Policing communities

Responsibility for policing is not something which should be abdicated to a police force but is a role to be taken up by communities and the wider society.

Where communities accept crime it will flourish; where they don't it will be minimised.

Communities need to take collective responsibility for their own policing supported by the police force and the emphasis shifted from fear of detection to the potential shame of crimes committed against fellow citizens.

Communities can provide positive older role models where, for example, 'daft lads' can learn how to be men; men that can take on the collective reponsibility for maintaining community values and raising families; where they can learn about the positive effects of participating in democratic processes; where they are presented with choice.

These things used to be provided through work.

So is it any surprise that when there is a lack of real employment opportunities that they remain 'daft lads' exercising choice, power, expression and participation in anti-social ways?

Just think, how many men in their 50s and 60s, employed or retired, take up crime because they no longer have a job?

They have already learned to be members of society.

Steve Rawlinson,

Main Street,

Shipton-by-Beningbrough, York.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.