Police enlist students in new plan to tackle youth crime

Police have adopted a new tactic in fresh efforts to tackle youth crime, putting “old heads on young shoulders” in Melbourne’s east. This is how.

Sen Sgt Mal McKern with Jared and Maddy. Picture: Jake Nowakowski

Police are recruiting secondary students to help tackle youth crime and stop small school problems before they turn into big community issues.

A group of Scoresby Secondary students will meet with police in Knox every three months under a new program that could go statewide.

The pupils will raise real issues of crime, family violence, mental health, anxiety and fear of failure, and work with police to fight them together.

Sen Sgt Mal McKern, from Boronia police, said the working groups would lead to stronger connections between officers and teens, and help young people understand that high school issues can lead to later life problems.

Students Maddy and Jared with Sen Sgt Mal McKern. Picture: Jake Nowakowski

“I don’t think a lot of kids would be aware that bullying can create a vulnerable person, who would need some assistance, but they (can) get picked up by terror groups,” Sen Sgt McKern said, flagging that organised motorcycle gangs (OMCGs) also targeted vulnerable teens.

“It’s actually giving kids awareness of what’s actually going on in their street and their neighbourhoods, and the pitfalls that they could fall into.”

Sen Sgt McKern said the new partnership was a way to put “old heads on young shoulders”, to empower young people, help them feel they would be listened to, and what they said would be acted upon.

Scoresby Secondary principal Gail Major said it would also build a rapport between police and schools, to “reduce some of the things” they face down the track.

“If the (students’) voice isn’t heard then it festers and that leads to frustration and then some of those things are what police then have to deal with,” she said.

“From a school’s perspective, it’s about being able to work with police on some of these issues before they become community issues.”

Jared Larter, 17, said the program could “spread awareness of what we face, the issues we go through, and develop programs to solve those issues”.

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“It’s not just a within school thing, it extends to much further beyond that,” he said.

Sen Sgt McKern said the program could be adopted in other Local Government Areas.

“This is a model that the assistant commissioner is really keen on blueprinting,” he said.

“There’s an opportunity here from a policing perspective, but there’s also awareness for the education department about what’s going on — so it’s a win-win.”

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