I have been a police officer within the Metropolitan Police for over 10 years and am proud to have witnessed us modernise our approach towards tackling youth crime and violence, particularly in recent years. However, we still have a long way to go and must work more effectively with our communities to deal with the worsening severity of knife crime incidents occurring across London.

Fighting Knife Crime: Challenges and Realities in Hackney

Currently, I work as a police sergeant managing police Safer Neighbourhoods Teams in the Hackney borough. It is a tough job to be a police officer, but most of us still do it because we love making a positive difference in the community by helping people in need. As much as some people like to think otherwise – we are human with our own insecurities and emotions.

I will never forget attending my first knife-related fatality about 10 years back. The victim was a teenage boy at just 17-years old who was part of a gang in Hoxton. He died at the scene from 13 machete wounds across his body, with a Helicopter Emergency Medical Service (HEMS) team attending and unable to save him – a truly horrific end to his short time in this world.

Witnessing Tragedy: The Impact of Youth Violence on Officers and Communities

I wish no one would ever have to witness the death of another person in such a tragic manner, but sadly, it is part of our job, and we must accept and climatise to it, so we are functional to handle the aftermath: inquiries, community engagement, reports and attempts to prevent retaliation. It can be challenging at the scene of violent crimes switching from our natural state as empathetic human beings to ‘officer mode’, who is expected to manage the situation, filled with pain, panic, and uncertainty, while remaining calm. We don’t always get it right, we certainly aren’t perfect, and I feel communication during and community follow-up after such situations is an area we can improve on.

Time For Meaningful Change

As I said before, over the past 10 years, I have witnessed a positive change in attitude of officers more generally: to be more accepting of diversity, to favour education and prevention rather than just punitive measures, and even mental health has become more of a priority – police attitudes generally mirror that of society (as we are also part of it!). We are also able to show our human side more internally, which, in turn, has helped us to do this with the public: to be more compassionate and understanding of the challenges many young people and their families must face. I often notice that once initial barriers come down, we can build a human connection with them, but it is our job to produce an environment for that to happen more frequently and consistently.

While some police teams have become better at engaging and communicating with the public, especially integrated gang units, we have not made enough strides doing this with one another and making our approach to public engagement consistent across the police.

Breaking Down Barriers: Connecting with Communities

A key issue is that various teams, even Safer Neighbourhoods teams from my own experience, rarely talk to one another about best practice and exchange insights on key developments. We also lack a unified approach between teams from an operational perspective, as middle management (like sergeants) don’t regularly speak to one another. This siloed approach, in all honesty, will likely limit us in reaching our maximum effectiveness. However, I must note, a key reason for this is not down to lack of caring, most of us genuinely care an awful lot – it is mainly down to lack of time and competing priorities. Crime is relentless and so, collectively, we need to gain further insights and perspective on what those should be.

The Power of Community Feedback: Listening to Local Voices

My team and I hold quarterly community feedback sessions with various community leaders and residents, known as Ward Panels, to help us identify what our priorities should be and community dynamics that must be considered. But we still need to better understand community perceptions of us and how we can help to improve them. I think there can be fresh mechanisms introduced for constructive criticism to flow both ways between the community and local police in these environments, centred on building collaborative projects and goals.

Lost Opportunities: Enhancing the Role of PCSOs

It feels like there is often a lost opportunity to have a vessel between officers like me, officers in line management, and community leaders. I think this is where important changes can happen to the Police Community Support Officer (PCSO) role – stripping it back to its original blueprint – solely community focused and immersed within it.

I have observed that many PCSOs operating across Hackney, and even London more generally, do not have a clear remit – that distinguishes them from officers in the eyes of the public. Most are tasked with supporting primarily on many officer duties, like plain clothes patrolling and search warrants, when this shouldn’t be the case.

PCSOs are generally trained and line managed by police sergeants, people who are officers first and foremost there to prevent and solve crime. It is necessary to have them as part of our neighbourhood teams, and therefore, being managed by sergeants. However, they could do with additional training in best practice as a PCSO: what are their unique daily duties and what the expectations are of them consistent across all Safer Neighbourhoods Teams.

Perhaps we lack community support leads within the police service, who can assist with training PCSOs on best practice and help them to operate more decisively as a liaison point for the community – able to act on moderate recommendations given during community feedback sessions, while introducing standardised metrics and benchmarks to track progress. This liaison point would enable further opportunities to share insights from experienced PCSOs: how to better integrate at community events and youth centres, schools/college visits, and even during police and community feedback sessions. So, they become more valued members of the community who are there to make us all work together more collaboratively.

Building Robust Communication Channels: A Path to Greater Collaboration

It feels like there is often a lost opportunity to have a vessel between officers like me, officers in line management, and community leaders. I think this is where important changes can happen to the Police Community Support Officer (PCSO) role – stripping it back to its original blueprint – solely community focused and immersed within it.

I have observed that many PCSOs operating across Hackney, and even London more generally, do not have a clear remit – that distinguishes them from officers in the eyes of the public. Most are tasked with supporting primarily on many officer duties, like plain clothes patrolling and search warrants, when this shouldn’t be the case.

London’s police have made great strides over my many years in the police service, but for myself, and other officers I speak with about this, we believe more can be done for us to better integrate, proactively, with the community by building more robust communication channels and greater consistency on how we collaborate on community projects – helping us contribute more effectively to crime prevention and community enrichment. That is why I am keen to support with this campaign’s community-driven solutions, to realise this ambition.