PM launches anti-knife crime drive (From Watford Observer)

PM launches anti-knife crime drive

5:52am Monday 15th March 2010 in

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Teenage schoolchildren have told Gordon Brown that intrusive police stop and search tactics are "intimidating" and provoking them to "rebel".

The Prime Minister heard police officers must do more to keep the vast majority of law-abiding young people on side.

Members of Lilian Baylis Technology School, in Kennington, south London, said they have had enough of police "violating our privacy".

Speaking to Mr Brown, Kadija Savage, 15, said: "We have been discussing how the relationship between police and young people could be improved. How police go about stop and search and how they speak to young people.

"We feel they are violating our privacy. Sometimes it is not a legitimate stop and search - they are just invading our privacy. They describe us as gangs and it is intimidating us."

Miss Savage added: "It does not help us. It makes us rebel against them and be in a gang. We can't prove them wrong and they make us feel small."

Her schoolmate Parys Douglas, 12, said: "There is so much stereotyping about and people, they lock us out of their communities. They do not know who we are. We are children and we need older people's support.

"We cannot grow up by ourselves. We need people to set an example."

Mr Brown joined families whose lives have been devastated by violence to launch an online campaign aimed at tackling knife crime.