trips
for all ages, up to 17, because it gets you off the streets and
helps a lot because it changes the attitude of people and the
behaviour of people.
Q362 Martin Salter: Do a lot of the
young people you are talking about who have benefited from these
activities from the YIP ever get an annual holiday?
Witness 8: A which?
Q363 Martin Salter: A lot of the
young people you are talking about who benefit from going on these
trips, do they, in the normal course of a year, get an annual
holiday? Would their families take them away for a holiday or
are they young people—
Witness 7: Yes, they do go away,
to be honest they go away quite a bit and it helps them quite
a lot. They might have problems at home.
Witness 8: No, I think he means—
Q364 Martin Salter: This is family,
would they go away on a family holiday?
Witness 8: No, I would not have
thought so. There are families that do go away but a lot of them
do not because either they do not have the money, and that is
why the people are in there, because they do not have the money
and they commit crimes so they get put inside the Youth Inclusion
Project to give them something, or in case they have either a
disability or something. No, they do not, I do not know that many
people who do go away on annual trips with the families which
are in the Youth Inclusion Projects myself.
Martin Salter: Okay. That is interesting.
That is dovetails in to another piece of work we are doing. Thank
you.
Q365 Ms Buck: Is the youth activity
mostly for young people who are at risk of offending or who have
offended or is it open access.
Witness 7: It is open access.
Q366 Ms Buck: It is open access?
Witness 7: Yes.
Q367 Ms Buck: What kinds of numbers,
you may not be able to answer this, are there lots or is it 20?
Witness 7: I would say there is
quite a lot.
Q368 Ms Buck: There are a lot of
people. I am going to ask about the research but can I ask one
or two other questions arising from the things you have said.
Earlier on you were talking about robbery, and the electronic
devices. I think Witness 8 you said about having a phone or an
MP3 or whatever. Do you have a sense of how much the problem is
around robbery and taking something, taking a device that is of
use or can be sold, and how much, particularly carrying weapons,
is about postcode, defending your area, being part of the group?
Is it mostly robbery, mostly postcodes?
Witness 8: It is a bit of a mix
because I know that I would never ever get robbed on my own estate
but, yes, I have been mugged on another estate. When two gangs
meet up together that is when you get all the stabbings and all
the wounded because it is basically feuds. When two gangs come
together you get a feud and weapons are pulled out but no-one
gets mugged on their own estate, do they?
Witness 7: No.
Witness 8: It is only when someone
is unrecognised.
Q369 Ms Buck: Right. If it looks
as though you are going through someone else's estate is it likely
that if you were being robbed somebody might pull a weapon to
rob you or is the robbery almost a separate issue to the feuds
and the weapons?
Witness 8: It depends really.
Q370 Ms Buck: You cannot answer.
Witness 7: They either pull weapons
or mug you or they come in huge gangs to mug you.
Witness 8: I have been mugged
myself and that was going on to his estate and my estate and there
is a place where you just do not go there because it is awful,
the fighting you get. I got mugged on his estate, they tried to
take my phone, which was awful so they threw it back at me. What
they did, I was running, I was texting on my phone, they did not
use any weapons, apart from their fists, and two of them basically
battered me and tried to mug me but they did not pull any weapons
on me so I cannot really say.
Q371 Ms Buck: They just knew you
were not from that estate or do people wear colours?
Witness 8: I think it might have
been a fashion.
Witness 7: Yes, clothes as well.
It is not always things that are worth money, it is what you wear.
People around these areas now are all in trackies and black topped
clothes. If you are wearing jeans, maybe, walking around on your
own at night, there is more chance of you getting jumped just
because of what you are wearing because they do not like it or
they do not recognise you as one of them.
Witness 8: If you are not part
of their group wearing trackies you are seen as either an outcast
or an enemy basically or the music that you listen to, it is the
same for music.
Q372 Ms Buck: Why is that so threatening,
being different?
Witness 8: It is not. It is hard
to explain because there is nothing wrong with being different
but other people seem to think, "They should be more like
me, and they are disgusting, and those dots are horrible and they
do not deserve to be here" so they try and get rid of them.
Really it is not safe to be yourself.
Q373 Ms Buck: That is a very powerful
end. Witness 6, can I just ask you about the research, and could
you show the Committee the top lines, really, for the research
and the recommendations?
Witness 6: Yes. I am very conscious
of that last extremely powerful statement we had that it is not
safe to be yourself.
Q374 Ms Buck: Yes, very powerful
point.
Witness 6: In that context really
we have done three things. We have been talking with young people
around the country in high risk areas in relation to gun and knife
crime, like Witness 7 and Witness 8, and some of the other young
lads and a girl in Sefton but in about five different areas around
the country. We have also done, together with You.Gov a statistically
significant poll of 1,700 young people, that will be coming out
in fact at the end of this week, beginning of next week, it will
be published. That covered just over a thousand young people who
were randomly selected and are representative of all young people
across the country plus 700 young people who specifically come
from those high risk areas which has enabled us to be quite nuanced
in the analysis of that information in order to show what most
young people across the country are saying and what those living
in high risk areas are saying, because obviously they are facing
different issues as we have just heard. The third prong of our
research is that we have committed a review of all the research,
the evidence from the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies and
that too is about to come out, in to the causes of gun and knife
crime and what works or does not work in terms of solutions so
that is an international literature review.
Q375 Ms Buck: Would you be kind enough
to make sure that we get it?
Witness 6: We would be delighted.
Q376 Ms Buck: That would be very
helpful.
Witness 6: Yes, we would be delighted.
Do you want to hear the headlines of those?
Q377 Ms Buck: Yes, please.
Witness 6: In relation to the
causes, the key factors are—and this will resonate with
what you have already heard this morning—environmental factors,
and that relates to the territory and the nature of the financial
circumstances of people living, levels of deprivation on those
estates and so on, and the general tenor of the areas in terms
of what the environment looks like and feels like; familial factors,
so do young people feel that they are well supported by their
families, they have got good role models, that their parents are
there, or their carer is there for them and can help to support
them and any issue of role models as well. Young people are saying
that the issue around aspirations is absolutely critical and we
have heard about that from Witness 7 and Witness 8 this morning,
that people need aspirations, without aspirations, and a real
goal and a realistic goal to strive for, that actually that can
lead people into crime. The final big factor is around things
to do and lack of things to do, so where there are accessible
good things for young people to do, they do not find they have
to hang around on street corners and then they are subject to
all that goes with that, stop and search, people feeling unhappy
with them being there, subject to what other young people who
are in a gang or feeling aggressive might be doing and indeed
they might be feeling vulnerable. In terms of solutions, the big
headline that we have had from our research is that young people
want those who commit violence to be off the streets, particularly
obviously violent crimes. They want guns and knives to be off
the streets. They are not hostile to the police, they do want
the police to have a good presence but they do want the police
to treat them with respect. They are quite happy with stop and
search, by and large, there are obviously individual variations
within that but the general tenor of what we have got back is
that stop and search is fine but please can it be done respectfully
really. People, as you have heard from Witness 8 this morning,
they want to know why they have been stopped and there is not
an inference that they are doing something wrong but it is fine.
There are things to be got off the street and that is fine, they
understand that. Very keen for early intervention. We have come
across fantastic wisdom really coming from the young people with
whom we have been talking, as you have heard this morning, that
they want really what we would call early intervention and prevention
initiatives to be put in place, family nurse partnerships and
those kinds of things. We know there is evidence around them that
they are working and they are saying, "Get in there with
families with very young children, that is the place to start
and then do provide sustainable on-going support for families
who may be struggling. Rehabilitation and support for those who
go down the long path, so to speak, there needs to be rehabilitation.
There are good resettlement programmes for young people when they
come out of the juvenile secure estate so that they do not return
back into crime and reoffending and in that regard, again, we
have had some very interesting information about what works and
does not work, so restorative justice, for example, works. You
will see in the research there are a number of suggestions and
there is good evidence about what works and what does not. Interestingly
enough, taking young people to look at prisons, a shock tactic,
the evidence is that does not work, it actually leads to an increase
in offending. It is very interesting to have a good look at the
research. Then there has been quite a lot of talk about role models,
we have had that from the young people and from the literature
review. What they do not want are celebrities, they do not want
David Beckham rolled out as a role model. The most important role
models for them are their parents, their teachers and the police
but they also want to hear from people who have been through the
same experiences, maybe somebody who has taken a wrong path, they
have gone into prison where there were drugs, guns, knives or
whatever it might be, and they have come out, they have changed
their ways, those are the kinds of people who really have an impact
in terms of helping young people to understand what the impact
will be on them and on their families if they go down that route
themselves and to help them see there is an alternative. Then
there is the issue about aspirations. Witness 7 and Witness 8
both have wonderful aspirations themselves as do the other young
people in Sefton. They talk about the hope that brings and the
evidence is there in all that we have done. The final thing was
about things to do. It is very important that there are meaningful,
accessible things for young people to do.
Ms Buck: Thank you.
Q378 Mr Clappison: Liverpool, a great
sporting city, two good football teams, do you feel that you get
enough chance to play soccer yourselves?
Witness 7: Yes, quite a lot.
Q379 Mr Clappison: You do?
Witness 7: Yes.
Witness 8: That is one of the
main sports.
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