How can we feel safe at night, teens ask police

More needs to be done to stop young people using knives, despite a 20% drop in serious youth violence and knife-enabled robbery, the new chief constable of West Midlands Police has said.

Speaking to a group of 16 to 21-year-olds at The Way youth centre in Wolverhampton, Scott Green said tactics like stop and search, focussing on street robberies and being "relentless on pursuing offenders" had contributed to the fall.

However, knife crime and youth crime figures were still too high, he said, but cited early intervention and education as key factors in helping young people not get involved.

He was responding to questions such as how young people could be sure they would be safe in Birmingham city centre during major events and at night.

Green answered questions on topics including diversity of officers and the influence of AI on the force.

He was speaking to a group of "Changemakers", young people from across the West Midlands, supported by Coventry charity the Positive Youth Foundation and funded by the West Midlands Violence Reduction Partnership (VRP).

Asked by audience member Deroy how early intervention could stop a young person picking up a knife or getting into a violent situation, Green said it was about engagement with schools, education providers and social care.

"Where we think there is a young person who is vulnerable, particularly to being exploited into crime, trying to take those steps as early as we can, working with others and parents to try and divert that young person away from committing criminal offences," he said.

The 20% drop had taken place over the past three-and-a-half years, which he said was "significant".

Police and Crime Commissioner Simon Foster, who was also being questioned by the group, said the starting point "always has to be prevention, prevention, prevention" and highlighted the work by the VRP, which helped steer people away from crime.

A recurring theme of the debate was distrust of the police among young people.

When the group of around 20 were asked to raise their hands if they trusted the police, none of them did.

They also did not really know how to report a crime, or that you could approach a police officer and have a conversation with them.

One young person said they only saw negative images of the police online, such as when mistakes had been made.

"A lot of people are gonna think that most police are bad people," he said.

Green said that the difference between when he was a front-line constable and his front-line workforce now was that "almost everything they do" was filmed.

He said so-called "auditors" regularly recorded officers at work, particularly in town and city centres at night.

He said this could include situations involving vulnerable people, victims of crime or those who had become separated from friends after drinking.

"Officers are there trying to help, but there'll be somebody who doesn't know you, who has no interest in you, filming everything those officers do," he said.

"And sometimes [officers] make mistakes, sometimes they might arrest the wrong person, or they might try and split up a fight and put their hands on somebody and push somebody over," he added.

"But they're the bits that get shared on social media, not the brilliant work that our officers are doing."

Green and Foster were asked by Alina how they could be sure that young people would be safe in Birmingham city centre during major events and at night.

Alina said she saw issues during last year's German Christmas Market in Birmingham when she was working in the city centre.

"There was just a lot of pressure from my family to make sure I'm aware and be careful in my surroundings and also get home at a reasonable hour," she said.

"Because it's just a general understanding that things can happen, especially when there's a high foot traffic in that time."

Green said the force had increased neighbourhood officers over the last few years but asked people who had been at events and do not feel safe or do not think police are visible enough, to get in touch with the force.

Foster added that there would be officers on patrol for every single day of the market.

Green was asked by Ikjot if the force had failed people of colour. He denied it had, but acknowledged more needed to be done to recruit people from all backgrounds which was happening.

"If you're a person who is black or black heritage, and particularly a man, you are 2.1 times more likely to be stopped and searched than somebody who is white," he said.

"Now it was 2.9% in the West Midlands, and we've worked really hard to bring that down."

He said diversity within the intake of student officers was much higher, although it was predominantly from people of Asian heritage.

"We still struggle to recruit black people and black heritage people into policing to the same numbers," he said, citing "complex societal issues" among reasons behind that.

Green said a race action plan was looking at the confidence gap "between how confident in particular, black communities are in policing than other communities".

"And we have to keep doing that. I am encouraged by the diversity of our intakes now," he added.

Audience member Cala asked how concerned the police were about AI, misinformation and deep fakes.

Foster said he was "deeply concerned" and welcomed government regulation plans to ban under-16s from some social media platforms next year.

Green said almost every crime the force dealt with had a "cyber element" in gathering evidence, as so many people had mobile phones.

"I think probably today, most of us can look at something and say 'I don't think that's real. I think that's AI'," he added.

"I imagine in six months' time, 12 months' time, three or four years' time we'll be looking at things on AI thinking 'We've got no idea whether that's real or not'."

He said that was a significant challenge in society, as well as in policing, as it could affect the ability to prove something in a court of law.

When the force received letters of complaints about officers, he said they were often now 30 to 40 pages long as people had used artificial intelligence to create the letter and the "AI noise" meant it took up more time to deal with.

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