Using the police professionally .....when and how?

The third thought for talk on the involvement of the police and the criminal justice system in professional child and youth care work.

It seems a great pity  in South Africa that the specialised police units were disbanded . Units like the Child Protection Unit , The satanism Unit, The Domestic Violence Unit were disbanded decades ago. - was there a Missing Persons Unit? These units were really helpful. They had been trained or developed knowledge and skills that could be trusted in their responses to child centred issues. To work with specialised police people was a constructive exercise in the best interests of the child.

Now we deal with the general force and experience has taught us that we can't always rely on a child centred approach to the young persons we care for. At least recently the shackling of young people has been disallowed... but I'm not always sure that this can be trusted in every instance.

The experience is, in the main (but not always), a tendency by general police officers toward the use of scare and power tactics to scare them into " They won't do that again!"  The idea seems to be frequently that harsh treatment will frighten the children and young people from repeating behaviour. Its a tactic that we know just doesn't work.

That's one of our concerns as professionals in some instances when police get involved....we just cant predict, or manage how individual police persons will react with our clients.

"I caught him" He said. "It's my business to deal with this."

 He was a young constable. It was unlikely that he had children of his own, at a guess. He had caught the boy stealing clothing.

The constable opened his jacket to keep his service revolver visible and in full view throughout his harangue. He paced up and down with the boy sitting . The police officer was short and he needed to tower over the boy.
He shouted into his face for about 20 minutes. ... derogatory comments and names for boys who stole stuff. There was a series of threats. " If EVER you do this again - I will personally........"

As he left he said to me, " He won't do that again in a hurry ! "

The boy intensified the very issue we were working at... the police officers reaction set us right back to the beginning again.

THERE IS AN UPSIDE

In some situations the police have to be involved, as in the case of missing children, absconders as missing children, drug detection.....there are many such instances

An 18 year old severely disturbed girl ran wildly into the road. she dashed into the traffic waving her arms, then dashed back onto the sidewalk. She had just attacked a child care worker by grabbing and twisting her fingers into the workers long hair and twisting it to secure a hold.... dragged the worker to the kitchen table and grabbed a kitchen knife. The care worker had manage to free herself and climb under the table for self protection. The the girl dashed into the street totally without control and into the traffic... total chaos... and risk.

The police were called and were excellent. They held her, they contained her sensitively and talked her down   Once in the van, where she was safe, the contacted me.

"where do you want us to take her?" they asked. They knew that she couldn't be managed in an 'open facility'  A 'Place of Safety' was the only option at the time. They didn't want her as they had had her in safety before, and we were looking after her awaiting a vacancy at a psychiatric facility. The police knew that despite opposition they could use their authority to have her placed in safety. It was all very kindly and efficiently done.

In the rural and semi-rural villages and in partnership with community- based child and youth care workers, the experience of the professional seems to be a lot more positive and often really good. The police know the village and the villagers and the villagers know the police. Often they will be called to help with family disputes involving the children and the child care worker can manage much of the dynamics in the discussions.

Grannies will take a young person to a police officer to get the sense of discipline that comes from an otherwise absent male figure .

There is a warmer,community connection and the police are represented at child and youth care awareness campaigns, meetings and functions.

Bu the question for child care talk is still this...... in professional child and youth care, when and how do we deliberately professionally plan to involve the police and the criminal justice system in the best interests of the child?