Knowsley: Police plan to tackle 'endemic' youth crime includes sport

Superintendent Karl Baldwin says trauma is the cause of a lot of youth crime

Plans to tackle Knowsley's "endemic" youth crime include a sports diversion project.

Superintendent Karl Baldwin of Merseyside Police told Knowsley's Children and Families board the force was focussed on "prevention" to stop children falling down the "wrong path".

Sports organisations will be funded to give opportunities to youths to divert them away from crime, he said.

Plain clothes officers have also been identifying "at risk" young people.

The Shield team, which has been developed alongside the council, has led to 98 young people being identified for intervention, with 48 behavioural agreements and 49 warning letters issued, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.

Supt Baldwin said: "This has allowed us to engage with them and hopefully prevent them coming to our attention again in the future."

Research carried out by the Merseyside Violence Prevention partnership and Liverpool John Moores University, found £180m is spent each year on dealing with serious violence across Merseyside.

'Trauma'

Supt Baldwin said there were a range of local programmes dealing with youth violence, drugs and criminal exploitation and wider operations to tackle county lines operations.

Operation Toxic is one example of a Merseyside Police initiative that involves warrants from the control of phones of gangs in Merseyside trying to sell drugs via vulnerable young people in other areas.

"Knowsley features sadly quite regularly as having some of the organised crime groups which export young people who are trafficked - for want of a better phrase - across the country," Supt Baldwin said.

He said trauma was the cause of a lot of youth crime and "the more trauma a child has the more likely they are to go on to cause trauma for other people, how we spot that and become involved is work that is ongoing".

Gill Bainbridge from Merseyside Youth Association said she was impressed the force was putting "prevention at front and centre" and the strategy was "an absolute breath of fresh air".

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