Examination of Witnesses (Question Numbers
380-391)
WITNESS 6, WITNESS
7 AND WITNESS
8
10 MARCH 2009
Q380 You can take part in a team
and there are chances for you to play?
Witness 7: There is more chance
of me making a team and putting it into a league. I play football
quite a lot but then again you get money.
Witness 8: The Youth Inclusion
Project holiday is a football type of event.
Witness 7: We had a football match
against Merseyside Police.
Q381 Mr Clappison: You think playing
soccer is good for keeping people out of trouble?
Witness 7: Yes.
Witness 8: Yes, there are also
sports like rugby, for example. I am a rugby fan but there are
people who are not into football who are in to rugby or basketball.
Q382 Mr Clappison: Is it rugby league
or union?
Witness 8: Both.
Q383 Mr Clappison: I can see you
as a useful player.
Witness 8: It is not just football
that people need because football could get boring but there are
other sports, like basketball.
Mr Clappison: That is good to hear.
Q384 Gwyn Prosser: On the issue of
the research, and I might have missed this when you were going
through the headlines, what did it tell you about young people's
attitudes to the effect of the impact of advertising campaigns
and media launches?
Witness 6: In terms of trying
to diversify?
Q385 Gwyn Prosser: Yes.
Witness 6: We have not had a lot
about that, to be quite honest. We talk more about the importance
of role models and being able to talk with people. What they say
to us is that it does need to be real. That is the real message.
We heard earlier about the film, and Witness 7 and Witness 8 were
saying that is more real and that would have an impact more than
just being talked to. I think we need to have a range. The evidence
that we have had is there needs to be a range of approaches really,
one cannot just go for one because it is a bit like sport, football
suits one person and rugby suits somebody else. Whether it is
a talk or a film or somebody coming in to your school, a former
offender, there need to be a range of options that people can
draw upon so that we are really all trying to tackle this together,
using everything at our disposal.
Witness 8: That is also another
type of abuse you get as well, what sport you follow. Being a
rugby fan and a rugby player I get a lot of smack talk from people
who follow football or being an Evertonian I get smack talk from
people who follow Liverpool and that is also another type of abuse
you get.
Ms Buck: That is not new. It does not
make it good.
Q386 Mr Winnick: Can I just ask,
Witness 7 and Witness 8, are you intending to stay on at school
to 18? Is that your intention?
Witness 7: Yes.
Witness 8: Yes.
Witness 7: I will stay on at school
and go to college, make something of my life.
Witness 8: Yes, I want to go to
college and university.
Q387 Mr Winnick: It just occurs to
me, Ms Buck, that I doubt if any member around this table at 15—I
am not being patronising in any way, I hope not—would have
had the confidence to address a group of MPs. I doubt if I would
have done so at that age. We are very impressed indeed.
Witness 8: Thank you very much.
Witness 7: Thank you.
Q388 Ms Buck: Can I ask Witness 6
about your research. You referred to the importance of role models
or peers that had fallen off the tracks and got back on again.
Witness 6: Yes.
Q389 Ms Buck: The Government seems
to be appointing all sorts of people; in fact I think we are seeing
one later on, Richard Taylor, as a kind of envoy to raise the
issues around knives and things. Do you think that there is a
sufficiently strategic approach to having these kinds of peers
or role models in primary schools or wherever they need to be,
and does your project have a group of such role models?
Witness 6: We are not running
that kind of project. Our project, in a sense, has been really
about finding out what young people are seeing as the main issues
in relation to gun and knife crime: why is it happening and what
do they think the solutions are. It is not our task and we do
not have the resources to put those solutions in place. The question
in relation to if there is a sufficiently strategic approach,
I have to say I think we are at an early stage and that we are
all struggling to find the right way which is why I very much
hope that our research and our evidence will contribute to that
debate. I was recently at the Channel 4 Street Crimes Commission
and there was a lot of discussion there about the setting up of
something like the violent crime reduction unit that they have
got in Scotland where there will be one place that will be collating
the evidence about what works and then disseminating that out
across the country because I think there is general recognition
that to some extent we are still all wondering around in the dark.
A lot of the research is coming out of the United States but it
is still hard to know exactly what does work. An awful lot of
things that are happening have good intentions rather than because
actually there is evidence out there that it works. I think we
are at an early stage in terms of being able to make that judgment
but the general consensus, if I can just say this, in the room
at the Street Crimes Commission—I suppose there were about
50 or 60 of us there, covering quite a wide spectrum of people
involved in the field, the police and lots and lots of different
people—was that something like that, where it has to be
quite the same, in a sense takes a public health approach, that
gathers in the evidence and then disseminates it out across the
country and makes sure that the good work is taking place everywhere
and there is an evidence base has very real merits. I think that
has been put forward as a very serious proposal.
Q390 Ms Buck: Thank you very much.
That was extremely helpful. We look forward to receiving the research
you referred to.
Witness 6: Absolutely. It will
be our pleasure.
Q391 Ms Buck: Witness 7 and Witness
8, I think as David Winnick said, there are grown adults who have
turned to jelly before giving evidence to Select Committees. You
have given enormously impressive evidence. I think we have all
learned a lot from what you have said. Thank you very much and
good luck to both of you.
Witness 7: Thank you.
Witness 8: Thank you.
Witness 6: Can I thank you very
much, on their behalf as well. I think it has probably been a
wonderful experience for them and thank you so much.
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