Knife Crime Campaign Launch In Hartlepool

Hartlepool College of Further Education hosts talk to students for new Cleveland Police campaign.

Transcript

00:00 It was launched on the middle of Monday and we've also obviously for Hartlepool, we've

00:04 launched Hartlepool today but we've been running since Monday and what it is, it's to educate,

00:09 enforce and engage and all of them strands are to help our young people.

00:15 As a police officer I see the start and the end of quite a lot of things in relation to

00:18 like when people carry weapons, it's been turned on them or they become in some sort

00:22 of gangs and they're being pressured into carrying weapons and I do see how it can pan

00:25 out and it's here that really stopped that start in the first place.

00:28 I'm Ronnie Bidge, I'm the Education Welfare Officer at Hartlepool College of Further Education.

00:34 And how important do you think events like this are today?

00:37 Really important, the news, everyone's talking about knife crime throughout the country,

00:42 we've got more young murderers aged between 12 and 17 and the important message is don't

00:48 carry a knife.

00:50 I think it's fantastic that Cleveland have identified this, it's quite groundbreaking

00:53 because as you know on the news, the national news, we've had another one, a stabbing of

00:57 a young girl in London on the bus on an evening with a foot long weapon.

01:04 We're going into addresses with magistrates warrants and recovering weapons, it's an offence

01:08 to have certain weapons in an address now, not just in a public place, which is fantastic

01:12 news for us.

01:13 It's got to keep people safe down the line so I'm sure that would bear fruit.

01:17 But today and from Monday onwards for six weeks, Hartlepool and all of Cleveland, we're

01:21 really really identifying areas we can go to.

01:25 We've got officers out in uniform, we're looking at our stop search powers, the public are

01:29 supporting us on that, the force are.

01:31 I'm going around and speaking to all our young people and delivering that message in many

01:35 ways and shapes and forms via powerpoint, via one to ones, small groups, workshops and

01:42 hopefully from every class, from every group, we veer one young person away or prevent it,

01:48 it's got to be worth it down the line.