It was not just young people who broke Covid-19 lockdown rules, say public officials.
At a meeting of the Isle of Wight’s Community Safety Partnership (CSP), public bodies who work together to tackle, prevent and reduce crime and anti-social behaviour, were asked what was being done to prevent young people from causing anti-social issues, crime and large gatherings during lockdown.
Young people getting the blame
Chair of the CSP, Amanda Gregory, said youth interventions have still been undertaken and providers have had to be creative about how that was delivered, but it was not always young people breaking the lockdown rules and causing issues despite them very often getting the blame.
Superintendent Sarah Jackson, police district commander for the Island, said it is not always about young people.
She said:
“What we want to do is divert young people from getting into the criminal justice system, but when we are unable to do that we have a very robust approach.
“Once we have dealt with key individuals we can deal with those on the periphery in a much more divergent way rather than putting everyone through the criminal justice system, which is much better for all those involved and good for their future.”
Prevention before reaching crisis point
Community safety manager at the Isle of Wight Council, Andrew Wheeler, said much of the work being done at the moment to tackle anti-social behaviour is through prevention, getting involved with individuals before it reaches crisis point.
Youth work manager at Network Ryde, Rebecca Swan, said it is really tricky as Covid measures, like social distancing, has limited the help they can provide to young people only having space now for eight people in their offices compared to 30 before the restrictions.
She said:
“We would be able to support [young people] but we are just not able to do that at the moment. Even changing the way we are working we are not seeing the same numbers we usually would, we are having to adapt, but it is a really tough position.
“It is not just groups of young people out and doing those things, it is adults as well, but it is sometimes that young people are very visible.”
Anti-social behaviour, in general, had increased on the Island over recent months ‘unsurprisingly’ but was settling down, according to Supt Jackson.
This article is from the BBC’s LDRS (Local Democracy Reporter Service) scheme, which OnTheWight is taking part in. Some alterations and additions may be been made by OnTheWight. Ed
Image: Dhaya Eddine under CC BY 2.0
