St John’s law students suggest youth forum to help police in their fight against crime

A youth form where the problems of crime can be discussed and possible solutions found may result from a visit to St John’s Academy, Marlborough by Angus Macpherson, the Wiltshire police and crime commissioner.

He spent a morning at St John’s on Tuesday, meeting GCSE and A-level Law students from years 10 to13 and spent time discussing his role — and debating with students how best to engage with young people in the county.

Mr Macpherson, elected to the new post last November, revealed his vision for his role and highlighted the need to reduce crime surrounding the distribution of illegal drugs in the county and explained how he is endeavouring to ensure that Wiltshire’s concerns are represented nationally.

The groups also discussed the idea of a Youth Forum and a number of students expressed an interest in becoming involved, as well as given the commissioner their own useful advice on how best to use social media including Facebook and Twitter.

Sixteen-year-old student Jake Seaward said:  “After talking about current local policing, we discussed how the service could move forward in the future.  It was suggested that building a presence on social media sites would provide easy attention from younger citizens as they are the largest proportion of social site users.

“That, of course, led to the discussion of youth crime commissioner Paris Brown and how people can avoid making mistakes such as hers online.

It was genuinely a great experience to meet the person who is in charge of keeping the streets in our local area safe and even offering him a few of our own ideas on how he can continue to improve the way that the local area is policed”.

St John’s Law teacher Dr Leslie Spencer pointed out that the visit proved to be both interesting and useful to students.

“The students enjoyed hearing about the strategic side of policing and, even more particularly, the commissioner’s views on how we can reduce crime in the county,” she said.  “Students were also able to advise Mr Macpherson on communicating with young people in the county and how best to use social media.  It was also interesting to hear about Mr Macpherson’s other interests outside his role, including the work he does with Swindon homeless charity The Filling Station ”.

Mr Macpherson said: “I enjoyed meeting the students at St Johns and hearing their views on the Youth Forum, which I am going to set up as a way to continue to engage with young people in the county.              

“My new role is all about talking and listening to people in local communities on policing matters and that includes children and young people, so visits to schools like this are very useful to me.”